Prime Minister Mark Carney announced multiple measures to address the difficulties Canadians have been facing with rising costs of groceries and other necessities.
He committed to boost to a renamed Canada Groceries and Essentials Benefit (formerly Goods and Services Tax Credit), by 25 per cent for five years, beginning with an additional bonus in July 2026.
Carney also committed to multiple measures to address food insecurity and strengthen supply chains. Included in this list was a promise to “implement unit price labelling and support the work of the Competition Bureau in monitoring and enforcing competition in the market, including food supply chains.”
Unit pricing has been a key priority for the Consumers Council of Canada on behalf of consumers for many years, noted Council President Don Mercer.
“We are thrilled that the Council’s hard work on this file has finally resulted in a commitment to extend and standardize unit price labelling prices across the country, and we urge all provinces to sign on quickly,” Mercer said.
Mercer noted that other countries introduced unit pricing up to 50 years ago, but Quebec is the only province to require and standardize the disclosure.
Unit pricing requires merchants to display prices by a specific unit of measure, so that consumers can more fairly compare prices for products sold in different quantities. It also makes it easier for consumers to identify shrinkflation, when product quantities decrease without a parallel reduction in price.
The Council’s 2019 research report Unit Pricing: Time for a National Approach? Found Canadians understood the advantages of unit pricing but were frustrated by its voluntary implementation by retailers.
A 2024 web panel questionnaire with 4,500 consumers found strong support for unit pricing, as 92 per cent of participants wanted to see standardized labels in grocery stores that include unit pricing. In that survey, unit pricing topped the list of potential strategies to help consumers compare prices.
Working with provinces and territories to create a national approach to unit price labelling practices was one of the key recommendations of both a House of Commons Agri-Committee report and the Competition Bureau review of grocery pricing practices released in June 2023.
Carney also pledged to allow immediate expensing of greenhouses to help producers, set aside $500 million to allow businesses to absorb supply chain disruptions without affecting consumer prices, another $150 million for small and medium enterprises in similar situations, $20 million to support food banks and other similar services and a National Food Security Strategy to improve access to affordable, nutritious food.