With the 2015 budget coming in April, our government’s focus on supporting hard working Canadian families is receiving a lot of attention.
Our five-point plan to support families with children represents a substantial commitment to more than 4.4 million Canadian households, who face rising costs and make tough choices every day. Our plan will offer the average family more than $1,100 in tax relief and benefits in 2015 alone.
This plan will undoubtedly be one of the cornerstones of budget 2015.
It, along with our commitment to balance the books, is a defining policy of our government’s commitment to Canadians’ long-term prosperity.
You can rest assured, when it comes to supporting Canadian families we are far from done.
One of the most persistent issues I hear about from constituents is unfair price discrimination. Frustrated consumers continue to report an often-significant gap between the prices of identical goods sold in Canada and the U.S.
Sometimes this price gap is justifiably explained based, for example, on the Canada-U.S. exchange rate, the price of fuel, and differing product safety standards. However, these justifications do not tell the entire story.
In 2013, a Senate Committee took a closer look at the issue and found that country pricing by manufacturers plays a key role in the price gap.
In addition, a recent study published by American Economic Review (looking at about 4,000 separate products) concluded that distributors and wholesalers are practicing country pricing.
As a result, experts estimate that Canadians pay between 10 and 25 per cent more than Americans for many identical goods.
Addressing this issue has proven difficult. As there are many causes for the price gap, there is no single solution. However, there is one common starting place: transparency.
On December 9th, our government announced the Price Transparency Act to allow the Competition Bureau to expose cross border price discrimination. The Commissioner will be provided with the tools necessary to investigate alleged cases of price discrimination and publicly report to Canadians situations where consumers are unfairly targeted with higher prices.
Hard working Canadians deserve to know that they are paying a fair price for quality merchandise. Every dollar counts.
Empowering the Competition Bureau to carefully select cases and investigate can only strengthen vital consumer confidence.
