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NDP leader Jagmeet Singh arrives to the West Block of Parliament Hill in Ottawa, on Oct. 20.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press

In the generous opinion of federal NDP leader Jagmeet Singh, the punishing rise in grocery prices in Canada this year can come down to only one of two things: price-fixing or profiteering.

In an interview with Bloomberg News last week, Mr. Singh reminded viewers that a major Canadian grocery chain had been busted in 2017 for colluding to fix the price of bread.

It was therefore “not a far stretch,” he stretched, to wonder why food prices might be skyrocketing now. “We know that the prices that are being set are far and above and beyond the increased cost that could come from increased transport or fuel costs. So we know that there is something going on. Let’s get to the bottom of it.”

When asked what policies he thought Ottawa should implement if, as the NDP was demanding at the time, the government investigated food inflation, he said his answer would depend on whether such an investigation concluded the problem was “collusion” or “profiteering.” He didn’t entertain another possibility.

Mr. Singh sort of got his investigation on Monday, when the Competition Bureau of Canada announced it is launching a review, not of any alleged chicanery behind the current jump in prices, but of whether grocery store competition, or its lack, is exacerbating an existing problem.

The NDP leader played it as a political win; he will likely discover, next June when the report is completed, that his conspiracy theories haven’t panned out, and that the issue of food prices in Canada is rather prosaic, not to mention already well understood.

Mr. Singh is nimbly exploiting the distrust of major grocery chains felt by Canadians ever since Loblaw and its parent company, George Weston, admitted to taking part in a scheme to fix the price of bread from 2001 to 2015.

Loblaw and George Weston insist they weren’t aware of the cartel’s existence, and say any employees involved are no longer with the companies. But the bad taste from the episode lingers in many people’s mouths, making it easy for Mr. Singh to suggest something nefarious is afoot.

And he is not wrong when he says food prices are spiking and people are hurting. Statistics Canada reported that grocery costs in September rose at their fastest rate since 1981. It is impossible not to feel it at the checkout these days.

But Mr. Singh is being disingenuous when he says it’s a mystery that gas and house prices have started to drop in recent months, while food prices remain on a stubborn upward curve. That ignores the fact that gas is a volatile commodity whose cost depends on oil prices, which have fallen as supply increased. And it doesn’t allow that one of the biggest impacts of the current rise in interest rates prompted by the Bank of Canada’s anti-inflationary policies is on mortgage costs. The reality that house prices have fallen as demand has cooled is irrelevant to his argument.

The Competition Bureau is smart enough to know these things, which is why its review will focus on the extent to which higher grocery prices are a “result of changing competitive dynamics.” This “is not an investigation into specific allegations of wrongdoing,” it says.

The Competition Bureau is already well aware that a lack of competition can be a factor in a country where three chains, plus Costco and Walmart, control 80 per cent of the market. “The Bureau’s past work indicates that, when consumers have more choices between grocery stores, they are likely to pay lower prices,” it said in announcing the review.

It is also true that Canada has become more reliant on food imports in the free-trade era, making it vulnerable to the impacts of extreme weather, supply chain disruptions, the war in Ukraine and higher costs for transport and packaging, among other inputs.

And the country is still in the grips of a cartel that fixes the price of dairy products. The Canadian Dairy Commission unilaterally raised milk and milk product prices by 8.4 per cent last February, and then bumped them another 2.5 per cent in September. It will raise prices again in February of next year.

In short, there are a number of well-known factors that could be exacerbating the upwardly spiralling price of food in Canada. To the extent that they can be addressed by Ottawa, they are serious issues that deserve serious attention.

But toying with conspiracy theories, and suggesting without evidence that there is collusion or profiteering taking place, is not helpful.

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