OTTAWA – While the federal government has been trying, in vain, for months to convince the food companies to sign up to a “code of conduct” to contain prices, the leader of the NDP, Jagmeet Singh, sets the tone and overtakes Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, bringing forward a bill with the support of his and Liberals’ “enemies”: thanks to the vote of the Conservatives and the Bloc Quebecois, in fact, the NDP’s bill – which aims to reduce the cost of basic necessities – has already passed its second reading in the House of Commons. The Liberals voted against, but Singh – who also supports Trudeau’s government, keeping it alive – goes on.

And there are also those who accuse him of trying to “stifle free enterprise”. His response to this accusation is simple and clear: “If you think I want to stop free enterprise from stealing from people, then yes, that’s true: I want to stifle it 100%…”.

For the NDP leader, it has become a matter of principle: taking on big corporations he believes are making record profits while ordinary people struggle to afford basic necessities. “This is something that people are really becoming aware of, and this law gives us an opportunity to fix that!”.

The bill proposes tougher penalties for price fixing and adding rules to prevent corporate mergers that Singh believes could lead to abuse.

As is known, under the pressure of polls which highlight people’s difficulties in making ends meet, the Liberals introduced some measures including a “discount” on food last summer and changes to the competition law. Furthermore, the federal Minister of Industry, François-Philippe Champagne, is trying to convince large food chains to sign up to that “code of conduct” that some but not all like: Walmart and Loblaw, in particular, argue that instead of contain prices, the “code of conduct” will cause them to increase further, achieving the opposite effect. And the initiative of Singh and the NDP is part of this “stalemate”, with the aim of recovering the votes that the Liberals are losing due to their inaction.

A situation which the Conservatives are also taking advantage of, who blame the increase in prices on the “carbon tax” imposed by the federal government.

Over the past year, Singh has sought to tap into palpable consumer anger as his party seeks to capitalize on cost-of-living concerns to expand its political presence in the next federal election.

Moreover, a poll conducted by Leger for The Canadian Press found that about 64% of respondents believe that food inflation is increasing: only 28% said the trend has remained more or less the same, while only 5% say it is decreasing. And while 27% of respondents attributed the increase to global factors such as inflation and supply chain problems and 26% said grocery chains are squeezing consumers in the name of profit, there is another 23% who believe the federal government is to blame.

The survey, conducted online between February 16 and 18 among a sample of 1,529 Canadians, also found that only one in four respondents, or 23%, said they found “useful” the government’s grocery “discount” last July, while more than half (52%) defined it as useless. It is natural that Jagmeet Singh, hunting for votes, takes advantage of it to the detriment of his friend/enemy Justin Trudeau.

In the pics above: shopping carts (photo by 652234 from Pixabay) and the leader of the NDP, Jagmeet Singh (from Twitter X – @theJagmeetSingh)