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hig! . A\\ over the country

Housewives, workers, farmers rose up in
protest. Pickets, boycotts, demonstrations,
meetings were held. From the Atlantic to
the Pacific, Canadian consumers as with one
voice said something had to be done to bring
down prices. :

One woman sent a turnip to the Prime
Minister. Another phoned an open line pro-
gram and was swamped with calls from those
who wanted to help. A third called a’meet-

‘ing in Ottawa and 1,400 consumers came

out to join the protest. In Winnipeg the
women petitioned and, after getting some
15,000 signatures, went to their city council.
Winnipeg became the first city in Canada to
call on the federal government for action
against high prices, for a prices review
board.

In Kingston, the Ontario Federation of
Labor passed a. strong resolution calling for
a prices review board. Similar resolutions
were adopted at labor gatherings through-
out the country. Cooperatives, farm organi-
zations and others also came out with the
demand to bring down the soaring prices on
food.

Although prices had been rising steadily
for the last 15 years, 1966 saw the largest

When the Canadian Federation of Agri-
culture appeared before the Senate-House
Committee they pointed out the following:

"The price of wrapped bread shows a very
large increase of 90.1 percent compared
with 1949, larger than for the large bulk of
other items. Yet here is a case where the
basic raw material, wheat, accounts only for
3 cents or 4 cents of the price, and between
1949 and the present there has not been
enough change in prices of wheat to account
for so much as | cent of change in the price
of a loaf of bread.” ,

For the farmer, who is a consumer as well
as a producer, the recent period has seen
this pattern, more or less, repeated in regard
to many food items. noe

Not only have the prices’ of food items
gone up out of all proportion to what the
farmer receives for his product, but tne

age increase. of between 3 ana 4 percent,
\ast year in the first nine months alone there
was over 7 percent increase.

From March to September, 1966 the price
of bacon went up 4! percent, of round steak,
38 percent, pork chops, 33 percent. It wasn't
only the meat. Oranges were up 50 percent,
canned pork and beans 39 percent, potatoes
48 percent. It's no wonder that one of the
signs carried in a Windsor picket of super-
markets was "'l made my first million and
spent it on food!" — pa aes

In Ottawa the joint Senate-House Com-
mittee on Consumer Credit began an inves-
tigation into the price structure in the food
industry. Experts in economics, representa-
tives of the food distributors and processors,
advertisers, farm organizations, were asked
to come to Ottawa to testify.

On Dec. 16 they presented an interim re-
port. ‘Your committee's review of the evi-
dence," it said “has not yet revealed any
group or sector of the economy which could
be singled out and blamed for the recent
increase in consumer prices.” The committee
is continuing its work this year. It will travel
across the country in February to hear rep-
resentations and gather more evidence.

So the question still remains: Who is to
blame?

the farmer?

prices of all those things the farmer needs
for the productive process have gone up
astronomically as well. Caught in the squeeze
between low prices for his produce and the
high cost{of machinery and other essentials
to his work, the farmer is steadily being
forced off the land.

Between 1964 and 1966 there was a drop
of 60,000 in the number of self-employed
farmers, which is a decline of 8-9 percent
each year. i

The farmer's share of every dollar spent
on food by the consumer has declined since
1949 from 58 percent to 41 percent. The
extra price we pay does not go to the far-
mer. ;

Farmers are all very much aware of this
discrepancy. They know that whereas there
is protection given to Canadian manufactur-
ing, there is no tariff on farm products and

"

excessive proiits, wile ne \arae Soret ex
some of the various levels in their tood em-
pire are ignored. is

For example, as the UE Research Bulletin
points out, Dominion Stores follow the prac-
tice of selling store and warehouse proper-
ties to another corporation, then leasing
them back. There has never been disclosed
what corporations are thus linked to Domi-
nion or who the owners are. The amounts in-
volved are substantial.

Or take a more recent example: Why,
when the federal sales tax was raised one
cent, did the price of margarine go up by
2 cents to the consumer?

If one tries to find the answer in supply
and demand then it makes no sense. But if
one accepts the facts of life—that the big
monopoly companies dominate the food in-
dustry and decide prices at will — then the

acter aera

Wexr Yo Whe psychological advanrage of
raising prices right after workers have won a
wage increase is the advantage of doing the
same thing right after the government has
announced a tax rise.

There is nothing the monopolies want less
than to have the searchlight cast upon their
practices of price fixing. They are prepared,
as the Ottawa hearings showed, to ascribe
all price increases to anything or anybody—
the farmers, the workers, the housewives,
packaging, transportation costs, high rents,
etc., etc.—but not themselves.

Just how big and how far-reaching mono-
poly control in food can be is best illustrated
by the Weston empire. It is the biggest and
most powerful in Canada. But we should not
forget that all the super-profiteers act in the
same manner — the gouging of the con-

sumer by the practice of price fixing.

weston s?

Here is a food monopoly that is so big

that no one really can tell how it juggles
profits and losses to set its prices.
' With 75 percent of the biscuit business in
Canada and 30 percent of the food industry,
the Weston octopus extends into all fields,
and all over the world. It's regarded as the
fifth largest merchandizer in the world and
its: assets are ‘estimated at more than 700
million.

‘How does this giant monopoly work?

Here's one example. A Weston Company,
Nelson Brothers, buys herring from the
fishermen at $17.40 a ton; another Weston
subsidiary, Supervalu, sells herring strips to
the consumer at 50 cents per half pound;
between the two, every company that hand-
led the herring was a Weston Company.

_Take five Weston companies and their
profits: B.C. Packers is a primary and manu-
facturing company with 1.6 million in profits
after taxes which represents 8.2 percent
return on the invested capital. They sell to
Westfair Foods, a wholesaler, whose $2.2
million profits represents 6.6 percent return.
Then there is the “landlord,” Loblaw Leased
Properties, who own the land and buildings
for the stores. They have a half a million
profit, 4.6 percent return ‘on capital. The
retailer, Loblaw Groceterias, has a profit of

$23.9 million which is a 10.4 percent return
on investment.

But all this is owned by the same interests

and the prices that are set between the
companies and for the consumers are de-
signed to do one thing: bring in more and
more money to the owner of this huge em-
pire, Garfield Weston.

‘Most of the products in his stores come
from his own enterprises. Weston even owns
plantations in British Honduras to supply his
needs.

This is true not only for the food products,
but the likelihood is, when looking over the
list of over 300 companies in the Weston
empire, that he owns the pulp for the paper
for the fancy packaging, the cartons, the
plastic, the store fixtures and counters.

Under one roof we have five stages of the
process of profit making. The manufacturer
sells to the wholesaler, who sells to the re-
tailer, while the ‘landlord’ collects his share
in the form of rent. All of them pay their
share to the ultimate parent company. And
when it's all sorted out the parent company
has made 12 percent profit after tax on its
invested capital. Not bad, eh?

lf the blame for the high. prices can be
placed on the doorstep of Weston's and the
other food monopolies what do we do now?