Caryn Ceolin: Think about the last time you were at the grocery store. Do you know what the customer before you paid for the same product? Do you wonder whether a public grocer could have saved you money? These are questions new federal NDP leader Avi Lewis is drawing fresh attention to as part of a suite of measures he’s pitching aimed at tackling rising food costs. 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. From banning surveillance pricing to government-run grocery stores, Lewis is zeroing in on policy proposals he says are meant to stop corporations from ripping off consumers. I’m Caryn Ceolin, and today on The Big Story, I’m joined by Avi Lewis to discuss whether his ideas could really make food more affordable.
Mr. Lewis, a sincere, albeit belated congratulations on winning the leadership. You’re less than a month on the job. Any surprises so far?
Avi Lewis: No, I was anticipating a tidal wave of work and being the new kid at school, so pretty much as expected, which is I had no idea what to expect, and every day is an adventure.
Caryn Ceolin: Yeah, every day is the first day of school for you. That is going to be true for a while, I think. Your first pitch to the public — I’d like to start there. It was around your proposed ban on surveillance pricing, and MPs ultimately voted down the NDP’s proposal, but credit where credit’s due. I think what you did was start a policy discussion on an issue that really none of us were aware of. Was that the goal — to try to break through with something amid all this noise?
Avi Lewis: Well, I think we’ve been laser-focused on the cost-of-living crisis, and that was true throughout the leadership race. So for me, yes, there was a victory in Winnipeg, and then the first appearance on the national stage, but really there’s a continuity here from the offer that we made to new Democratic members and the offer that we’re bringing to Canadians, which is that we don’t feel that the government is sufficiently focused on just how expensive food is and groceries and rent and just the absurd cost of living in Canada where people are working harder than ever and just can’t get by. And this surveillance pricing piece is just a really spooky, creepy thing that’s already happening that we don’t think that the political class is focused on, and a lot of people don’t even know about it yet. So the fact that retailers, in partnership with big tech companies, are changing prices for different people for the same items on the same day is something that we’ve got to grapple with because things are already way too expensive in Canada.
Caryn Ceolin: I mean, there will be others who argue that while, yes, this should absolutely be regulated, surveillance pricing is perhaps more of a medium-term risk. It’s not necessarily a top-of-mind issue for voters. Why lead with surveillance pricing as opposed to one of your many other ideas related to affordability?
Avi Lewis: Well, those ideas haven’t gone anywhere. I mean, we proposed a public option for groceries as a response to the crisis in food prices, and it has taken off and become an idea that’s being looked at in the city of Toronto, the city of Ottawa, in Montreal and Quebec writ large. And we’ve unleashed a national debate on whether or not there should be non-profit, federally-run grocery stores, which we think could save consumers 30% to 45% in the modeling we’ve done with food experts. So that’s a big proposal that’s already out there and has already taken flight in the Canadian conversation. This is a piece which is urgent right now because if it gets normalized, it’s stuck in and we can’t get rid of it. Seeing as it’s already really happening on a daily basis in the United States — the FTC in the U.S. did a study and found 250 specific examples just in their first examination of surveillance pricing, of this kind of predatory pricing. We don’t even know how much it’s happening in Canada. We think not quite as much, but we want to get on top of this and want people to be aware of it before it becomes a new norm.
Caryn Ceolin: Are you aware of any retailer in Canada that’s using surveillance pricing at scale? I personally haven’t seen digital price tags at brick-and-mortar stores, but I do take the point that in the context of online shopping, I don’t know what you’re paying for the same product.
Avi Lewis: No, for sure. And I mean, it’s enough of a concern for the government that the Competition Bureau has already done a study on it and concluded that there are serious risks here, although it didn’t recommend any action, which we found really disappointing. Digital price tags in retail is just one piece of it, but there are many, many online videos where people are already experiencing this. And there was one just recently where someone complained to an American airline — I think it was JetBlue — that the price had gone up hugely for a flight while they were booking it. And the airline actually responded online and said, clear your cookies, clear your cache, open an incognito browser window, and try again, which is like an admission that their browser history, whatever other digital surveillance is happening on their device, is accounting for the difference in price. Our economies are intertwined in the U.S. and Canada. Canadians buy from American retailers all the time. Canadians shop on Amazon.com as well as Amazon.ca. There are so many ways that this may already be happening. The NDP hasn’t done an in-depth study. That is the government’s job, and we are unsatisfied with the study that the government has done. And I spoke to the prime minister about this when I met with him, and he agreed that it’s a concern of the government’s. So we expect to see action on this. Part of the problem is that these systems are opaque by design. It’s not like online retailers and big tech companies are going to flash something on your browser window or put up a big sign in the store saying, we may adjust the price based on what we think you can pay compared to your neighbour. They’re not going to do that. It’s sneaky by nature. Although I did see that the Washington Post recently sent an email out to all of its subscribers — the Washington Post, right now owned by Jeff Bezos — saying your price for your subscription may not be the same as everyone else’s. It’s personalized. Just a heads up. So this is already happening.
Caryn Ceolin: How would you enforce a national ban, though? It seems like it would be hard to police.
Avi Lewis: I don’t know why. We have competition laws. If this is judged to be an unfair practice and a company is caught doing it, then they can be fined. They could lose their business licence. I mean, this is the basic role of government — to regulate businesses in our economy so that Canadian shoppers know that they’re being treated fairly. I don’t think anyone would argue that it’s fair for you to pay more for something because you have a giant pay package and someone else should pay less. This is a basic principle — not of socialism or capitalism. This is a basic fairness that people should pay the same price for the same goods and services. I don’t think it’s an extreme demand. And I think it is the very nature of government that it should protect us from unfair business practices. And no one’s out there arguing that this is a fair business practice.
Caryn Ceolin: Did the prime minister indicate to you it would be a priority for his government?
Avi Lewis: I’m not going to report in detail on what was essentially a private conversation or put words in his mouth. But I raised it with him because it was important and it registered with him as something that’s already on their radar. And yeah, we’ll see. Now the Liberals have a majority government. And that’s a big change in the political landscape. And I think it’s really important for people to keep track of what they do prioritize. That’s another concern of mine as leader of the NDP — that I feel that there are big changes happening in the world. The prime minister sort of did a straight-to-Canadians video, a fireside chat just recently. And I think we’re in a scary time. And a lot of people are still looking to the prime minister who is a respected person with a high approval rating. Everyone knows he’s a smart guy. And I fully agree with that assessment. Are they going to focus on your daily challenges — getting through a shopping experience where you buy food for your family without freaking out at the cost of everything? Or are they focused on these big nation-building projects that, yeah, maybe will trickle down jobs and benefits to the whole economy? Or maybe there’ll be trillions of dollars of investment that benefit the richest corporations and the billionaire class and not everyday Canadian families. So we want to keep that focus on what people are going through in this extremely tough economy.
Caryn Ceolin: I’d love to delve just a little deeper into your pitch for a public option for groceries, because this is something now being explored by a number of municipalities, including here in Toronto. You estimate it’ll cost in the ballpark of $300 million to set up a network of stores, then another $300 million annually to subsidize things like labour and rent. Could the government realistically pay for that without raising taxes on the middle class?
Avi Lewis: Well, that $300 million a year is about one half of 1% of our current defence budget — a defence budget which is going to double and more in the next decade, according to what the government plans. So $300 million a year is a rounding error for major departments in the federal government. I’m not saying it’s free. There is a cost attached to it. But politics is about choices. And $300 million, which is a fraction of the cost of one F-35 — and we’re supposed to be buying 85 of them — in the scale of things, in the cost of our healthcare system, in the cost of the things that Canadians need to keep us safe, in the scale of housing that we need, this is a very small expenditure on the federal level. But it needs to be done at the federal level to achieve the economies of scale, which is why I’m concerned about the pilot projects in Toronto and others that are being experimented with. To compete with the big five grocery chains that are dominating the market, that are extracting the lowest prices from food producers and charging the highest prices to consumers, making billions and billions of dollars a year when food is out of control and unaffordable — you need the economies of scale. So a public investment of $300 million a year, in reference to our economy and things that other things cost in our economy, seems very reasonable to make groceries 30 to 40% cheaper for Canadians.
Caryn Ceolin: The Daily Bread Food Bank warned that margins in the grocery business are just so low that a city-run model would translate into savings of just $11 to $18 per person per month, and not necessarily significantly help households struggling with high food prices. Can you explain how you arrived at a promised savings of 30% to 40% when profit margins on groceries are razor thin on their own?
Avi Lewis: So I actually think this is a bad faith misreading of the proposal which has been advanced by a lot of so-called food experts that are largely funded by the grocery business and have an interest in shooting down a public option for groceries. We acknowledge that the markup at retail is very small. Nobody’s ever hidden that in our proposal. We’re not saying they’re making all their money at retail. We know that they make all their money by controlling the entire supply chain. They control the wholesale end, they control the cold storage, they control the transportation and shipping, they control the food hubs — they make money at every stage. If the margin was so razor thin, how is Galen Weston worth $20 billion? How do Loblaws and Sobeys make billions and billions of dollars in profits? They do it by controlling the whole supply chain. And the whole point of a national public food procurement network is to get into the supply chain. Part of our proposal is local food hubs — six or seven of them across the country — that will allow local food producers and farmers to get right into the supply chain in the middle, in between the wholesale purchasing and the retail selling, and will allow the economies of scale across the supply chain. So we’re talking about competing at the wholesale level, at the food hub intermediate storage level, at the cold storage level, and perhaps even at the shipping level, because that’s where the money is made all along the supply chain. Just looking at the retail markup and saying that our proposal is not viable is a bad faith reading of our proposal. We are actually acknowledging that the whole supply chain is required, and that’s why a public option at the scale of a federal government program is necessary in order to deliver those savings to Canadians.
And the other thing is — look, we’re proposing a solution. What we’re basically saying is we ought to try something different, because groceries keep going up and up and people are suffering. One out of four Canadian parents has skipped a meal or reduced their caloric intake in order to feed a child. This is a crisis. The corporate monopoly sector is not solving this crisis. The government is doing nothing. And we are proposing something that is out of the box. Yes, it has not been implemented at this scale, except by the U.S. military, where the commissary system gives U.S. service members 30% off groceries — which is why we’ve adopted this model. It’s a major living example. But we’re proposing something out of the box because we need urgent solutions. This war is not going to end. We don’t have any certainty that Donald Trump isn’t going to start another war somewhere else. We have an oil price shock that is being described as the worst in history. We haven’t even necessarily seen the worst of it. Inflation has already jumped. And we just came out of an inflation crisis that peaked in 2022 where the economy was really on the verge of recession. And we may be headed for much darker economic times. We need to start proposing things that are creative and that will actually solve the everyday crisis for Canadians. We’re not hearing it from government. We’re not seeing a response from industry. And so we are suggesting a public option.
Caryn Ceolin: Why not redirect resources towards exploring how to reduce costs in the food supply chain — like investing in local processing or transport infrastructure — rather than building a whole new business from the ground up?
Avi Lewis: Well, it wouldn’t be a whole new business from the ground up because existing supply chain mechanisms can be included in this. For instance, co-op grocery stores — especially in Western Canada and in Nova Scotia and other parts of Atlantic Canada — are a longstanding community resource. They’re owned by their members and they have been struggling with the same problem of the big five grocers dominating the supply chains and charging them more and more at the wholesale end so they’re not able to deliver their savings to their co-op members the way they used to be able to. Co-op grocery stores is another piece of the existing market and supply chains that could be woven into a public option because it’s also non-profit and it’s also providing competition to the big five that are colluding and price fixing. So I believe that if the government were to invest in the private supply chain, it would only benefit those corporations. Are we suggesting that the government should respond to the fact that Loblaws is overcharging for groceries by giving Loblaws money for extra facilities in its supply chain? No. We’re talking about establishing a public alternative — six or seven regional storage hubs and a network of 50 warehouse-style stores. That is a small part of the grocery calculation in Canada and of the overall system, but providing a public option will create competition in a field that has suffered from lack of competition, as many other parts of our economy do — like cell phones, like banking, on and on.
Caryn Ceolin: In the same vein, why not redirect resources to the organizations that are already offering food to low-income residents?
Avi Lewis: I think if you look at the Daily Bread Food Bank — I remember when I was a cub reporter for City TV in Toronto in the 1990s, I would go and do the food drive every Thanksgiving at the Daily Bread Food Bank and they were always saying, our job is to put ourselves out of business. We don’t want to institutionalize the food bank system as a response to the cost of living crisis. And I believe that the people across the food bank system in Canada don’t want to be in that business. Food is the most fundamental need that humans have, apart from air and water. And these things should not be out of reach for everyday Canadians who are working their butts off in all kinds of different occupations. It’s a failure of our whole system if people can’t afford to buy food. So it’s not just about why don’t we have more charity — it’s that this system is not working for people who are working really hard. Then we need to think about something else.
Look, in the 1930s and the Great Depression — the prime minister in his fireside chat recently referenced the Second World War. In fact, the fireside chat format was born with FDR in the Depression in the United States. And he invoked the Second World War and how the government stepped up and built houses for returning veterans. Those were all public options. We built houses for veterans. We created the welfare state after the Second World War in Canada. We fought the war effort with 18 crown corporations. C.D. Howe, the so-called Minister of Everything during the Second World War, helped Canada fight way above our weight in assisting the Allies to defeat fascism in Europe by creating crown corporations where the market could not respond to the emergency. That’s how co-ops happened. That’s how banking cooperatives happened in Canada. Many of our cherished institutions came up when there was market failure. And what we think is: when the market is not able to deliver goods and services that Canadians need — health care, food, housing, the fundamentals — at a price that they can afford, even when they’re working super hard and taking on extra jobs, then the market is failing to do its job and the government has to step up.
Caryn Ceolin: Before I let you go — you’ve brought up the prime minister’s video message a few times. In it he said Canada’s economic ties with the U.S. are now a weakness. I wonder if I could ask you about both the prime minister and the leader of the opposition’s duelling takes on the Canada-U.S. relationship. Mark Carney says this is a rupture, there’s no going back. Pierre Poilievre says the U.S. is our largest trading partner and it will remain our economic lifeline. Those are two very different extremes. Where do you stand? Is there any going back?
Avi Lewis: I think it would be a little dangerous to romanticize what was before Trump and say we could just go back to the good old days, because with these tariffs — let’s say Trump loses the next election, a Democratic administration comes in — there’s no guarantee they’re going to remove all the tariffs and have an about-face and put everything back the way it was. We can’t control that. Now, the NDP was the only party that fought those free trade deals in the 80s and early 90s that bound our economy and integrated our economy so deeply with the United States. It’s been very good for the wealthiest in society. It’s been very good for banks and insurance companies and oil companies. It has not overall been great for consumers. We’ve lost a ton of manufacturing jobs. There are all kinds of sectors of our economy that have been really hurt by the free trade era, and now that our trading partner has turned on us, it’s revealed how vulnerable and dangerous it was to integrate so deeply with the United States.
So where I agree with the prime minister is we need to recreate and rebuild Canadian economic independence. We have very different ideas of how we should do that. I believe that just hoping things will go back to the way they were — first of all, there was already a lot of inequality and people were already struggling to get by before Donald Trump came along and upended all the rules of the international system. But more important than that, we need to build an economic independence in Canada that’s based on our abundant resources being used here. We need an east-west electricity grid so we can trade electricity interprovincially and not just sell electricity in the United States. I think we’ve got to get off the oil and gas roller coaster because it is just making our economy so vulnerable to these terrible shocks that people pay in inflated prices for everything, especially at the pump. The rest of the world is moving on and embracing renewable energy and getting off oil and gas and making their economy safer, calmer, more secure and more stable. And we have an opportunity in this moment to do things that will make Canada truly independent over time. I don’t think new oil pipelines is the way to do that, and I don’t think just hoping to go back to the previous era is a strategy either.
Caryn Ceolin: Well, Mr. Lewis, I will leave it there. We are out of time. Wish we had more. Thank you so much, and a sincere congratulations again.
Avi Lewis: I appreciate it. Great interview. I really enjoy talking about these things.