This gambit could go one of two ways: either the government quietly forgets about it in a few months, or they become indignant with the lack of “progress” and impose price controls. I don’t think anything is really off the table at this point.
Champagne said the federal government is establishing a “grocery task force” within the Office of Consumer Affairs that will be focused on monthly monitoring of grocers’ commitments and actions taken by others in the food industry.
Champagne said plans are still in the works to establish a grocery “code of conduct” to support fairness and transparency in the sector, and to create a new food price “data hub” to allow better access to information about the price of food in Canada.
Related?
WKRP Thanksgiving Turkey Drop
https://youtu.be/HiSkjcl9yW4
“As God is my witness. I thought turkeys could fly!” One of the greatest comedy lines ever broadcast one one of the best comedy television shows ever.
seems several taxes could be cut instantly
The Spawn-Fuhrer-Singh regime likes to deflect to point the finger at a group that they can accuse and build animosity towards. Everything else they do is generally the cause of the problem they pretend to address, much like O. J. Simpson saying he’s going to find the real killers. That the government might create another useless appendage of leviathan is par for the course.
A big driver of the increases is the carbon tax that his multiple times from seed to grocery store, and yet the government will continue to escalate it until everyone is impoverished…
My last heating bill (summer time so very little heat required, bill is mostly for hot water)
Cost of natural gas: $8.54
Carbon tax $9:76
at least your carbon tax is broken out… not every company does that
Champagne socialist gonna lower ma bills!
“They are from the government, and they are there to help”
What do you think can go wrong?
Is there anything that the government swamp done right?
But, but, but, the peoples want it.
It’s not the carbon taxes.
No?
Not a peep about carbon taxes from grocers…at least I haven’t seen anything.
They’re either frightened or complicit.
They will blend in a little price increase of their own and say it was the carbon tax.
Bureaucracies eventually swallow their hosts, and the country becomes reading material for future generations in other countries blaming everything else but the bureaucracy for why the country failed.
Couple that with the caveat that no country has ever taxed itself into prosperity, and it’s clear that Canada in for a bumpy ride.
What they are not telling you is that food Inflation, which is 6.9 %, of that 3% is the carbon tax, and almost 3% is the interest hikes done by the Bank of Canada, which means the head clown at the bank of Canada, along with the libreal party of Canada policys are the major driving force in food inflation.
6.9%?!
Another lie they’re telling us. But if a dude can be a lady…
6.9%? That’s not inflation. Wait ’til they ban fertilizer because climate change. Then you’ll see inflation.
Your local grocery commissar is accepting bids on this week’s deliveries. Bid now, and bid high because supplies from the centrally planned economy are shrinking. Next week, toilet paper so you don’t have to use the local newspaper.
Another massive expensive federal bureaucracy to keep prices low.
The more the plans fail, the more the planners plan. – Ronald Reagan
My first thoughts — nothing that a few thousand more federal servant jobs can’t fix.
“Government Secret Shoppers” to the rescue!
RNrn
Is their nothing our society that the federal government won’t monitor and try to manipulate and control?
This is unsustainable …. we cannot live in a constant state of being monitored everywhere we go and everything we do, everything we purchase. Governments cannot just step in and take control of businesses like they are petty crooks who need to be taxed harder and harder every year.
We need a revolution. It’s too bad that obesity, ignorance and distraction aren’t weapons of freedom.
We are fast becoming slaves. How do you like it?
Do they really think grocery stores are gouging?
I doubt it. Even progressives can read a financial report. Rather Singh sees this as a way to garner votes among the naive, and so he’s pressuring Trudeau to act.
It could end up badly, a kind of National Energy Program for food, where all Canadians, consumers and vendors, are worse off.
Exactly so. Profit margins on food items are very low, averaging about 22%. This compares very poorly with typical average profit margins of 49% for all other consumer goods. So what this measure will likely do is drive DOWN investment in the food and beverage sector.
4 cents of every dollar spent at Loblaws/Shoppers ends up as net profit…
How much of that dollar is absorbed by various governments in direct and indirect taxes?
Quite right. Except that what you are talking about is profit, not net profit. Net profit is after tax, and that includes things like carbon taxes, sales taxes, taxes on fuel and transport, and things like excise taxes on imports. I suspect you will find that the actual net profit is much less than about 2%.
Yup Next up Empty Shelves and food shortages.
All who have bread are to be deemed evil hoarders and “UnCanadian”.
And the crusted on Libtards will applaud Dear Leaders wisdom as they starve in the cold and dark.
The Presstitutes enable this idiocy,Cause Maths is hard.?
Or pure Malice and envy?
Every day brings us closer to a national strike by all tax payers.
For there is no point in working.
In fact it is the patriotic duty of every freedom loving citizen to Not Support these Kleptocratic Fools.
And if your tax dollars are to be used against you and yours..
Why be the source of any?
40% of Canadians are already on board..”Get a government job,hasten the fall.”
Although a uncivil war would probably be less painful and soul destroying.
You kidding me?
The said Canadians will vote for the idiot and his henchmen again.
Yeah, the ladies are still smitten by him.
What yer gonna do?
“Yeah, the ladies are still smitten by him.”
Any evidence for that? I suspect you will find that most of them loathe Little Potato as much as the rest of us. Or do you just think women are stupid?
Or do you just think Prog women are stupid?
FTFY. And, yes.
It’s purely for show. A symbolic gesture to generate “the government is doing something” headlines by friendly media. At best, grocery stores will rebrand any normal sale price cut. Instead of calling the advertised special price a Thanksgiving Day Sale it will be rebranded as a Trudeau the Benevolent Leader’s Price Reduction Sale.
Quite right. Your two comments, this one and the one just below; you win the thread. Labeling something a sale item is the oldest retail trick in the book. We’ve already experienced the trick of reducing the price and reducing the quantity disproportionately. So expect more of that as well.
If only Canada’s media would actually speak truth to power instead of patting themselves on the back and giving themselves awards for pretending to speak truth to power. I guess that the media people are too scared to bite the government hand that feeds them taxpayer funded bailouts (bribes?)
the trick of reducing the price and reducing the quantity disproportionately
That’s only a “trick” if you can’t do math. Actually, you don’t even have to do math, because grocery stores post the unit price on all their goods.
do you just think women are stupid?
You really want the answer to that?
Yea, it’s called bread lines. Liberals putting on a dog and pony show with meaningless drivel, they’re the ones who drove the price of food via their gas and carbon tax.
Not only breadlines,
I think I spotted UnMe in this line of “disenfranchised youth” applying for (1) FedEx package handler position the other day…….
‘Long queue for FedEx ground package handler position at 46 Aero Drive location Calgary, Alberta,Canada.”
https://www.reddit.com/r/Fedexers/comments/16upnhy/long_queue_for_fedex_ground_package_handler/
I wonder what the bureaucracy they put in place to monitor grocery costs will cost the taxpayer? I figure after “savings” it will be a billion+ a year.
Following in his father’s footsteps.
Emergencies Act – follows War Measures Act,
Wage and Price controls (to be introduced) – follows Anti-Inflation Act
splits with Sophie – follows fathers split with Margaret
Maybe he’ll take a walk in the snow soon?
I’m old enough to remember the last time some grocery stores participated in “price matching” to keep “prices stable”.
Gotta find all those hoarders and wreckers…
That is why smart preppers don’t talk about their food, guns and ammunition, or any other preparations.
I wonder if anyone will actually monitor if there’s any meaningful reduction/stabilization of grocery prices. It would be informative if the price of a basket of relatively healthy food staples was benchmarked : eggs, milk, cheese, bread, butter, apples, lettuce, spaghetti, coffee, chicken breasts, hamburger, pork chops, toilet paper. Then track the price weekly at the big 5 grocery retailers for a year.
I would not be surprised if grocery stores will just lower prices of low quality, high profit margin junk food and/or products few people buy (fake meat, for instance) while essential products that people need remain unaffordable. Kinda like the bogus way consumer price inflation is calculated.
Actually they are doing the opposite, lowering the prices for some of the basic food stuffs, like eggs, hamburger, or milk and advertising it. That brings in the shoppers who fill their carts with high margin foods too.
Prices for some of the basics go up because of shortages, like eggs after the bird flu decimated chicken flocks. Remember $6 per dozen? If they had any at all?
We buy bootleg eggs from a nearby farm so prices only rose from 2.50 to 3.00 per dozen. We hunt so between 2 moose and one mule deer last year and the few hundred pounds of moose meat from last weekend’s hunt, our meat freezer is full. My hobby is gardening so the non-meat freezer and pantry are stocked up with frozen/canned fruit and vegetables. I stock up on non perishable goods when they’re on sale. Our grocery bill is higher but very manageable.
From talking with friends, family and neighbors, we are the exception. People, particularly families, are hurting. Everything has become unaffordable and the combined impact is creating anger and high stress levels.
I guess my point is that these proposed price reductions are just words until people see real savings on products they actually need. You’ll notice my basket of goods includes many government marketing board products – dairy and poultry – I didn’t hear any reports about Trudeau “targetting” or threatening those government regulated cartels. Which is odd because the original justification for the marketing boards was to keep stable foods affordable. Lack of competition in many Canadian industries is a huge reason why Canadian’s prices are higher than other countries.
Costco over the last year and change has had a pound of salted or unsalted butter go from $3.95 to $5.95, the same one at Loblaws was $5.95 and is now at $7.95
I wonder if the government wants to have a word with the milk cartel that controls how much products are available
JD,
The words will be, “Donate More!”
“Nice Cartel you got here. Be a shame if something happened to it.”
That’s an interesting list you chose because the prices of eggs, milk, cheese, butter and chicken are all controlled by government marketing boards.
Yep, the federal government has complete control over the dairy and poultry price fixing schemes. Also the compounding effect of federal government controlled carbon tax and regulation burdens. But there is complete silence about those problems.
They only want to threaten and blame the private retail sector for high prices. I assume that the Trudeau liberal-NDP government will then go after the food production middle men, then the shippers and then farmers and ranchers.
There’s far more pungent shit produced in the house of commons and federal bureaucracy than any livestock operation.
The basis for this is disgusting. It’s a ploy to try and obfuscate the direct result of inflation. The US and Canadian governments have been adamant in telling you that inflation is not a problem. And yet, every time you and I go to the grocery store we get a HUGE reminder as to how this is not so. Our groceries (which are basically routine as we are creatures of habit and usually buy the same items) are easily comparable in price such that we know what were were paying 3 years ago, and what we are paying now. There is no way to hide the government failings in controlling inflation, screwing up the supply chain, and over regulation.
So, the response of your government is to place the blame on the retailers, when it fact it was the government that stuck their intrusive thumb on the scale and destroyed the competitive capitalism that forces manufacturers to control their prices to compete with their competitors. And, that doesn’t even touch on the subsidized corporate farmers who have unfair advantages on private food growers and grazers.
Short version: Government screwed it up, and now they are blaming everyone but themselves, which will result in further hardship and less competition….meaning higher prices.
These murderous swine are acting out Atlas Shrugged. They wrecked the economy through maniacal spending sprees, lockdowns, and wanton printing of money, and are now blaming successful businesses for the government’s actions. And their proposed solutions are intended to crush the last vestiges of life from the economy so they can justify bringing in the central planning characteristic of socialism that led to tens of millions of deaths, both accidental and deliberate, in the past century.
They’re like some sort of poisonous version of Steve Urkell, breaking the country and then saying, “Did I do that?”
The people at the top, have the people at the bottom do their shopping, with YOUR money!
They have no idea what groceries cost or what the margins are.. As long as their pantries are full, they could give a damn. Evidence: if they ever spent a minute looking at places and times when price controls were in place, they’d know better.
As long as tax money keeps flowing in, they won’t notice..
The collectivization of the agricultural sector in the Soviet Union between 1928 and 1940>
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collectivization_in_the_Soviet_Union
Inch by inch the Government of Canadal begins the takeover and the total control of Canada’s agricultural sector. Only ‘useful idiots’ and ‘do gooders’ can possibly believe the promise of lower prices through more government control. Those who have seen this before know where it ends; fewer stores, empty shelves, fewer meals, more scraps and then starvation and death.
Trudeau and his cabal of ministers are beginning with the grocery store chains only because they are an easy target. Who will be next? Will the distribution chain of transportation and warehousing be next? Will the aggregates of meat, of grain and of vegetable production be after that? Will the independent farmers finally be forced into collectives? If you start to look beyond the Government of Canada narrative you can see where it all will end.
“Who controls the food supply controls the people; who controls the energy can control whole continents; who controls money can control the world.” attributed to Henry Kissenger
https://quotefancy.com/henry-kissinger-quotes
I’ll settle for “truth in advertising” and an end to “dynamic pricing” of food.
Safeway labels a certain salad dressing I like at;
$5.99 on sale
$4.99 on sale
$3.99 on sale
I have seen the salad dressing priced at those THREE different prices within a span of 2-weeks. And it keeps rotating between those exact three prices … constantly. I have always read where grocery profit margins are really slim. Well … that can’t be true for this salad dressing … they’re making massive profits when they sell it for $5.99 … massive.
This is all part of Safeway’s dynamic pricing scheme … which is partly, I’m certain, just to confuse shoppers who don’t pay attention to prices. I do. And they’re intentionally lying and trying to cheat the customer.
But I’m not a socialist … I don’t need a government program to stabilize the price of salad dressing. I’m just taking my business elsewhere … to more discount stores like Trader Joe’s. Safeway can suck their own left nut for all I care.
$5.99 salad dressing barely pays for the now $15 an hour clerk to put it on the shelf. And the $20 person to change price tags twice a week.
Center of the store packaged goods has to make money to offset all the departments that lose money. Produce, bakery.- Floral department has about three good weeks a year…
So, we all know how this is going to work out. An organization of a few hundred people ; ALL LIBERALS of course, will be put on the public payroll to monitor food prices. This hoops these food chains will need to jump through, the reports they will need to compile and submit, and the Liberal Party donations they will be blackmailed into making…..
Will mean food prices will increase more than they already are now.
And Justin and his ship of fools will never even consider taking off the carbon tax. This announcement is just another photo op for these idiots; and is targeting the gullible who are already dependent upon government largesse for their livelihoods.
There is nothing a Liberal likes more than an NDP voter voting Liberal.
No they won’t put Liberals in charge to monitor prices they’ll put Liberals in charge to start rationing. I maybe going out on a limb here but I think the final play of the game here is to ration food and its production. TPTB are incrementally herding us into the abattoir, and the sheep don’t want to admit it or do anything to stop it. Anyone with any critical thinking skills can see what is coming, and those of us that are voicing concern are ridiculed and demonized. As my old grandaddy used to say “Gie yer he’d a shake, Laddy, the government isn’t there to do anything but shorn ye to line the’r pockets!”
Lockdowns, ULEZ cameras, jab passports to eat in a restaurant, restriction on gas appliances, restriction on gas motors, elimination of ICE vehicles, gun buyback, gun restrictions, criminalizing political protest, criminalizing political opponents, open borders to import low unskilled wage earners, destabilizing health systems, failing education systems how much more damage will be inflicted before the whole thing collapses in a resounding din of chaos!
Did rent controls and the US fuel shortages of the 1970s not teach these guys anything? You want to create a shortage? Simply depress the price. Demand will outstrip supply. So simple to understand.
Bingo! I lived through the shortages and even worked at a gas station in HS that had block-long lines waiting for gasoline … and I was the poor schmuck who had to put out the sign saying we had run out of gasoline for the 25 cars still waiting on line.
Between food, housing prices and vax genocide, I wonder how many immigrants feel they could have gotten more free crap in better countries….
Or maybe the big selling point of Canada was 5 or 6 months of cold winter….
I wish the grocery chain execs would just say “drop the stupid carbon taxes and food will be affordable.”
But the carbon taxes are of course saving us from a climate catastrophe. Right?
I know a few other funny jokes.
What’s a grocers commitment?.. Fire your accountant and turn it all over to the federal commissars?.. Who BTW are 100% responsible for the lockdowns, mandates, regulations and policy that caused the price hikes..
They proved a service and take a %.. That has grown because of the government shenanigans.. Demanding they change the deal so you can look good will have them closing their doors.. Just as the other shoplifters have done in big liberal cities..
You cant force them to stay in business.. Idiots..
A citizen commitment where my taxes get reduced?.. See how that works.. Trudeau plays with fire..
Jeez, I am so old I can remember when businesses getting together to fix prices was a criminal activity.
Another “It’s different when we do it” Government Operation.
Canadian Government demands Food Retailers get together to fix the price of their goods.
Threatens even more taxes if they refuse..
Nobody calls government idiots for demanding criminal behaviour from retailers?
Better find these idiots some more NASTIES to applaud..
Members Of Parliament,our elected representatives.
Can’t cure stupid.
Can Ahh Duh!