'I have the will to live': N.B. woman needs double lung transplant
A New Brunswick woman suffering from sarcoidosis, a disease that limits your lung capacity, is in need of a double lung transplant.
Canada's competition laws should be changed to prohibit cartel-like practices and wage-fixing deals in the country's grocery sector, a new report by the House of Commons industry committee says.
The report comes a year after Canada's big three grocers -- Loblaw Companies Ltd., Metro Inc. and Sobeys parent company Empire Company Ltd. -- cut temporary pandemic-related pay bonuses within a day of each other last June.
The move prompted the committee to hold hearings on the issue and invite senior grocery executives to explain their decisions.
While the retailers admitted to communicating with each other about ending their respective wage premiums of about $2 an hour, they denied co-ordinating the termination of the pay bumps, said the report, which was released Wednesday.
Michael Medline, president and CEO of Sobeys and Empire, said the company watched what other retailers were doing but did not collaborate or co-ordinate with competitors
"We would never do that," he told the parliamentary committee. "Let me be absolutely clear -- we did not co-ordinate our decisions with other retailers."
Metro president and CEO Eric La Fleche said he reached out to his counterparts at Loblaw and Sobeys to gather information -- not to obtain a tacit agreement on wages.
"The more information I have on what others are doing, how they are treating their employees and how much they are paying and for how long, is valid information that I tried to get," he told the committee last July.
But competing grocers communicating about wages at the executive level risks "a slippery slope towards cartel-like conduct," Matthew Boswell, commissioner of competition at the Competition Bureau, testified during the committee's hearings.
Yet he said the bureau lacks the power under the Competition Act to prosecute such behaviour and faces significant resource constraints.
Canada's competition legislation diverges from laws in the United States, where federal competition authorities can criminally prosecute wage-fixing agreements, Boswell told the committee.
In its report, the committee recommended Ottawa provide the Competition Bureau with more resources and align Canadian competition legislation with U.S. legislation in order to criminally prosecute such agreements.
"Doing so would clarify competition-related obligations for businesses active in Canadian and American markets, and facilitate co-operation between competition authorities in Canada and the U.S.," the report reads.
The report also said Canada's food sector would benefit from a code of conduct to address inequalities in bargaining power between food producers and grocers. The long-standing issue gained increased attention in recent months after some retailers unilaterally imposed higher costs on suppliers.
The committee has requested the government table a comprehensive response to the recommendations in the report.
At the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, grocers said they offered pay premiums as a temporary measure associated with lockdowns.
As restrictions eased and shopping behaviour normalized, all three grocers made the decision to end pay increases, the report said.
Only Sobeys reintroduced its "hero pay" as provinces reinstated lockdowns, the report found.
Metro has offered gift cards to its front-line workers three times since phasing out the wage increase last June, while Loblaw announced a one-time appreciation bonus for workers in April.
Meanwhile, union representatives told the committee that the wage premium for front-line grocery workers was an important recognition of their essential role during the pandemic.
They testified that withdrawing the pay bump exacerbated the already difficult working conditions in food retail, including low salaries and lack of benefits.
Unions play a fragmented role in Canada's grocery sector. While several unions represent a number of grocery workers across the country, the majority of food retail workers are not unionized.
A recent report on Ontario's grocery industry found that about 20 per cent of food retail workers in that province were unionized.
Grocers such as Empire, Loblaw and Metro are at least partly unionized in Ontario, while Walmart and many smaller chains are often not, the Brookfield Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship said in the report last month.
"Wages and conditions vary by worker tenure, retailer, and store," the report said. "One national employer noted they operated with 350 collective agreements nationally."
Loblaw did not respond to a request for comment while Metro said it did not have any comment.
But Sobeys vice-president of communications and corporate affairs Jacquelin Weatherbee said the company was thrilled with the report and its support for an industry code of practice.
"We recently sent the (industry) committee a letter to remind them that we do not, under any circumstances, believe in wage fixing -- whether it's legislated or not," she said in an email.
"We also stated that we would welcome any clarification to the legal regime around competitors engaging in wage fixing and we are pleased to read their recommendation to that effect."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 17, 2021.
A New Brunswick woman suffering from sarcoidosis, a disease that limits your lung capacity, is in need of a double lung transplant.
Pius Suter scored with 1:39 left and the Vancouver Canucks advanced to the second round of the NHL playoffs with a 1-0 victory over the Nashville Predators on Friday night in Game 6.
A Chinese truck driver was praised in local media Saturday for parking his vehicle across a highway and preventing more cars from tumbling down a slope after a section of the road in the country's mountainous south collapsed and killed at least 48 people.
York Regional Police say they are continuing to search for a suspect in an auto theft investigation who was captured on video running over a police officer in Toronto last month.
The adorable trio of child actors from the 1993 classic comedy 'Mrs. Doubtfire,' which starred the late and great Robin Williams, are all grown up and looking back on their seminal time together.
Video of a suspect lighting a Richmond Hill barbershop on fire earlier this week has been released by police.
Crucial witnesses took the stand in the second week of testimony in Donald Trump's hush money trial, including a California lawyer who negotiated deals at the center of the case and a longtime adviser to the former president.
A source close to singer Britney Spears tells CNN that the pop star is 'home and safe' after she had a 'major fight' with her boyfriend on Wednesday night at the Chateau Marmont in West Hollywood.
A Quebec man who pleaded guilty to threatening Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Premier François Legault has been sentenced to 20 months in jail.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.
Since 1932, Montreal's Henri Henri has been filled to the brim with every possible kind of hat, from newsboy caps to feathered fedoras.
Police in Oak Bay, B.C., had to close a stretch of road Sunday to help an elephant seal named Emerson get safely back into the water.
Out of more than 9,000 entries from over 2,000 breweries in 50 countries, a handful of B.C. brews landed on the podium at the World Beer Cup this week.
Raneem, 10, lives with a neurological condition and liver disease and needs Cholbam, a medication, for a longer and healthier life.