SoVote

Decentralized Democracy

Caucus Chair

Alistair MacGregor

  • Member of Parliament
  • Caucus Chair
  • NDP
  • Cowichan—Malahat—Langford
  • British Columbia
  • Voting Attendance: 66%
  • Expenses Last Quarter: $140,733.69

  • Government Page
Context: House Hansard - 267 - Dec/13/23
Mr. Alistair MacGregor (Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, NDP)
  • Dec/13/23 4:34:00 p.m.
  • Watch
  • Re: Bill C-58 
Mr. Speaker, I always appreciate the chance to speak about agriculture in the House. I am a bit disappointed because I was hoping to speak to Bill C-58 today. My hon. colleague will know, given that he serves on the committee with me, that we are revisiting this issue. We recently had four of the five grocery CEOs appear before our committee. Of course, in particular, Mr. Galen Weston tends to stand out. He is the one the media seems to be interested in. What I found interesting when Mr. Weston appeared before our committee is that he did not seem to be aware of how many of his employees are accessing a food bank in order to get by. This is a man who commands a benefits package worth about 431 times that of his average employee. The point I really want to get to is that Mr. Weston's company, Loblaws, is one of the two holdouts on joining a grocery code of conduct. I want my hon. colleague to explain this to members of the House. If we have Walmart and Loblaws step out of the grocery code of conduct, what is that going to do for the remaining players? What does he think the federal government, in partnership with the provinces, should do as a next step? Does he believe that it is time to start enforcing a mandatory code as a result?
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Context: House Hansard - 265 - Dec/11/23
Mr. Alistair MacGregor (Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, NDP)
  • Dec/11/23 1:43:48 p.m.
  • Watch
  • Re: Bill C-56 
Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague from Elmwood—Transcona for his speech and also for his interventions with other members of this House. We have been studying this issue in depth at the agriculture committee and I have had the chance to question multiple CEOs; notably Galen Weston of Loblaw. The problem is that we can see the data and everyone talks about small margins in the grocery sector. The fact of the matter is that the margins have actually doubled since the pandemic and the grocery chains are making record profits and they do have gross amounts of executive pay. Mr. Weston's compensation is 431 times the average salary of his employees. We know from unions representing grocery workers that in many cases those workers cannot afford to shop where they work. None of the CEOs could tell me how many of their employees are using food banks to get by. I would like to hear my colleague's thoughts on the fact that through both Liberals and Conservatives we have a policy, over the last 40 years, of too much corporate deference in this country and not enough hard analysis of how we are letting corporations get away with this. Canadians are being asked to shoulder the blame while corporations are continuing to make a lot of money off their backs.
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