Image: Jules Côté

By Mike Vanden Bosch

Federal election

Abbotsford native gears up for federal election with a message about corporate power, oligopolies

Mar 6, 2025 | 9:18 AM

ABBOTSFORD — If and when the next federal election is called, Fraser Valley native Jules Côté plans to bring up repeated themes about excessive corporate control over food production and housing in Canada and what she believes are its deleterious impacts on society.

Côté, who was born and raised in Abbotsford, has been nominated as the federal NDP candidate in the Abbotsford-Matsqui-Mission riding, currently held by Conservative MP Brad Vis. She’s currently a student at the University of the Fraser Valley and a member of the National Farmers Union. As a volunteer with her local food bank, Starfish Pack and her church, she says the system is not working for many Canadian families.

“I’ve seen too many working families struggling to make ends meet,” Côté said. “This is a direct result of a system that’s stacked against them. A system that has handed over too much power to too few people, leaving working families behind. Today, five corporations make 80 per cent of the country’s grocery sales, four companies handle 88 per cent of our wheat, and two control 80 per cent of our bread.”

Côté says concentrated corporate power isn’t limited to just bread or grocery sales; rather, it extends to pork, poultry, and beef production, as well as to farm equipment, tools and fertilizers.

“But the concentration of our food system isn’t just hurting working families, it’s squeezing our farmers, which is why, from 2001 to 2021, Canada lost 57,000 farms and nearly 15 million acres of farmland,” she said. “And corporations aren’t consolidating control of our food system, it’s our housing too.”

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She cites figures that suggest nearly 25 per cent of all housing in Canada is owned by corporations, including 16 per cent of homes, 36 per cent of condos, and an eye-watering 42 per cent of rental properties.

“But this country wasn’t built by corporations, billionaires or speculators,” she said. “It was built by working people, farmers and factory workers, nurses and teachers, small business owners and everyday folks. And it’s about time this country started working for them again. That’s why I’m running to represent Mission—Matsqui—Abbotsford. Because for too long, power has been concentrated in the hands of a wealthy few—now, it’s the people’s time.”