From inflation to interest rates to grocery prices to … profiteering?

In today’s Big Story podcast, interest rates have risen again. Inflation has not declined. Almost everything costs more right now, especially groceries. Meanwhile, in the wake of two major companies announcing temporary price freezes within hours of one another, Canada’s competition bureau has announced its intention to study why grocery prices are so high, and if having more players in the market would lower them.

Jim Stanford is an economist and the director of the Centre for Future Work. He joined us to discuss the general state of the economy, and to what extent grocery retailers, and their efforts to maximize profits, are contributing to skyrocketing food prices.

“[The No Name Brand price freeze] confirmed that the supermarket has strategic pricing power, and it ran against the narrative that Loblaws itself had been communicating for months before, namely, ‘don’t blame us, we just have to pass on higher costs that we get from our suppliers’,” he said.

Are higher prices a result of inflation, profiteering, or both? Will the price freezes do anything to alleviate the strain on Canadian’s finances? And is raising interest rates to combat inflation really our best option? What else could we try if it doesn’t work?

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