Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau has warned of imposing new taxes on grocery chains if they do not take steps to arrest rising food prices, Al Jazeera reported.

The heads of the five largest supermarket chains, including Walmart and Costco, would be asked to come up with a plan to address rising prices before Thanksgiving, he said.

Trudeau also announced that the sales tax would be waived for the construction of new rental apartments in an attempt to address concerns over the cost of living.

“If their plan doesn’t provide real relief for the middle class and people working hard to join it, then we will take further action, and we are not ruling anything out including tax measures,” Trudeau said at the end of a caucus retreat in London, Ontario, on September 14.

According to the Canadian PM, it did not make sense that supermarket chains were taking home staggering profits while many Canadians were struggling to make ends meet.

“Large grocery chains are making record profits,” he said. “Those profits should not be made on the backs of people who are struggling to feed their families.”

Food prices hiked by 8.5% in July compared with a year ago in Canada, significantly above the inflation rate of 3.3%.

Meanwhile, the retailers in Canada blamed producers and suppliers for the increased costs, driven by external factors including the war in Ukraine.

“Rather than casting blame where the experts agree it does not belong, the federal government should look in the mirror,” the Retail Council of Canada said in a statement.

“The government could take a number of steps to make food more affordable, including temporarily removing the carbon tax from farmers, food processors and distributors and cancelling [the] government’s planned plastic packaging targets that could increase costs to grocers by $6bn a year.”