Canada’s Competition Bureau has launched investigations into the parent companies of grocery chains Loblaws and Sobeys for alleged anti-competitive conduct, court documents reveal, with Sobeys’ owner calling the inquiry “unlawful.”
The Federal Court documents show the commissioner of competition launched the probes on March 1, saying there’s reason to believe the firms’ use of so-called property controls limits retail grocery competition.
The commissioner claims the controls that the grocery giants have baked into lease agreements are designed to restrict other potential tenants and their activities and are hampering competition in the grocery market.
The Competition Bureau revealed its investigation into the use of property controls in the grocery sector in February.
There’s a Competition Bureau? In Canada?
It’s Bob. He’s got a budget of $200 a year. He does what he can. We like Bob.
Bob Loblaw, you say?
Big fan of his law blog.
Oh, so you’re familiar with the Bob Loblaw, Law Blog?
No relation to Loblaws I’m sure
Please do something towards the grocer cartel.
If the liberals don’t smarten up here we could end up with a conservative majority and lose all the hard fought progress.
In case you’re wondering why we’re even doing this now, it’s likely because of the election. The LPC always pulls out the goodies before an election.
Hopefully we can get proportional representation as a goodie too!
No, that one you’ll never get.
The LPC (and the CPC) quite like the current setup where they can get a majority with 30ish percent of the vote. This means they get exclusive access to the levers of power every four to eight years and have to trade off periodically, which suits them fine.
PR would mean they’d never get another majority again. It’s also mean that the NDP, BQ and/or Greens could get real political power and drive legislation without their involvement, and since the Canadian electorate is generally more left wing that. It’s politicians, that would mean more progressive and less business-friendly legislation.
The LPC would be effectively shut out of power as they know it, and their donors would be dealing with a Canada that looks and acts more like western Europe.
The LPC would rather FPTP, where they’d lose an election or two on knowing they’d eventually get a chance again, then see PR where they’d be shut out forever.
For the record, the CPC would have it even worse. They’d instantly lose their protofascist base to extreme right-wing and/or western nationalist parties. There’s very little ideological room between the LPC and CPC if you take away the latter’s playing footsie with fascism.
What not including the 3rd major player Jim Pattison Group (Overwaitea/SaveOnFoods)? I can’t imagine they are not also involved… We only have 3 major players like we have 3 major telecoms in Canada.
There’s a Competition Bureau? What have they been doing all this time? Can they take a look at Robellus when they get a chance?
Arsonist sets fire to five buildings, tells everyone, everyone knows, there are pictures of him setting fire to buildings, arsonist has posted multiple five minute videos of him saying he committed the fires, thousands of people have reported him as the arsonist .
Competition Bureau: we are launching investigations into who may have set these fires
What a shock that companies that own both real estate and grocery stores create favourable leases for their grocery stores. /s
Cant wait for my $10 gift card!
This is an encouraging step, and it’s nice to see the heat being turned up on the grocery monopoly.
I think we need cost controls and compulsory transparency about pricing. What stick exactly are the grocery companies wielding to prevent measures like that from being rolled out? A federal government with vision and principles would have had a plan and gotten this done yesterday. Instead, we’re waiting for the assent of megacorps to a non-binding code of conduct, which everybody knows is total vaporware.
I can see why people are disaffected by all the hand waving about ‘competition’. Increased competition is probably part of the solution to the problem here. But it’s not a valid starting point. It’s a result of wise policy and good implementation.
More tax payers dollars at work lmao
Removed by mod
Are you decrying using taxpayer dollars to help… taxpayers?
I think tax payer dollars are used in this sense:
Ultra rich guy takes all your tax dollars. Spends it on a steak and lobster dinner. Eats their fill and then tosses you the shell and some of the gristle. Then they boast about how tax dollars are helping feed people. While technically true, the lions share doesn’t (rightfully) go to the tax payer but the one that collects it.
That’s how I see taxes working and that’s what every investigation has basically concluded. I don’t know where you live, but in Canada, no government ever has released details on how much it takes in and how much it spends. It operates in a void; a dark pool. Where money goes in and out and no one but them know where those funds are sent. It has basic budgeting details ($50m went to education) but those are general numbers.
Sorry if I don’t have a lot of trust that $5m of that went into some guy’s office because he hated the decor it was so 2013 rather than actual school programs. Moreover, it’s pretty common for crown corporations to get massive raises if they pull in a net positive (something they shouldn’t be doing as they need to operate at a zero profit).
