NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh promises grocery price cap for ‘basic food items’

OTTAWA – NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh tried to change the election channel back to the cost of living on Saturday, visiting a food bank in Ottawa where he promised to go after corporate grocery chains he said are “ripping” people off.

It has been a difficult first week of campaigning for Singh, whose party has plummeted in the polls, and who struggled to generate significant levels of enthusiasm as he campaigned in Montreal and around southern Ontario.

Without a drastic turn around, the NDP could be decimated when Canadians go to vote on April 28 and Singh spent much of the first seven days of campaigning insisting no matter what the polls say, he is still running to be prime minister.

“I want folks to know they’ve got a real choice in this election,” he said Saturday. “If you want someone that’s going to fight for you, that us.”

Speaking at the Parkdale Food Centre in Ottawa, Singh says people are “being squeezed from every side” while grocers are profiting heavily from trips to their stores.

He proposed to put “emergency price caps” on grocery store staples like pasta, frozen vegetables and infant formula, because Singh says those items have become significantly pricier since 2020.

Singh says he would also enforce a mandatory grocery code of conduct to regulate prices, empower the Competition Bureau to act as a watchdog and tax profits from the country’s biggest grocery chains.

He says he would also reform Nutrition North Canada — a program to help offset the costs of groceries for northerners.

Singh said he would look to other countries, such as Greece and France, who have implemented price controls on food, for guidance on how to implement price caps in Canada.

Other than a stop in Montreal on the first full day of campaigning, Singh spent all of week one in southern Ontario, including in Toronto, Hamilton, London and Windsor.

Winnipeg Free Press | Newsletter

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His campaign was preparing to fly to British Columbia to begin campaigning there on Sunday. Singh’s own seat is in Burnaby, and some polls currently have the odds against him winning even that.

Singh has been the NDP leader since 2017, and this is his third federal election at the helm of the party. The NDP won 25 seats in the last election, with 17.8 per cent of the popular vote nationally.

A Leger poll for The Canadian Press published March 24 had the NDP at just six per cent nationally.

— With files from David Baxter and Alessia Passafiume.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 29, 2025.