Federal competition watchdog voices ‘concern’ over big grocers’ removal of $2 hourly bonus
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Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, a Liberal member of parliament who has been critical of the grocers’ actions, applauded Boswell’s remarks.
Increasing collaboration amongst competitors carries a risk for businesses to continue down a slippery slope
Matthew Boswell
“It’s important that the commissioner has recognized reason for concern, and acknowledged that the pandemic provides no rationale for communications between competitors about employee wages,” Erskine-Smith said in an email. “We need to reform the act to ensure the commissioner can better act on such concerns in the future.”
The Competition Bureau has been under pressure to act on both the wage issue and to establish a code of conduct to reign in what suppliers say are bully tactics from the big grocers.
The pressure comes after Walmart Canada and Loblaw started charging food producers more fees as a way to pay for multi-billion-dollar investments in e-commerce and store upgrades during the pandemic.
Earlier this month, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he found the fees “disappointing,” and noted that the Competition Bureau “is responsible for enforcing” the Competition Act.
“We expect that it will,” Trudeau said in question period on Nov. 4. “We are concerned with the costly fees added on by grocery chains and that is why we’ve turned to the federal Competition Bureau.”
The Conservative Party has also been pushing for the government to act.
“Looking at competition laws is something that is absolutely within the jurisdiction of the federal government,” said Lianne Rood, Opposition shadow minister for agriculture. “We’ve got five major grocery chains that dominate about, or more than, 80 per cent of the grocery industry in Canada, so it’s a high concentration in the industry.”
In Wednesday’s presentation, Boswell said current competition law prevented his agency from getting involved in an industry code of conduct.
“In its current role, the bureau cannot develop or enforce a code of conduct for any industry,” he said. “What the bureau can do, however, is provide a pro-competitive perspective to policy-makers at all levels of government, and we continue to do so.”
Financial Post
