New Democratic Party Leader Avi Lewis is calling on the federal government to ban algorithmic pricing, calling the retail practice “downright creepy.”
“Big Tech is teaming up with retailers, including grocery giants, to spy on Canadians and gouge them even more,” Lewis said on Monday.
“This is unfair. It’s a rip-off. And it’s downright creepy. The federal government must use all tools at its disposal to stop the practice dead in its tracks,” he added.
The NDP will table a motion in Parliament to ban what the party calls “surveillance pricing,” Lewis said.
Algorithmic pricing, otherwise known as dynamic pricing, is when companies use AI and data to set different prices for consumers depending on whatever attributes they set up.
This could be based on anything from the income levels and demographic details of the prospective customer to the demand for the good or service.
Last month, the NDP government in Manitoba said it would prohibit retailers from using personal data to increase prices for specific consumers. The rule would apply both in person and online.
The United Food and Commercial Workers Union echoed Lewis’s call.
“We cannot accept the growing use of algorithmic and predatory pricing to squeeze even more out of people at the checkout. These systems are designed to maximize profit, not fairness,” said UFCW Canada president Barry Sawyer.
Most Canadians want the government to ban or regulate algorithmic pricing, recent polling suggests — with half of respondents saying the practice is unfair because it can result in people paying different prices for the same product.
The Abacus Data poll, which was conducted online and can’t be assigned a margin of error, polled 1,931 Canadians on algorithmic pricing.
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Around half (52 per cent) of those polled by Abacus said the practice should be banned and 31 per cent said it should be allowed but more strictly regulated.
Last year, the Competition Bureau also investigated the possible use of artificial intelligence-driven algorithmic pricing in Canadian real estate rental markets.
In November, it said that while it hasn’t found evidence that using computer software to recommend rent prices reaches the level of anti-competitive behaviour, it remains concerned about possible issues.
Algorithmic pricing has caused a stir in food retail as well, with fast-food chain Wendy’s facing backlash from some consumers in 2024 when it tried to introduce dynamic pricing.
In December 2025, online grocery platform Instacart said it was ending a program where some customers saw different prices for the same product ordered at the same time from the same store when using the delivery company’s service.
A report from Consumer Reports and two progressive advocacy groups, Groundwork Collaborative and More Perfect Union, said Instacart offered nearly three out of every four grocery items to shoppers at multiple prices in an experiment.
For the report, researchers conducted an independent experiment involving 437 shoppers in live tests across four cities in the U.S. It found that dynamic pricing would mean price swings of around US$1,200 on groceries for the average American family.
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Ban algorithmic pricing, NDP urges Carney: ‘Downright creepy’
