This comes amid rising inflation in the country and as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's Liberal Party trails badly in the polls.

Speaking at the Liberals' national caucus retreat in London, Ontario on Thursday, Trudeau said he expects "to hear from them [the largest grocery chains] by Thanksgiving on what their plan is to stabilize prices," adding that "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." 

The minister of innovation, science and industry, Francois-Philippe Champagne, said in an interview with the CBC that he sent out invitations to the CEOs of Loblaw, Sobeys, Metro, Costco, and Walmart – the biggest grocery chains in the country – to attend a meeting in Ottawa on Monday to come up with "meaningful action that would reduce price inflation in the grocery sector." 

Champagne did not elaborate on what kind of "tax measures" the prime minister had in mind, but reiterated that there would be "consequences" if they failed "to come to the table with a meaningful solution."

The move comes amid soaring prices in Canada and reports that the grocery giants have seen record profits.

"It's not okay that our biggest grocery stores are making record profits while Canadians are struggling to put food on the table," Trudeau said at a press conference on Thursday. 

The CEOs of the grocery giants denied the allegations of price-gouging and profiteering, arguing that "the grocery chains operate with extremely small profit margins and have minimal influence on inflation."