Opening statement
Lewis: Good morning, everyone. How’s everyone doing? Well, hello, hello.
I am pleased to be here today, joined by our small but mighty NDP caucus. It is a real honour to be here with these six deputies who fight every day in the House of Commons to defend the interests of the vast majority of the Canadian population, the working class. Six fighters speaking with one voice for progressive values and the struggles of working-class Canadians in the House of Commons. It’s an honour to stand alongside these folks — for the past year they have held to account a government that has moved further and further away from the progressive posture it took in the last election. While the opposition Conservatives urged them to go further and faster to the right, our MPs offer something very different: a message of hope for people struggling with the crushing cost of living. A voice of reason against devastating public service cuts, reminiscent of the Harper era. A force for moral clarity in the face of illegal wars and war crimes that have sent shockwaves around the world.
In times of crisis and war, we need concrete answers, anchored in true moral clarity.
While the Liberal government has responded with a disappointing series of blandishments to war and war crimes, our NDP caucus has offered Canadians a stark contrast — clarion criticism and calls for concrete action to make Canada a true force for peace on the world stage.
This is why Canada needs the NDP. You can rely on us to make clear stands, grounded in international law and universal human rights, whenever Donald Trump launches his next unilateral and illegal act of war or war crime.
And with by-elections taking place today, I urge Canadians in University Rosedale, Scarborough Southwest and Terrebonne to support our fantastic candidates who are running on an unwavering anti-war platform, as well as concrete solutions to the cost-of-living crisis.
In a country awash in wealth, there is no excuse for life to be so grindingly hard for the 99%. It is shocking and it is shameful.
That’s why cost-of-living solutions will be our focus — policies that will give people real relief from rising grocery prices, rents, phone and internet bills, and more. And that’s our focus here today.
Today we take aim at a new threat to all Canadians — lurking in supermarket aisles, big box stores, online shopping sites, in fact, in every single place that Canadians spend money. It’s called surveillance pricing. And it’s a crystal clear example of why we desperately need government guardrails to protect us from the triple threat of big tech, AI, and corporate monopolies that dominate every sector of our economy. Working together, these forces constitute an unprecedented threat to Canadian pocketbooks.
With artificial intelligence, the giants of technology and the monopolies in all sectors of our economy are surveilling families across Canada to raise prices and inflate their profits.
In the midst of a crisis of accessibility, we need immediate solutions. This is exactly what we announced this morning.
Today, I’m calling on the Carney government to implement a national ban on surveillance pricing before it becomes a predatory new normal in Canadian life. Leah Gazan, MP for Winnipeg Centre, will be filing a motion on behalf of the NDP urging the government to take action immediately.
We know that the rise in the cost of living, especially food prices, is already untenable for so many Canadians. And now grocery giants and other retailers are teaming up with big tech to squeeze people even more.
Companies now have the technology to use our personal data — everything from our shopping habits, where we live, what we do online, or even how long our mouse hovers over a specific section of a specific website — to set individual prices for each of us. They have at their disposal an unlimited number of data points harvested from our devices through digital surveillance and AI that they are now using to predict the highest price they can get away with charging us.
This means that two different people could pay two different prices for the exact same product in the same store or on the same website on the same day. It’s unfair, it’s a rip-off, and it’s downright creepy. And it’s time to put a stop to it.
And you know who is leading this fight? Workers, of course. The United Food and Commercial Workers Union, which represents thousands of retail workers across Canada, says its members are already seeing the impacts of these pricing practices on the ground. And they’re sounding the alarm on it, calling it predatory — designed to squeeze even more out of people at the checkout.
In the United States, there are disturbing examples already documented. The Federal Trade Commission recently found retailers frequently use a wide range of personal data to set prices, and the examples are downright dystopian. If you’re a new parent and your baby’s sick, a corporation could charge you a higher price for a thermometer or medicine based on your search history. If a loved one dies and you need to travel on short notice, you could be charged more for a plane ticket if you got an email about funeral arrangements.
A separate investigation into algorithmic pricing by Instacart in the United States found that identical products could be as much as 23% more expensive from one shopper to the next.
And we are not insulated from this predatory practice in Canada. Surveillance pricing is opaque by design, making it harder for experts and consumers to detect where and when it’s happening. But the tools are readily available and well documented. There are Canadian AI companies right now that are actively offering their services to large retailers to help them maximize revenue through individualized algorithmic pricing. And our own Competition Bureau has been alarmed enough by the practice to carry out a study and stakeholder consultation on the subject, although disappointingly, no action has been taken or even recommended.
But this is not a phenomenon we can just sit back and watch. As policy expert Vass Bednar has said, normalization is the threat here. If we’re serious about protecting Canadians from price gouging, we must reckon with the shadowy and destructive influence of big tech and big data in supercharging it.
We can’t wait until we inhabit a dystopian retail landscape where every individual is their own target market, profiled and surveilled without their knowledge or consent, just for already profitable corporations to extract even more. We’ve got to act before it’s too late.
This is what Wab Kinew’s NDP government is already doing. Manitoba has become the first jurisdiction in Canada to introduce a bill to ban surveillance pricing in the province. The government has a responsibility to fix this, and that’s exactly what the government of Manitoba is doing.
At this time, the federal government must show leadership and put people first. This is the kind of leadership we need to see at the national level. The federal government has tools at its disposal to stop surveillance pricing dead in its tracks. It’s one practical step it can take right now to protect consumers and give Canadians real relief from the cost-of-living crisis.
This is what you can expect from the NDP in this Parliament. Real solutions, laser-focused on the everyday emergency of just getting by in a rigged economy — that work for the 99%, rein in the power of grocery giants and tech oligarchs, and make your life more affordable.
And with that, I am happy to take questions. I’m sure they will all be laser-focused on the topic on hand today.
Media Q&A
Reporter: First off, I wanted to express my condolences in person on the passing of your father.
Lewis: Thank you.
Reporter: I do have a few things I want to get to on surveillance pricing, but first — the Alto high-speed rail project. I know you’ve had a lot to say in your leadership campaign about things like high-speed rail. Where do you stand on this specific project?
Lewis: Well, first of all, high-speed rail is absolutely part of the solution to greening transport, to dealing with transportation crises across the country, between cities. And we’re in these corridors of high population — whether it’s Edmonton-Calgary, whether it’s Toronto to Quebec City — it makes sense to have high-speed rail. Many other countries that have similar industrial profiles to Canada have achieved this decades ago and we’re behind.
When it comes to the Alto project, I don’t think the problem is high-speed rail itself. I think it’s the formulation of the project. It’s the structure of it. We know that public-private partnerships are opaque by design. It’s impossible to have transparency when you have private partners. They’re usually over budget and they usually take way longer than projected. I don’t think I have to remind people in Ottawa of what the transit risks can be from a public-private partnership — that disaster here in this city is still ongoing.
And when you have the profits of a private partner to take into account, it’s just obvious that the project is going to be more expensive over time. So we believe these things should be done under public ownership. It’s an essential public service to get from city to city, and high-speed rail should not be something where we muddy the waters with public-private partnerships and cost Canadians more.
When it comes to the controversies around this particular one, the route has to be navigated carefully, and the communities have an absolute right to be consulted thoroughly and heard. It is possible to do these things, and if necessary, compensation has to be part of the formula. But key to that is having a fully transparent and robust public consultation process. The private partner complicates that, makes it harder to get information, and the consultations are fundamental to the success of something like this.
[En français]
Reporter: Pour clarifier — vous êtes contre le projet Alto dans sa forme actuelle?
Lewis: Je ne suis pas contre le projet, mais le modèle d’alliance avec une entreprise privée — c’est un modèle qui coûte plus cher et qui n’offre pas le même niveau de transparence. C’est tout.
[In English]
Reporter: When you do essential projects in the public interest, in the public realm, doesn’t that avoid conflicts of interest that could cloud or compromise the project in any way?
Lewis: When you do essential projects in the public interest, in the public realm, then you don’t have these worries about conflicts of interest. And the problem is in the model.
Reporter: I want to get your thoughts on the decision by BC NDP Premier David Eby to suspend parts of DRIPA in his province — really in response to court decisions and pressures from property owners.
Lewis: Yeah, I mean, I’ve made my own position on the Cowichan decision clear. I think that this is the hard part. It’s easy to make abstract commitments to Indigenous rights. But when you actually navigate the details, this is when it gets hard. And if there’s a debate within the NDP, as I’ve said many times, I think this is healthy.
At the federal level, we’re much more concerned about the sidelining of Indigenous rights in all of these major projects under C-5. And we’re focused on the fact that the Carney government is cutting billions to the ministries that administer services to Indigenous communities. So First Nations are obviously quite upset about that.
Reporter: So do you think he made the wrong decision?
Lewis: I think they’re having a debate in British Columbia and we’re focused on the federal level.
Reporter: The Liberals could claim a majority today through these by-elections. One of the Liberal candidates is the former Ontario NDP deputy leader. I want to know what you think about the Liberals potentially getting a majority this way, and also what you think this will change for your party — especially when a former NDPer is running for the Liberals here.
Lewis: You know, the floor crossings have disturbed Canadians. And I think we’ve been hearing — my caucus colleagues have been travelling their constituencies in recent days and hearing from Canadians coast to coast to coast — that people want to elect their representatives and they’re also voting for a party. That’s why we’re the party that has a policy against floor crossing, and we think the government could take action and ensure that a by-election is called if someone wants to cross the floor. They need a new mandate for the party that they’re switching to.
Canadians did not elect a majority government. And if they end up with one, largely through floor crossings, it feels — it just feels wrong. And I think Canadians are disturbed by this.
It also represents the aspirations of power over principle for the Carney government. And I think the Liberal tent is stretched so far now that the fabric must be — I don’t know, is it spandex? It is something very stretchy — when you can encompass Marilyn Gladu in a caucus with progressives in the Liberal Party. And I think it diminishes the value of our party identities, and it speaks to the desire for power over principle. And we’re not comfortable with it.
Reporter: Sorry to cut you off. You have had a floor crosser yourself. What are you doing to ensure that you don’t have more MPs leave your party?
Lewis: We’re a small but mighty team and we’re absolutely aligned on this question.
Reporter: Mr. Boulerice — have you made any decision on whether you’re going to stay or go as an MP in the House of Commons?
Boulerice: Hi everyone. Thank you for the question, but I’m really happy to be here this morning with Avi Lewis to talk about this important motion about affordability and grocery prices in general. And people are getting squeezed by these artificial intelligence techniques, and that’s really upsetting. So I’m a member of parliament inside the NDP caucus. I’m here to support the team and Avi, and I’m really happy to be here to do my job.
Reporter: Will you be here next week? Or next month? Or two months from now?
Boulerice: I’m really happy to be here. I’m happy to do my job as a member of parliament and inside the NDP caucus.
Lewis: I think you can see what expert mentors I have. And sticking to the subject at hand, people — this is how you do it.
We are talking about something that is of pressing concern to Canadians. Think about the last time you were in the grocery store. Did you see a digital price tag on the shelf? Do you know whether or not it’s talking to your cell phone and finding out what you last searched for? Do you have any idea if you’re paying the same price for toilet paper that the person who just took a package off the shelf did? That’s what we’re here to talk about today.
[Confusion in the scrum over a question about Trump and Iranian ports. A reporter asked to direct the question to Heather McPherson (NDP Foreign Affairs critic); Lewis said he would take the question.]
Reporter: Why can’t the Foreign Affairs Committee answer? And what do you make of Trump blockading ports in Iran?
Lewis: So first of all, we had a conversation as a caucus before the press conference, and they encouraged me to do my first press conference on the Hill and answer the questions. Yes, I thought it was appropriate — when I’m talking about someone’s personal future — to give Alex a chance to speak about that.
It’s another unhelpful and dangerous development in a war that is immoral, illegal, and is setting the world on fire. And I think it shows that we are still on this roller coaster and that any hopes of a ceasefire sticking are, like anything else with the Trump administration, very, very precarious.
Reporter: What do you want the Mark Carney government to do in terms of what’s happening in the Middle East?
Lewis: I think Canada’s role as a middle power — as the prime minister articulated so enthusiastically at Davos — is to gather other countries that are middle powers and exert a combined pressure on the superpowers to bring this war to an immediate end. It’s also providing cover for horrific attacks in Lebanon, where countless civilians have been killed in massive airstrikes on civilian areas. And it’s supercharging prices at the pump for us. It’s going to drive another inflation crisis. It risks throwing the entire world into a global recession. And this war needs to be brought to an end as soon as possible. The way to do that is through diplomatic pressure of countries working in alliance to bring the United States and Israel to account. That’s what the prime minister has promised. And we’re still waiting.
Reporter: This is a government that seemed reluctant to regulate AI in the past. How do you get them on board with this idea?
Lewis: Well, I think they’re going to get on board when they realize how disturbed Canadians are by the creepy power that big tech has in our lives. Our lives are so thoroughly shot through with digital activities, and there are no checks and balances. And even the digital services tax — a very modest first step in asserting the government’s intention to regulate big tech — was abandoned by the Carney government.
The reason we’re talking about surveillance pricing today is in part to make this real for Canadians in a cost-of-living emergency. The government needs to step up and actually govern and regulate the powers that determine every click on online shopping and every choice we make in the supermarket. For that to be fuel for price gouging is utterly unacceptable. So we need to raise the alarm, and people will undoubtedly be outraged. And I think we need to create popular pressure.
Reporter: We’re on the cusp of having a majority government. Is this a preview of how the NDP is going to be operating going forward — bringing forward motions like this? Or are you still going to be putting forward private members’ bills and other matters to try to get the agenda out there?
Lewis: We’ll use a variety of tactics. But the focus is on the struggle of working-class Canadians to get by in a time when corporations are making obscene profits. And I think this war driving oil prices — we’re going to see tens of billions of additional revenue for oil companies in Canada, while we are all sobbing at the pump. We need windfall profit taxes for corporations that are going to make a mint on this crisis. And we need protections for consumers — price caps and other measures that we fought for in the past.
We’re going to stay focused on how people get by in an extremely difficult time when there are not other voices in Parliament that are speaking up for working-class Canadians. The Liberals and the Conservatives are passing giant pieces of legislation together. They don’t have a significantly different policy on illegal wars and on these massive disruptions to global peace. And the NDP has a unique place to play, and we’re going to play it, and we’re going to stay focused on Canadians.
[En français]
Reporter: Je remarque que vous parlez beaucoup de la classe moyenne, des enjeux économiques. Mais je vous entends moins parler d’intersectionnalité, de colonialisme, de questions identitaires qui ont beaucoup marqué le NPD. Quelle place accordez-vous à ces enjeux dans votre leadership?
Lewis: C’est terrible en ce moment avec la crise économique mondiale, la guerre, et tout le reste. Les Canadiens sont menacés par ces forces dans leur vie quotidienne, et c’est là que se situe notre priorité en ce moment. Mais nous avons une philosophie, nous avons une vision très large du système dans lequel nous vivons. Ce n’est tout simplement pas un moment pour des questions abstraites. Ce matin, on parle de cette question de surveillance dans les épiceries, et c’est très important maintenant.
Reporter: Pour revenir aux élections partielles — vous avez fait du porte-à-porte à University Rosedale et à Terrebonne. Est-ce que vous espérez avoir un effet?
Lewis: Non, non, non — c’est impossible. Ma première semaine de leadership, c’était avec ma famille. Je n’ai pas de telles grandes ambitions d’avoir un effet lors de ma première semaine de leadership. Mais merci pour l’idée.
Reporter: Pour revenir à l’avenir de M. Boulerice — essayez-vous encore de le convaincre de rester? Pensez-vous qu’il y a encore des chances qu’il reste au NPD?
Lewis: Je pense qu’Alex a une décision à prendre, et c’est la sienne. Nous sommes ici pour parler d’autre chose aujourd’hui. Merci.
[In English]
Reporter: Just following up on my colleague’s previous question — how do you balance it? You want to stay focused on affordability and the cost of living, but you were elected in part as a champion of social movement activism for various causes, who expect you to be championing these causes. How do you balance those two things?
Lewis: I don’t see it as a contrast. We have been fighting for safety for Indigenous communities. We’ve been fighting for justice for missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. We will never stop doing that. There’s nothing more life and death in the daily life of Canadian communities than the fundamental safety of those core social justice issues. There’s no contrast here.
To put an emphasis on the cost-of-living crisis is to speak to everyone who is suffering in this economy, and it doesn’t represent a shift in any way. We have fundamental values as New Democrats. We believe in justice for all people. We believe it’s time to right the scales of history when it comes to issues like Indigenous rights and the safety of Indigenous communities.
We’re in a time when the government is promising half a trillion dollars in the next decade of public funds to be spent on weapons and war, while there is austerity and vicious cuts to public services — billions of dollars to the ministries that are responsible for providing services to Indigenous communities. There’s no conflict here. We’re fighting for a decent and dignified life for every single person in this country, and that is completely in line with our philosophy as New Democrats and our commitment to social justice universally.
Reporter: What does success look like for you in the by-elections tonight, given that in University Rosedale you got around 10 percent in the last election, and in Terrebonne it’s 2 percent or something like that?
Lewis: I mean, this was a by-election that was called while we were in a leadership election, while the Liberals scheduled their leadership convention for the weekend before. It’s happening in a time when people are distracted by daily explosions — literal and figurative — around the world. And it was overshadowed by a series of floor crossings, which we’ve already weighed in on. So we’ll see what happens in the by-elections and we’ll parse the tea leaves with you tomorrow.
Reporter: You don’t have a seat in Parliament. How is that practically going to work as leader? Are you willing to wait it out until the next election? Are you doing what Poilievre did — persuading one of your caucus to gently step aside?
Lewis: There is no way I’m asking one of these spectacular people to step aside — not in a million years. We are very, very proud of our small but mighty caucus in the House of Commons.
As I’ve said before, we had our first caucus meeting right there at the Convention Centre in Winnipeg, minutes after I was elected leader, and everyone on this stage encouraged me to stay out there. We have a lot of party rebuilding to do. We have organizers from the leadership campaign — not just mine, also Heather’s and all of the other candidates — who have continued organizing and friend-banking and phone-banking and reaching out in their communities and building our ground game for the next election whenever it comes. And I’m excited to do that work. And I am very, very confident in this caucus to manage things here in Ottawa. And from time to time, I will be here with all of you, enjoying the delights of the scrum and finding ways to amplify our common message. The work in the House will go on.
Reporter: Mr. Boulerice’s reply was hardly a ringing endorsement of staying in the party, and you said he has a decision to make. Does that mean that you’re actually resigned to him leaving?
Lewis: Honestly, I’ve spoken about these things many times. We all cherish everyone in this caucus and we’ll see what happens.
Reporter: On surveillance pricing — I don’t know the exact timeline for implementation in Manitoba, but I know this is a pretty recent piece of legislation. So why drive full steam ahead calling for a national ban instead of taking time to see how the policy plays out in Manitoba first?
Lewis: Very different jurisdictions, very different tools that are available. And the urgency of calling for a ban on surveillance pricing is that there is no world in which surveillance pricing is okay. There’s no world in which this predatory practice can be normalized. And the longer we wait, the deeper it weaves itself into the shopping experience and the daily lives of Canadians. That’s why we’re waving the flag on it today — because as Vass Bednar said, normalization is the threat here. We know it’s been normalized in the United States. And the examples are really shocking. Like, you’re Googling “baby has a fever” and you pay more for a thermometer than someone else does. If that can happen, then we’ve got to take measures immediately. It’s scandalous.
We will be watching the Manitoba example. It’s a great example of how NDP governments are focused on supporting everyday Canadians. And we’re excited to take the lead from Manitoba on this issue — but to fight for it at the federal level involves different mechanisms and a different scale. And that’s what we’re here to do as a federal party.
Lewis: We’re actually over time, so we should wrap it up. Thank you. Thanks, everyone.