Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Mr. La Flèche, I'd like to thank you for having agreed to testify before the committee once again. I hope that we'll be able to leave you alone afterwards, at least until the end of this session. For the next Parliament, though, we might decide otherwise.
One of the reasons we are looking into this issue, and previously heard from Metro and its four major competitors, is that they represent an oligopoly. In principle, these five major food retailers share 80% of the market.
I'd like you to explain whether it's a common practice for the industry to announce a price freeze in November. According to Mr. Sylvain Charlebois, the five major players in the industry always announce a price freeze in November.
Has Metro's behaviour changed? At a previous meeting, one of your competitors told us that it would normally announce a price freeze for certain products, but that this time, the price freeze applied to additional products.
I'm trying to understand why the five major retailers announce a price freeze in November.