Probe of grocers sought over end of pandemic pay
MP says bonuses from large chains ending same day enough to warrant Competition Bureau investigation
TORONTO • The MP leading a push against Canada’s biggest supermarket chains over their cancellation of pandemic pay bonuses said he believes there’s enough evidence to warrant a Competition Bureau investigation into wage fixing.
The heads of Loblaw Cos. Ltd., Empire Co. Ltd., and Metro Inc., all appeared before a House of Commons standing committee last week to answer questions about their decisions to end temporary $ 2/ hour wage increases for their front-line workers.
The bonus programs at the three chains, which each gave an extra $ 2/ hour starting in early March, all ended on the same day in midJune.
During the hearing, Metro’s chief executive confirmed he had called the rival chains and asked when they were ending their bonuses while the Loblaw president told the committee she sent a “courtesy email” to her competitors informing them of her decision to end the bonuses.
Liberal MP Nathaniel Erskine-smith, a member of the standing committee on industry, science and technology, told the Financial Post on Tuesday the contact between grocers should be enough for the Competition Bureau to open an inquiry.
“My view is that we’ve got enough on the record out of Friday’s hearing that the Competition Bureau should take a serious look at this,” said Erskine- Smith, whose questioning of the grocery executives provided some of the more charged moments during the Friday hearing.
“The idea that multi- millionaire CEOS would so freely communicate with one another on the subject of reducing a modest top- up for essential workers in the middle of a pandemic is unsettling.”
On Tuesday, the Competition Bureau confirmed it was aware of the parliamentary hearing with the grocers but wouldn’t say whether it was investigating the move to cut pay premiums.
Jerry Dias, president of the Unifor union that represents thousands of grocery workers, echoed Erskine- Smith’s belief that the bureau could move forward.
“There’s no reason that the Competition Bureau can’t proceed,” he said. “It’s pretty clear what they did.”
In testimony to the committee, Loblaw president Sarah Davis said she sent a courtesy email to Empire and Metro, as well as to Walmart and the Western grocery chain Save- on- Foods to notify them of Loblaw’s decision to end the bonus. Davis said she had already informed Loblaw’s 200,000 employees and expected news of the decision would soon leak anyway.
“Loblaw made the decision to start and end our temporary pay premium independently and did not coordinate with any other company,” the company said in a statement on Tuesday. “We have done nothing wrong.”
Metro chief executive Eric La Flèche told the committee that prior to Davis’s email, he had already heard through “union channels” on June 11 that Loblaw was ending its bonuses on June 13. Michael Medline, CEO of Empire — the chain that includes Sobeys, Safeway, Freshco — told the committee his company had decided to end temporary the bonuses before Davis’s email.
La Flèche said his calls to competitors in May and June were in “perfect compliance” with the Competition Act. In a statement Tuesday, Metro reiterated that its contact with rival supermarket chains was legal and that it “acted alone” in its decision to end the bonuses.
Erskine- Smith said Tuesday that if the bureau declines to start an inquiry, he is looking into getting his bipartisan MP colleagues on the committee to send a letter asking the bureau to act.
“There is no good explanation for the CEO of Metro calling his colleagues and asking when they are going to end pandemic pay. There is no justification for that. It is inexplicable,” he said. “Canadian laws are weaker on wage fixing than American laws. And so if the Competition Bureau is of the view that they aren’t going to proceed with an investigation because our laws are not fit for purpose with respect for wage fixing, then we have to have a different conversation internally with the minister to say, ‘ How do we fix these laws?’”