The economic situation of low-income households, even those on a salary, has become increasingly alarming. In fact, despite a third drop in the inflation rate in as many months, the grocery bill has never been so high in over 40 years. We thus observe price increases over one year of 11.8% for fruit and vegetables, 14.8% for bakery products (bread, etc.), 9.7% for dairy products and 7 .6% for meat, for an overall increase of 11.4% for the grocery basket.
To the point where the House of Commons last week unanimously demanded that the Competition Bureau investigate the profits of grocery store chains. The latter confirmed on Monday the launch of a study on this dramatic phenomenon. The study, which will be conducted until June 2023, should be able to specifically target the profits of large grocery chains and the means by which actors in the food supply chain can reduce food costs. This is an encouraging sign that our request for state intervention has been heard.
Feeling the hot soup, two major distributors, Loblaw and Metro, have decided to freeze the prices of certain products during the holiday season. Calling these decisions a publicity stunt in these pages, two specialists, Maryse Côté-Duhamel, assistant professor of consumer science at Université Laval, and JoAnne Labrecque, professor of marketing at HEC Montréal, point out that these prices are already inflationary and freezing them will not improve their accessibility for the poorest among us.
However, from June 2022, supported by testimonies from households concerned, we intervened publicly to denounce this scandalous situation and to ask the State, in the name of the common good, to curb this excessive increase in the price of certain basic necessities. like the products mentioned at the beginning of the article. The current reaction of Ottawa is certainly a first step in this direction, but, at the revealing end of this investigation, the State will not be able to save a legislative intervention to temper the gluttony of the large food chains.
Especially since, if we rely on the outlook of the chief economist of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the worst is yet to come in terms of inflation. This is the most gloomy economic outlook in more than two decades. This state intervention to regulate food prices therefore appears more and more as an urgent necessity, while people are suffering the daily burden of this capitalist bulimia. This government measure to protect consumers from an excessive increase in food prices is also the subject of heated debate in France.
In fact, as we already pointed out last June, this situation highlights the incongruity that the large food chains are the only ones to determine the economic accessibility or not of basic food products. Just like for other essential needs, the State, the only guarantor of the common good, must be able to arbitrate the sharing of the interests involved, and this, hopefully, for the benefit of the greatest number.