Here’s the ‘experiment’ NDP Leader Avi Lewis is trying to run in Canadian politics – Lewis calls for ‘fundamental structural changes’ during first Ottawa visit on the job
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/ndp-leader-avi-lewis-house-of-commons-politics-carney-9.7169279
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> The NDP leader also said that the stores themselves wouldn’t contain a massive array of products. Major grocery stores can have tens of thousands of individual products, whereas Lewis’s vision is a supermarket with about 1,500 to 2,000 products.
> “So they’re full-fledged grocery stores, but **they don’t have the absurd level of choice, which frankly slows down my shopping,”** Lewis told host Catherine Cullen.
This is objectively hilarious.
Will they be mailing equity cards out?
commiedy
My daughter asked for a pony today too. Neither thing will ever happen but nobody is writing a story about my daughter. And she has almost a many seats as the federal NDP.
Honestly public grocery stores sound like a fantastic idea. No price gouging, no profit motive, just staple goods at cost. Galen Weston and his cronies have been jacking up our prices for years now, having to compete with a public option will give them a much needed reality check.
I don’t believe in his vision, but I respect that he wants to deliver direct and impacting help to people.
One minute everyone cries its not the free market, the next attack is that they won’t have enough selection?
Both arguments cant exist together coherently.
I think those who supported Lewis are going to have a major hangover.
As always with the NDP, there are so many things they say that resonates – but there is so much that leaves questions which make me question their fiscal ability.
I firmly believe the policies are viable, but nobody has managed to establish them viably.
Start with this…..
Canadian grocery giants have been using restrictive property controls-mainly exclusivity clauses and restrictive covenants -to block competitors from opening nearby. These practices have been widespread for decades, but they are now under active investigation and facing new legal limits.
What the grocery giants have been doing Loblaw, Sobeys (Empire), and other major chains have historically negotiated lease terms that prevent landlords from renting space to competing grocers or even businesses selling overlapping food categories. These controls take two main forms:
– Exclusivity clauses – written into commercial leases, preventing a landlord from leasing to a competitor in the same plaza
Focus on banning Algorithmic and Surveillance GOUGING!
Pure profit for the retail and an extra 5-7% costing consumers thousands per year ON FOOD.
I think if there is going to be a public grocery system, it shouldn’t be public stores but rather public distributors.
That way small stores can buy from them at cost and serve their individual niche communities. The public distributor will be able to provide access to the small stores which may be very challenging for small mom and pop stores. Honestly small stores will provide better access than a few large public stores.
It makes opening and operating these distributors much more easily too compared to finding good retail space.
The idea of NOT having an “absurd level of choice” is unappetizing. Often I buy things for quality not quantity, and they often cost a fair amount more. But sometimes things I’m making don’t need that level of expense or quality, so I buy something lower end.
Importantly, lots of people want very high quality things and are willing (and lucky to be able) to afford those things.
What’s to say that the prices will be lower than grocery stores? Government run services with no profit incentive are famously inefficient when compared to private sector counterparts.
The reason why our grocery bills are high is not because of greed. Greed often leads to price reductions as companies compete for market share.
The reason why everything is unaffordable, including our food, is the rapid increases to the money supply and negative productivity growth.
I would say our education system is failing us, but I think people just genuinely have no desire to be informed about anything outside of video games, sports and reality TV.
I politely disagree with those who think that government grocery stores is a good idea. Like anything government a) those stores will be poorly managed b) The suppliers will charge them the same as Westons etc. c) unionized workers will demand higher pay that can’t be sustained by a revenue stream.
At the end it will become another drain of public funds. Thanks but no, thanks.
The way to reduce prices is to encourage competition by removing all non-compete clauses in chain real-estate rental/lease agreements, encourage more international chains from Europe/US to open stores and remove all god-damn protections like supply management, as they are the ones that keep prices artificially high.
He hasn’t called for universal basic income yet, but if he is half the orator that his father was, it can be assumed that there will be a popcorn worthy speech coming soon.
Honestly “fundamental structural changes” is something our government definitely needs!
“Ketchup or Catsup?”
Co-operative stores would probably be a better choice. Although, that’s not to say a nationalized chain would be the worst, I just don’t think it would be ideal.
Furthermore, I don’t think a public/nationalized store could be effectively implemented by the government at this stage.
Lewis, the death knell for the NDP. Tommy and Jack’s party is no more. Sacrificed at the alter of identity politics.
I am once again asking Mr. Lewis to show the math supporting the various capacities behind his proposed immigration intakes.
how about bringing in more competition by lowering tariffs, quotas, and regulations that create artificial scarcity?
Avi is promising a free chicken in every pot. Traditional politicking for a politician who doesn’t really register.
Why don’t we see if the NYC experiment works first before spending hundreds of millions of dollars.
It is incredibly frightening that people who have no knowledge of economics, finance , or even history, opine upon it this much, at this point.
These government grocery stores are some of the worst ideas imaginable.
One of the key triggers for the collapse of Soviet Communism was Yeltsin being amazed by the abundance available in the West.
Fuck sake, this kind of abject *stupidity* goes back to the french revolution, with government attempts to set the price of bread because weather had pretty nearly wiped out the wheat harvests. It goes back to the Romans putting the death penalty on those damned unscrupulous merchants if they wouldn’t follow the government limits on prices…
It *always* fails. Always. Prices are completely undefeated. A perfect 1 million to nothing against people who think they know better.
You *will pay more* for your groceries if this idea ever blackens Canada’s doorstep. But you’ll do it through taxes since these horrifically bad stores will need constant subsidization until they manage to drive all competitors out.
If you think government run grocery stores are a good idea, you should go ahead and excuse yourself from ever commenting on politics again.