Nearly all Canadians (95%) think food prices are too high, and 97% think they won't be going down six months from now, according to a new poll.
The Maru poll found that a majority of Canadians, 74 per cent, believe food prices will be higher by the time Thanksgiving approaches than they are now.
Almost 40% of those surveyed believe rising food costs are primarily due to price gouging and excessive profit-taking by grocery chains. But more Canadians (22%) now blame the government's policies than last year, when only 12% believed the federal government was responsible.
The number of Canadians who blame rising food prices on increased food supply chain costs has decreased by 18% from 28% last year.
This comes amid a month-long boycott of grocery stores owned by Loblaw. The boycott, which started on a Reddit page that currently has more than 75,000 members, began on May 1.
Boycotters also launched a petition calling on the federal government to address “monopolistic practices in the food retail industry,” investigate practices such as shrinkflation, price fixing and allegations of collusion, and call on the federal government to It called for measures to be taken to promote fair competition and for an investigation to be conducted. It's a way to prevent “excessive price gouging on essential goods” and get Loblaw and Walmart to sign a grocery store code of conduct.
The petition currently has over 6,000 signatures.
A House committee is considering food prices and a grocery store code of conduct and has urged two grocers to sign on.
The survey was conducted by April 5, 2024, with a random selection of 1,507 Canadian adults who are Maru Voice Canada panelists. The estimated margin of error for a probability sample of this size is plus or minus 2.5% 19 times out of 20.
With files from The Canadian Press