The bosses of Canada’s three largest grocery chains finally have a face-to-face meeting with MPs in Ottawa to discuss the worst food price hikes since the early 1980s.
• Also read: Loblaw and Empire deny using inflation to boost profits
They had previously ignored invitations from the House of Commons Agriculture Committee to appear at its inquiry into allegations of excessive profits in the food sector.
Metro and Loblaw have confirmed to the Journal that their bosses will travel to Ottawa following an official subpoena accepted by the committee on Feb. 13.
Metro’s Eric La Flèche will attend the March 8 committee meeting, his spokesman confirms. Galen Weston will also be there, confirms Loblaw (Provigo, Maxi).
Empire (IGA) boss Michael Medline has already confirmed that he will also be there.
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During previous committee hearings, Loblaw dispatched his senior vice president of financing and retail. Empire sent its chief financial officer, as did Metro.
But that didn’t satisfy Alistair MacGregor, the New Democrat member of the committee behind the inquiry into grocery store profits.
On February 13, he introduced a motion that the committee unanimously endorsed, which sent an invitation by bailiff to the three leaders accused of exploiting the worst inflation in four decades to inflate their profits.
“I don’t know if we’ll get any more information,” retorted Kody Blois, the Liberal Agriculture Committee chairman, who wonders if bosses are really going to offer anything new to MPs.
Three years since last time
The exchange of words between the bosses of the three chains and the MPs made headlines when they last appeared before the committee in summer 2020.
Metro, Empire and Loblaw then appeared in the midst of a pandemic at hearings to remove $2 an hour bonuses to their frontline workers.
Questions about their multimillion-dollar salaries had led to heated arguments with elected officials.
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