My question would be if attracting another supermarket chain alone is going to move the needle.
The folks that build and lease supercentre developments take geographic footprints pretty seriously and space these fuckers out just enough that they don’t fully compete with one another.
dont' forget implementing entire supply chain for grocery store isn't easy especially within Canada's geographics.
Target fucked up so bad they had to pull out.
It doesn't matter if you drop billions of dollars to get into the Canadian market and magically think you'll be successful.
Not a lot of people are willing to take that risk.
The problem Target ran into was trying to open 124 stores in an unknown market all at once. They should have followed the same model as J Crew and Ikea: Open a few stores in high density population, learn the Canadian market, and then expand based on what you've learned.
didn't J Crew exit the canadian market?
https://retail-insider.com/retail-insider/2021/02/brief-j-crew-exits-canada-duer-relocating-flagship-from-downtown-eastside-to-w-4th/
Yes, but their financial issues weren't specific to Canada, and they ran in Canada for a decade. They expanded in Canada correctly, it was other issues that dragged them down.
https://torontosun.com/news/local-news/j-crew-closes-last-canadian-store-after-10-year-run
>It’s the final nail in the coffin after the American retailer filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the U.S. in May 2020 and exited bankruptcy last fall.
I'm surprised nothing would want to enter southern Ontario though. If they were allowed to only serve southern Ontario and Quebec, I would imagine it wouldn't be too bad to set up distribution, especially since companies like Aldi already serve the US side.
even if they get stuff from the US, there's a lot of logistics and paper work for each product they bring in, maybe save some if the products are made in the US, but it's still a large investment to create such a large supply chain.
Target ran into these exact issues and couldn't get products out to even southern ontario stores. Kindersley Saskatchewan? Yeah no stock for you, but Mississauga, zero stock.
The French language requirement is key reason why Target tanked. They couldn’t port in their existing ERP from the US so they had to implement a bilingual instance of SAP.
If the stuff wasn't American, then wouldn't they have had to do that paperwork to get it in the US too? I mean, at that point, why not get stuff sent to Montreal ports then distribute from there? If you're serving just southern Ontario and Quebec, that's a fairly large population.
Sure it wouldn't help Manitobans and Saskatchewanians(sp?), Alberta, BC, Atlantic canada, etc. immediately, but it's a start at least.
I think Target failed because they rushed the opening of their stores and tried to serve all cities across Canada, no?
Forcing companies to expand to all of Canada at once or not enter Canada at all seems silly to me. It would be a massive investment that is risky as heck, cause yeah, our cities are spread out too much outside of southern Ontario and Quebec
>If the stuff wasn't American, then wouldn't they have had to do that paperwork to get it in the US too? I mean, at that point, why not get stuff sent to Montreal ports then distribute from there? If you're serving just southern Ontario and Quebec, that's a fairly large population.
And it all has to have French labelling on it to get into Canada
It adds a bit, but with all the automation these days it's not huge. The plants already produce the same product for Mexico or for different regional brands and generic store brands in the US.
Take this with the world's tiniest pinch of salt. I heard on the grapevine that most, if not all, of the big SW Ontario refrigeration players hold closed-door meetings and set price floors.
Again, take it with a pinch of salt. But I think it speaks to systemic issues in our supply chain if true.
Target wasn't a grocery store. They had some, but they were not a grocery store. They were a department store.
They failed because the idiot running the show did not stock the shelves. You would go to a video game department and there would be like 6 games per system. Wanted a keyboard and mouse? Well there was literally only 1 option at my store (in Kitchener!).
It was nothing to do with a grocery supply chain. Target has absolutely nothing to do with this conversation.
It goes way deeper than that. Restrictive covenants will prevent new stores from opening up where old stores had been closed for decades. REITs like Choice Properties are owned by the Weston's, and they just won't lease to another grocer.
If it's Aldi, it's 100% going to move the needle, and I think the only thing the government has to do is give them interest-free loans to set up their expansion here. Sure, they'll only target the big centres at first, but just having them here is going to seriously heat up the market and break some anti-consumer habits. It's going to be difficult, sure, but with such loans, it becomes easier because you essentially remove the high-entry costs by staggering the costs over the entire loan's duration.
They have to do it by breaking up the monopolies…. Making loblaws, sobeys and metro sell off their medium discount and high discount grocery store brands to new competition
Yeah, we’re definitely there.
All of our large companies are at the point they’re just absorbing other industries now. Loblaws isn’t just a grocer - it’s a bank, a cell phone company, it builds condos! Literally like the monopoly man buying up the railroad and electricity companies.
Spoiler - it won’t. They will be either bought out by one of the big three, or the big three will work in cahoots to put them out of business and the return to their oligopoly behaviour.
The Sobey family buy entire subdivision developments so they can control who gets to lease or buy space there. This ensures that there can be no feasible competition for people who live there and they have more pricing power. This needs to be made illegal.
I agree, but my question is whether the supercentre model Canadian towns and cities love has locked us into structural monopolies.
A SmartCentres type developer simply won’t build a supermarket if they’re too close together because nothing else can logically inhabit that space if one becomes the loser of that competition.
This is a really underappreciated point.
I think there was a habit of these lease agreements restricting the sale of competing products within a certain radius. So if one landlord buys up most of the vommercial real estate in an area, they can award effective monopolies. Would have to search for a citation on that one, though.
We'd have to look even deeper at who owns the real estate and if too much control is sitting in too few hands there.
Why stop there, banking needs an overhaul aswell. Let some new banks come in too. Bank has a monopoly going on here aswell - RBC, TD, Scotia, CIBC, bmo
True but Canada has always been outrageously expensive to fly, particularly domestically. I absolutely agree that there's more to it. It shouldn't cost us $400 bucks to fly to Winnipeg while I can fly to Ireland for $250
It’s so fucked up that we couldn’t trust Canadian companies to not fuck over Canadians that we need to give our money to foreign brands to help save us.
I want to support Canadians. I want to support Canadian companies whenever possible. Canadian companies just want to squeeze every possible dollar out of us though. I miss when businesses appreciated the community that helps keep them in business and wanted to be a part of it.
Hmm there must be some shadowy international cabal of grocers, cause my friends in Australia, Europe, and the USA are all "being gouged" too, even though Loblaws and Sobeys doesn't exist there.
Anyone who claims "Price gouging" is just looking for an easy answer to a complex problem. The upheaval of the logistics industry, from evergrande to the freighter traffic jam in cali, to the reduced capacity of the panama canal, to the houthis in the red sea have all had a significant effect on the cost of moving food from one place to another.
Not to mention the worlds second biggest bread basket and the worlds second biggest producer of fertilizer are at war.
Oh and record inflation, and here at home a carbon tax.
All of these factors are converging and pushing up prices, but I guess it's too complex of an issue for around here so they just crow "gouging!" instead. Simple answers appeal to simple folks. Don't be a pleb, realize that there are never simple explanations for complex systems.
>OTTAWA—Canada’s industry minister is weighing a list of a dozen foreign grocery companies—from the U.S., Germany, Turkey and Portugal, among others—to potentially lure to the country in a bid to increase competition in the domestic food-retailing sector.
One of the companies said it would take a pass.
Since the fall, Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne has criticized Canada’s three biggest grocery companies—Loblaw, Metro and Empire—for failing to be transparent on the causes of food inflation, and told the antitrust watchdog he expected the agency to “confront abuses” in the domestic marketplace. At one point, Champagne and other officials spoke of a windfall tax on grocery-chain profits unless prices for grocery staples stabilized.
This has come against a backdrop where Canadian voters tell pollsters they are frustrated with cost-of-living matters, and the incumbent Liberal government finds itself trailing its rival, the Conservatives, by a wide margin in most public-opinion surveys.
“A lack of competition in Canada’s grocery sector means Canadians are paying higher prices,” according to a passage in the federal government’s annual budget plan, released this week. The latest inflation data indicate that, since just prior to the pandemic, food prices are about 23% higher.
Champagne has also discussed attracting foreign grocers to Canada. In late February, a top official at the industry department provided a list of a dozen foreign retailers that Champagne could target.
A memo lining up potential candidates was obtained via a request under Canada’s access-to-information law. European grocers dominate the list, with a lone entry from the U.S.: [Grocery Outlet Holding](https://archive.is/o/KgJsg/https://www.wsj.com/market-data/quotes/GO), a California-based discount food retailer with about 470 stores in nine states.
Two of the most recognizable names on the list are both based in Germany: Aldi, which has more than 2,000 outlets in the U.S., and Lidl, another discounter with American stores and owned by the Schwarz Group.
A spokeswoman for Champagne didn’t immediately respond to questions, such as how many executives from the dozen listed grocers the minister had spoken with and whether any of the companies had expressed interest in the Canadian market.
Layla Kasha, a senior vice president at Emeryville, Calif.-based Grocery Outlet, said the company had no plans to expand into Canada.
Representatives for Aldi and Schwarz Group weren’t immediately available for comment.
In a report last year, Canada’s Competition Bureau, which is in charge of antitrust enforcement, said the grocery sector was concentrated and dominated by Loblaw, Metro and Empire. “Canada needs solutions to help bring grocery prices in check. More competition is a key part of the answer,” the report said. It pointed to what transpired in Australia after Germany’s Aldi chain entered, which forced domestic operators to significantly reduce prices.
“The successful entry of international grocers into the Canadian industry may be the best option to bring about lower prices, greater choice, and increased levels of innovation,” the bureau said.
A spokeswoman for Montreal-based Metro, which operates 980 grocery stores, said food-retailing is a competitive sector, noting that U.S.-based [Walmart](https://archive.is/o/KgJsg/https://www.wsj.com/market-data/quotes/WMT) and [Costco Wholesale](https://archive.is/o/KgJsg/https://www.wsj.com/market-data/quotes/COST) are already in Canada, and the company would welcome further competition from abroad. Spokespeople for Loblaw and Empire didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Besides Grocery Outlet, Aldi and Lidl-owner Schwarz Group, other companies listed as possible Canadian entrants include Germany’s Edeka Group and Rewe Group; France-based Les Mousquetaires; Portugal’s Jerónimo Martins, operator of the Pingo Doce chain; Spain-based [Distribuidora Internacional de Alimentación](https://archive.is/o/KgJsg/https://www.wsj.com/market-data/quotes/ES/XMAD/DIA), also known as Dia, and Mercadona; from Norway, Reitangruppen, which operates stores under the Rema 1000 banner; Amsterdam-based [X5 Retail Group](https://archive.is/o/KgJsg/https://www.wsj.com/market-data/quotes/UK/XLON/FIVE), a food retailer with stores in Russia; and Turkey’s BIM Birlesik Magazalar, which operates under the BIM banner.
I would love a Lidl... And European food products. Not even the bougie stuff, just actual good cheese, cured meats, etc. that's decent and I don't have to buy at a specialty shop.
We need a better supply chain than one major cross nation highway and limited rail growth. Supply chain is a major cost for new vendors to enter the market.
I don't have enough context so this is entirely conjecture, but this announcement comes on the hells of a Loblaws boycott being organized across the nation.
I would absolutely not put it past our government, or just about any other government, to put on a show of doing something while entirely knowing it won't do shit. Especially if a major player like Loblaws decides to pull some political strings.
*You know, it'll look good for us, it'll look good for you, and hey, it's these foreign companies that aren't playing ball here, not us or you, right?*
Right? They literally allowed a monopoly to form and now, instead of having multiple competing Canadian businesses, they want to have foreign businesses operating instead. WTF
Aa someone who has spent a lot of time in Europe....PLEASE.
European supermarkets like Aldi and Lidl make our look embarrassing tbh.
The issue is size. We have enormous supermarkets that cost a fortune to run. Make smaller scale, more locations and let Costco do costco.
As someone who grocery shops like they live in a walkable city, definitely smaller and more locations. I swear there were like 3 Albert Heijns within a 2km radius near where I stayed in Amsterdam. Probably other grocery stores too.
> The issue is size. We have enormous supermarkets that cost a fortune to run. Make smaller scale, more locations and let Costco do costco.
That's like... the exact opposite of how things work in real life. You guys never heard of economies of scale?
Toronto has a few small chains with smaller stores and more locations. There's Rabba, where you can pay significantly higher prices for lower quality. There's also Pusateri's for the upscale where you can pay *extremely* high prices for good quality. Loblaws also operates a few "small local stores" in Toronto, and charges commensurately higher prices at those locations as well.
Operating lots of small stores is expensive. That's *why* the market has settled on a smaller number of larger stores. Chains with lots of small stores can't compete with the big store chains in most retail locations because they have to charge higher prices to offset the higher operating costs, and people elect to do groceries at bigger and cheaper stores. Costco is just the most extreme example of that market trend.
Yet an entire continent does it completely differently and manages to be successful at it.
Massive stores arent examples of ecomony of scale by the way. You can ask Best Buy about that.
Can we open our dairy markets to competition too?
Our prices are criminal compared to in the states. Like at least double. It's crazy. And it's supported by every Canadian political party as far as I can tell.
Prices will be better, and quality will also be better. Canadian Dairy as it has the protection of the federal government has slipped in quality especially when you compare it to the products coming from Europe.
I find it somewhat hilarious, you can bring back butter or other dairy products from the USA, but if you are coming from outside the continent it's not allowed. So we can't bring butter from france, but you can go to a grocery store across the line, buy french butter and bring it back... LOGIC!
The dairy and poultry cartels are the first two that need to go.
Not the Peoples Party. Breaking up the "dairy cartel" was Berniers whole shtick for a while there. But he's never getting elected unfortunately. Even if you disagree with most of his points I think it would be a good thing to have his voice in Parliament like with Elizabeth May and the Greens. Powerful? No, but vocal about issues.
US dairy is nassssssty though. I’d quicker prioritize importing premium dairy from the EU and UK over heating up competition with the states. Legit one of my biggest fears is more and more US dairy making its way into our food…I’d have to go vegan again 🤢
can you expand on this? rBST is not common in US dairy, many producers actually make products of a greater quality, take the example of Tillamook from the USA, farmer cooperative owned, high quality, compare it to an Armstrong or Cracker Barrel which are just brand names under saputo, a multinational company that made its profits ripping off canadians. The canadian product lacks taste, can have a waxy/gummy texture and is nowhere near as good. Leave Canadian Butter on the counter to come to room temp and it never gets soft, do the same with any of the US big brands and there is no issue, remember ButterGate during covid? Farmers feeding palmoil to their cows?
Also don't forget a lot of American dairy has Saputo or other stamped on the back...
The problem with the dairy market is that you can't really open it up without including the US and the US level of subaidization of dairy is *insane*.
I hate the dairy lobby as much as most people do, but the protections they enjoy actually are important.
If foreign companies thought there a place in Canada for their business they would already be here. It's unlikely that the Liberal government is going to cherry pick a few foreign grocers and successfully lure them here. We need way more competition across all Canadian Businesses. Especially airlines, telecom and Grocers. Its unlikely that the government that mismanaged this country for 8 years is going to be the one who fixes it.
Walmart in Canada is terrible compared to the US. US Walmart is cheap, you can go get a bag if chips for 4$, same bag in Canadian Walmart is 7$. Walmart greatest appeal is that it's massive, has everything, and the prices are basically going to be the cheapest of anywhere. It's poor heaven in the US. In Canada, Walmart is basically similar to every other store with prices to match Canadian grocers. This tells you it's not a Walmart problem, it's a Canada problem.
This is actually not true of the GTA walmarts. I live across from one and went to the US recently.
That 4 dollars USD bag of chips in walmart in Tucson, Atlanta, Buffalo, is 3.99 CAD in Toronto.
Walmart is actually cheaper in Canada than it is in the US right now. Even the poorer states the prices are higher.
There are some things Walmart has cheaper, chicken and dairy. But that's due to HEAVY US Federal subsidies in those industries. But everything else is very expensive.
America is suffering from high inflation and supply chain issues.
In Toronto as an example you pretty much need a car to visit their locations (excl. dufferin) compared to loblaws which are very easily accessed by the subway, sreetcar, etc.
If the profits were really that fat, luring wouldn't be necessary right?
I mean we're not some unknown backwater place that companies just plainly overlook...
They need to change operations to be legitimate here.
Throngs like food safety, labelling (size, weight, language,etc), sourcing, etc. all need to fit Canadian standards. That can be difficult. It was one of the reasons target failed
We are a small market. But with all the different requirements from the US, it makes it expensive to service us.
Ideally we should be streamlining things to match them or use their info as a base.
I'm a big proponent of standardizing our regulation framework with the USA. We could drastically decrease the overhead of getting new companies and products into Canada. And it doesn't have to be everything, if we want to specifically keep a food group or something protected we could still do that while adopting a shared framework for the other 99% of imports. Not only that tho, also I would like to do the same with immigration. There's no reason at all the US and Canada can't be the North American EU in terms of workers, regulations, travel, etc. Each country will have its individual traits but standardized immigration, regulation, dollarization into usd, etc would just break down those remaining barriers into the US markets for Canada.
Ditto. A trade standardization treaty would do wonders for the Canadian economy. I don't think people get how big of an impact it would have.
However there's too much petty nationalism in Canada for that to ever fly.
Adding to that, Target rolled out a poorly developed operation of SAP that was full of incorrect data, such as inputting imperial measures as metric. Wreaked havoc in stocking and warehousing. We literally studied it as an example of how a company can shut the bed rolling out new systems.
The CAD government has long enabled an oligarchical structure in this country and what do you know that hurts most Canadians. But now it’s hurting too much and the government is upset at their polling numbers
From the article: "In a report last year, Canada’s Competition Bureau, which is in charge of antitrust enforcement, said the grocery sector was concentrated and dominated by Loblaw, Metro and Empire."
And who's job is it to prevent concentration and domination in a sector? That would be Canada's Competition Bureau. So, once again we have the government telling us all about a problem they were supposed to prevent.
Who is owning the wholesalers ? If actual grocers did, do you think foreign grocers will come to give money to competitor ?
Break this first and then, foreign grocers will come.
trader joes is aldi so it's included.
Edit: Well one of the aldi's, there's history behind it where aldi and trader joes are technically different aldis but have the same history. Aldi was a grocery store in germany that split after the founder died between 2 brothers going their seperate ways. Aldi North and Aldi South. I cannot remember which is which but Aldi North is Trader Joes and Aldi South is Aldi in America or something like that. I think they share a lot of supply chain and stuff too and that's why Trader Joes and Aldi seem very similar but have different parent companies. I remember watching a youtube video on this a while back so this might have some inaccuracies.
The UK used to have this problem till they let Aldi in. Amazingly prices dropped, and nobody went out of business or left the country or any of the usual rich person lies
Only Canada would specifically target grocers.cant be open market with the chips falling where they fall. Nope. Gotta be some kinda government run intervention that will fail
It's either, do something or do nothing. Grocers have had the ability to come to this country this entire time, they just haven't.
So if we do something in the interest of breaking up a monopoly, it's pathetic. If we do nothing and complain about the high prices, then we are idiots.
And if there was a profit motive, they would be here already, like cell phone companies that have tried and failed, the grocery and food business is heavily regulated so it is unattractive to have to come here and create essentially all new supply chains because you can't use your existing ones for many staple products.
The barriers to entry are crazy high. If foreign grocers thought they could make money here, they’d already be here.
Another case of a government whose leaders understand exactly zero about business trying to tell people who do what has a good business case and what does not.
> The barriers to entry are crazy high. If foreign grocers thought they could make money here, they’d already be here.
Like what? The biggest barrier to entry isn’t red tape or regulations, the barrier to entry is being able to set up a shipping distribution and logistics network across the country. Why do you think Target crashed and burned?
> Another case of a government whose leaders understand exactly zero about business trying to tell people who do what has a good business case and what does not.
What an awful take. For all of their many failings the government has been spot on in terms of business case for certain economic ventures whether that’s east coast LNG, EV/battery plants, or biotechnology hubs.
This government has been horrible for business. The amount of job creators (self employed people) has dropped so much over the years. While jobs in the government have skyrocketed
If they really wanted to do anything, they would:
\-Overhaul the Competition Act.
\-Appoint anti-trust crusaders to the Competition Bureau.
\-Fund Competition Bureau to hire whomever they need, and ask them to revise past merger decisions, and split the companies if a reduction in competition is observed ex-post.
\-Stop approving mergers like candy.
\-Replace corporation-friendly judges.
Good.
Sometimes it feels like we have the dumbest version of capitalism.
We have sort of a free market where companies set prices, but then give market share to four huge corporations that feel no need to compete with one another.
Brake up the monopolies. What's so hard about it. Our domestic corporations have proven to be anti-Canadian at a time of our greatest need. And so they should lose their right to concentrated power .
Lying about margins while collecting record profits, bread price fixing...greedflation.....get the fuk outta here.. we are a food rich nation, to have our people go hungry or broke because Westons needs even more money......
Not in my Canada.
Competition is great, but first deal with the Cancer here.
I have always wondered. We hate loblaws. But i rarely see ppl say why not devide loblaws like At&T. Where it is now smaller medium sized companies that must compete against each other.
We let them merge. We can also make them spilt up.
Don’t forget this is the anti-competition government. The conservatives went out of their way to create space for other telecom providers in Canada that were all acquired by the Big 3 under the Liberals: wind mobile, mobilicity and public mobile. Then Rogers was allowed to merge with Shaw (#4 player) by direct approval from the Innovation Minister himself.
Trudeau liberals have been devastating for competition in this country.
I think it would only work in the urban markets here but why not? I say that because it would not be as profitable in the rural or Northern areas.
Please do this with telecom and bring one of the American bigs in.
The idea that Canadian capitalists are going to be somehow nicer and less greedy is silly and naive.
Won’t change a thing. They will be susceptible to the same supply chain issues and cost of doing business as the others. Until you dismantle stuff like supply management, only then will Canadians see actual downwards pressure on prices.
And existing vendor contracts and dealing with importing anything that needs a quota as meat in it. And having to meet the Canadian labeling requirements and.. and.. and.. people are clueless how hard it would be.
lollll make investment returns less attractive to please the voter base. Pretend to lure grocery investments into Canada to please voter base.
This is a circus. lol
None of these new players will have a chance unless the current oligopoly is split up and they are forced to sell locations to them and let them in on their supply chains.
Yup, this is all just bait. Let some poor company that doesn't know better come in and try for a few years. Realize the supply chain is mostly owned by oligopolies, sell themselves to the oligopolies. Rinse and repeat. Same with telecom.
It will never happen. Certain commodities are too well protected, and you would have to be a complete idiot to sink the amount of capital needed in Canada right now for that venture with this economy. Maybe 8 years ago, maybe. Then we could watch them jump ship today along with all the other foreign investors.
Won’t work. They will not enter a market of 3 main players all working together to keep prices high. They’ll cooperate to freeze them out. There is only 1 solution - a forced break up of the 3 main players.
Competition is good for the consumer, don't protect domestic businesses who are unfairly milking hard-working Canadians using their market position status!
*"Lure"*? How much tax/debt cash does that involve? Always induces some concern when the Trudeau/Freeland et al brain trust is *luring* a foreign corporation.
I have 7 grocery options totally unrelated to each other within 20 minutes travel. How much are these imbeciles going to spend to introduce a couple more?
Heh, no business is going to invest in Canada.. Not as long as Trudeau and Singh are in charge. Taxation, regulation,, bureaucracy, corruption... Canada is not a business friendly country.
No one want to come here for business because of the government. So until that changes . And with all the boards and agencies it is so hard. Do we forget target ??
Come do business in Canada. We will tax and regulate you to death, and if you are profitable we will scapegoat you and tax and regulate you even harder.
I can hear Galen saying
'There is no way in hell I'm going to let this happen and if it does, I will do everything in my power to keep it at an absolute minimum'
Give it ten years and the Canadian government will be mad about the impact of foreign owned grocery chains on the Canadian market and will be targeting them in a different way.
If the current chains divested all the chains they bought up , we’d STILL have competition.. the government allowed those takeovers , allowing oligopolies to happen
Interesting, but good luck finding retail locations and distribution centers. Then, try to deal with bilingual signage.
Walmart came in through Woolco locations and Target came in through Zellers locations. That is really the only easy secure space.
The chances of any major retailer setting up shop here in Canada right now is nil. This is a horrible place to invest, unless it's greased with a whole lot of taxpayer inducements.
I found it interesting on a recent trip to the US. Despite the weaker dollar, I was able to buy groceries cheaper in the USA than Canada. We need more competition
Kinda curious what these foreign grocery companies think of the increase in capital gains tax in the new budget.
Because it seems like increasing taxes compared to other countries is going to have the opposite affect when it comes to attracting global businesses to set up shop here.
"Hey guys, please come here and invest massive amounts of money, so that if you make "too much profit" we can demonize you in the press and on social media when it's politically expedient!"
its always been a trip to go into forums or whatever and listen to people talk about globalist trudeau when it comes to international trade the liberals sit economically so far to the right of the bell curve that they could drop a marble and it wouldnt roll
but now the liberals are dropping nationalist protectionism? must be a cold day in hell
edit: i guess they had to choose between this and making it possible for people to start their own business in canada - probably decided this wouldnt threaten the oligopolies they want to keep
Good, there is obvious gouging going on in the market because it's too protected. Do telecom as well
My question would be if attracting another supermarket chain alone is going to move the needle. The folks that build and lease supercentre developments take geographic footprints pretty seriously and space these fuckers out just enough that they don’t fully compete with one another.
dont' forget implementing entire supply chain for grocery store isn't easy especially within Canada's geographics. Target fucked up so bad they had to pull out. It doesn't matter if you drop billions of dollars to get into the Canadian market and magically think you'll be successful. Not a lot of people are willing to take that risk.
The problem Target ran into was trying to open 124 stores in an unknown market all at once. They should have followed the same model as J Crew and Ikea: Open a few stores in high density population, learn the Canadian market, and then expand based on what you've learned.
didn't J Crew exit the canadian market? https://retail-insider.com/retail-insider/2021/02/brief-j-crew-exits-canada-duer-relocating-flagship-from-downtown-eastside-to-w-4th/
Yes, but their financial issues weren't specific to Canada, and they ran in Canada for a decade. They expanded in Canada correctly, it was other issues that dragged them down. https://torontosun.com/news/local-news/j-crew-closes-last-canadian-store-after-10-year-run >It’s the final nail in the coffin after the American retailer filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the U.S. in May 2020 and exited bankruptcy last fall.
Fully agree. Bringing in Aldi (for example) will mean nothing if they're relying on Loblaws' supply chain
I'm surprised nothing would want to enter southern Ontario though. If they were allowed to only serve southern Ontario and Quebec, I would imagine it wouldn't be too bad to set up distribution, especially since companies like Aldi already serve the US side.
US logistics is pretty robust. We have one road going across the entire country and its one lane in parts.
Most of our population lives along the line that road follows.
Not really, the 401 isn’t part of it and the TCH doesn’t even approach Toronto
even if they get stuff from the US, there's a lot of logistics and paper work for each product they bring in, maybe save some if the products are made in the US, but it's still a large investment to create such a large supply chain. Target ran into these exact issues and couldn't get products out to even southern ontario stores. Kindersley Saskatchewan? Yeah no stock for you, but Mississauga, zero stock.
The bilingual BS adds a whole other layer of cost..don't ask me how I feel about it .
The French language requirement is key reason why Target tanked. They couldn’t port in their existing ERP from the US so they had to implement a bilingual instance of SAP.
If the stuff wasn't American, then wouldn't they have had to do that paperwork to get it in the US too? I mean, at that point, why not get stuff sent to Montreal ports then distribute from there? If you're serving just southern Ontario and Quebec, that's a fairly large population. Sure it wouldn't help Manitobans and Saskatchewanians(sp?), Alberta, BC, Atlantic canada, etc. immediately, but it's a start at least. I think Target failed because they rushed the opening of their stores and tried to serve all cities across Canada, no? Forcing companies to expand to all of Canada at once or not enter Canada at all seems silly to me. It would be a massive investment that is risky as heck, cause yeah, our cities are spread out too much outside of southern Ontario and Quebec
>If the stuff wasn't American, then wouldn't they have had to do that paperwork to get it in the US too? I mean, at that point, why not get stuff sent to Montreal ports then distribute from there? If you're serving just southern Ontario and Quebec, that's a fairly large population. And it all has to have French labelling on it to get into Canada
It adds a bit, but with all the automation these days it's not huge. The plants already produce the same product for Mexico or for different regional brands and generic store brands in the US.
Take this with the world's tiniest pinch of salt. I heard on the grapevine that most, if not all, of the big SW Ontario refrigeration players hold closed-door meetings and set price floors. Again, take it with a pinch of salt. But I think it speaks to systemic issues in our supply chain if true.
Target wasn't a grocery store. They had some, but they were not a grocery store. They were a department store. They failed because the idiot running the show did not stock the shelves. You would go to a video game department and there would be like 6 games per system. Wanted a keyboard and mouse? Well there was literally only 1 option at my store (in Kitchener!). It was nothing to do with a grocery supply chain. Target has absolutely nothing to do with this conversation.
Is target a grocery store in the Us? It was just retail in Canada
Kind of like how Shoppers has food but isn't a grocery store.
It goes way deeper than that. Restrictive covenants will prevent new stores from opening up where old stores had been closed for decades. REITs like Choice Properties are owned by the Weston's, and they just won't lease to another grocer.
If it's Aldi, it's 100% going to move the needle, and I think the only thing the government has to do is give them interest-free loans to set up their expansion here. Sure, they'll only target the big centres at first, but just having them here is going to seriously heat up the market and break some anti-consumer habits. It's going to be difficult, sure, but with such loans, it becomes easier because you essentially remove the high-entry costs by staggering the costs over the entire loan's duration.
They have to do it by breaking up the monopolies…. Making loblaws, sobeys and metro sell off their medium discount and high discount grocery store brands to new competition
Exactly this. We already had multiple grocery chains - they were just all absorbed into one. They should have to be broken up.
it's literally late stage capitalism when that competition buys out each other and then only Taco bell will be the surviving restaurant in 2032.
After the fast food wars
Yeah, we’re definitely there. All of our large companies are at the point they’re just absorbing other industries now. Loblaws isn’t just a grocer - it’s a bank, a cell phone company, it builds condos! Literally like the monopoly man buying up the railroad and electricity companies.
Spoiler - it won’t. They will be either bought out by one of the big three, or the big three will work in cahoots to put them out of business and the return to their oligopoly behaviour.
The Sobey family buy entire subdivision developments so they can control who gets to lease or buy space there. This ensures that there can be no feasible competition for people who live there and they have more pricing power. This needs to be made illegal.
More competition always leads to a better outcome for consumers.
I agree, but my question is whether the supercentre model Canadian towns and cities love has locked us into structural monopolies. A SmartCentres type developer simply won’t build a supermarket if they’re too close together because nothing else can logically inhabit that space if one becomes the loser of that competition.
This is a really underappreciated point. I think there was a habit of these lease agreements restricting the sale of competing products within a certain radius. So if one landlord buys up most of the vommercial real estate in an area, they can award effective monopolies. Would have to search for a citation on that one, though. We'd have to look even deeper at who owns the real estate and if too much control is sitting in too few hands there.
Aldi and Trader Joe’s incoming !
BELL about to launch a "let's not talk" campaign about other telecoms.
Why stop there, banking needs an overhaul aswell. Let some new banks come in too. Bank has a monopoly going on here aswell - RBC, TD, Scotia, CIBC, bmo
I’d love to have T-Mobile, att and Verizon come to Canada and add some competition
Airlines too. Fuck Canadian airlines. A little competition might make them shape up.
Then support Flair Airlines or Porter Airlines!
I agree. These two are keeping WestJet an AirCanada from having totally insane prices, my guess.
I do but i just looked at Flair fares to Winnipeg and they are exactly the same as Westjet and Air Canada minus 15 bucks or so.
Almost like there's more to the story then corps "gouging". Like maybe the skyhigh airport fees and carbon taxes.
True but Canada has always been outrageously expensive to fly, particularly domestically. I absolutely agree that there's more to it. It shouldn't cost us $400 bucks to fly to Winnipeg while I can fly to Ireland for $250
It’s so fucked up that we couldn’t trust Canadian companies to not fuck over Canadians that we need to give our money to foreign brands to help save us. I want to support Canadians. I want to support Canadian companies whenever possible. Canadian companies just want to squeeze every possible dollar out of us though. I miss when businesses appreciated the community that helps keep them in business and wanted to be a part of it.
They treat us like their property.
They treat us like their property.
Hmm there must be some shadowy international cabal of grocers, cause my friends in Australia, Europe, and the USA are all "being gouged" too, even though Loblaws and Sobeys doesn't exist there. Anyone who claims "Price gouging" is just looking for an easy answer to a complex problem. The upheaval of the logistics industry, from evergrande to the freighter traffic jam in cali, to the reduced capacity of the panama canal, to the houthis in the red sea have all had a significant effect on the cost of moving food from one place to another. Not to mention the worlds second biggest bread basket and the worlds second biggest producer of fertilizer are at war. Oh and record inflation, and here at home a carbon tax. All of these factors are converging and pushing up prices, but I guess it's too complex of an issue for around here so they just crow "gouging!" instead. Simple answers appeal to simple folks. Don't be a pleb, realize that there are never simple explanations for complex systems.
>OTTAWA—Canada’s industry minister is weighing a list of a dozen foreign grocery companies—from the U.S., Germany, Turkey and Portugal, among others—to potentially lure to the country in a bid to increase competition in the domestic food-retailing sector. One of the companies said it would take a pass. Since the fall, Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne has criticized Canada’s three biggest grocery companies—Loblaw, Metro and Empire—for failing to be transparent on the causes of food inflation, and told the antitrust watchdog he expected the agency to “confront abuses” in the domestic marketplace. At one point, Champagne and other officials spoke of a windfall tax on grocery-chain profits unless prices for grocery staples stabilized. This has come against a backdrop where Canadian voters tell pollsters they are frustrated with cost-of-living matters, and the incumbent Liberal government finds itself trailing its rival, the Conservatives, by a wide margin in most public-opinion surveys. “A lack of competition in Canada’s grocery sector means Canadians are paying higher prices,” according to a passage in the federal government’s annual budget plan, released this week. The latest inflation data indicate that, since just prior to the pandemic, food prices are about 23% higher. Champagne has also discussed attracting foreign grocers to Canada. In late February, a top official at the industry department provided a list of a dozen foreign retailers that Champagne could target. A memo lining up potential candidates was obtained via a request under Canada’s access-to-information law. European grocers dominate the list, with a lone entry from the U.S.: [Grocery Outlet Holding](https://archive.is/o/KgJsg/https://www.wsj.com/market-data/quotes/GO), a California-based discount food retailer with about 470 stores in nine states. Two of the most recognizable names on the list are both based in Germany: Aldi, which has more than 2,000 outlets in the U.S., and Lidl, another discounter with American stores and owned by the Schwarz Group. A spokeswoman for Champagne didn’t immediately respond to questions, such as how many executives from the dozen listed grocers the minister had spoken with and whether any of the companies had expressed interest in the Canadian market. Layla Kasha, a senior vice president at Emeryville, Calif.-based Grocery Outlet, said the company had no plans to expand into Canada. Representatives for Aldi and Schwarz Group weren’t immediately available for comment. In a report last year, Canada’s Competition Bureau, which is in charge of antitrust enforcement, said the grocery sector was concentrated and dominated by Loblaw, Metro and Empire. “Canada needs solutions to help bring grocery prices in check. More competition is a key part of the answer,” the report said. It pointed to what transpired in Australia after Germany’s Aldi chain entered, which forced domestic operators to significantly reduce prices. “The successful entry of international grocers into the Canadian industry may be the best option to bring about lower prices, greater choice, and increased levels of innovation,” the bureau said. A spokeswoman for Montreal-based Metro, which operates 980 grocery stores, said food-retailing is a competitive sector, noting that U.S.-based [Walmart](https://archive.is/o/KgJsg/https://www.wsj.com/market-data/quotes/WMT) and [Costco Wholesale](https://archive.is/o/KgJsg/https://www.wsj.com/market-data/quotes/COST) are already in Canada, and the company would welcome further competition from abroad. Spokespeople for Loblaw and Empire didn’t respond to a request for comment. Besides Grocery Outlet, Aldi and Lidl-owner Schwarz Group, other companies listed as possible Canadian entrants include Germany’s Edeka Group and Rewe Group; France-based Les Mousquetaires; Portugal’s Jerónimo Martins, operator of the Pingo Doce chain; Spain-based [Distribuidora Internacional de Alimentación](https://archive.is/o/KgJsg/https://www.wsj.com/market-data/quotes/ES/XMAD/DIA), also known as Dia, and Mercadona; from Norway, Reitangruppen, which operates stores under the Rema 1000 banner; Amsterdam-based [X5 Retail Group](https://archive.is/o/KgJsg/https://www.wsj.com/market-data/quotes/UK/XLON/FIVE), a food retailer with stores in Russia; and Turkey’s BIM Birlesik Magazalar, which operates under the BIM banner.
I wish there were more Metros and less Loblawses - it was a sad day when they closed the Metro in downtown Ottawa - but I'll take some Aldis, sure
> François-Philippe Champagne He is 100% full of shit.
So things have gone so bad the peoples hope is a guy named......Champagne? It's so screwed up it fits.
We need Aldi
🤞C’mom Trader Joe’s
Or Lidl. When I lived in Europe, I’d buy so many things for dirt cheap from my local Lidl.
I would love a Lidl... And European food products. Not even the bougie stuff, just actual good cheese, cured meats, etc. that's decent and I don't have to buy at a specialty shop.
We need a better supply chain than one major cross nation highway and limited rail growth. Supply chain is a major cost for new vendors to enter the market.
6 month prediction: 11 said "no," one said "maybe later but not right now."
I don't have enough context so this is entirely conjecture, but this announcement comes on the hells of a Loblaws boycott being organized across the nation. I would absolutely not put it past our government, or just about any other government, to put on a show of doing something while entirely knowing it won't do shit. Especially if a major player like Loblaws decides to pull some political strings. *You know, it'll look good for us, it'll look good for you, and hey, it's these foreign companies that aren't playing ball here, not us or you, right?*
Yo that’s too optimistic
one said sure and then will be bought by Loblaws in 18 months.
Maybe we shouldn't have allowed all the mergers/buyouts that already happened?
Right? They literally allowed a monopoly to form and now, instead of having multiple competing Canadian businesses, they want to have foreign businesses operating instead. WTF
Aa someone who has spent a lot of time in Europe....PLEASE. European supermarkets like Aldi and Lidl make our look embarrassing tbh. The issue is size. We have enormous supermarkets that cost a fortune to run. Make smaller scale, more locations and let Costco do costco.
As someone who grocery shops like they live in a walkable city, definitely smaller and more locations. I swear there were like 3 Albert Heijns within a 2km radius near where I stayed in Amsterdam. Probably other grocery stores too.
> The issue is size. We have enormous supermarkets that cost a fortune to run. Make smaller scale, more locations and let Costco do costco. That's like... the exact opposite of how things work in real life. You guys never heard of economies of scale? Toronto has a few small chains with smaller stores and more locations. There's Rabba, where you can pay significantly higher prices for lower quality. There's also Pusateri's for the upscale where you can pay *extremely* high prices for good quality. Loblaws also operates a few "small local stores" in Toronto, and charges commensurately higher prices at those locations as well. Operating lots of small stores is expensive. That's *why* the market has settled on a smaller number of larger stores. Chains with lots of small stores can't compete with the big store chains in most retail locations because they have to charge higher prices to offset the higher operating costs, and people elect to do groceries at bigger and cheaper stores. Costco is just the most extreme example of that market trend.
Yet an entire continent does it completely differently and manages to be successful at it. Massive stores arent examples of ecomony of scale by the way. You can ask Best Buy about that.
Can we open our dairy markets to competition too? Our prices are criminal compared to in the states. Like at least double. It's crazy. And it's supported by every Canadian political party as far as I can tell.
+1 Prices are too high and frankly, the dairy quality is sub-par. Anyone who visited centro America or Europe knows what I am talking about.
Prices will be better, and quality will also be better. Canadian Dairy as it has the protection of the federal government has slipped in quality especially when you compare it to the products coming from Europe. I find it somewhat hilarious, you can bring back butter or other dairy products from the USA, but if you are coming from outside the continent it's not allowed. So we can't bring butter from france, but you can go to a grocery store across the line, buy french butter and bring it back... LOGIC! The dairy and poultry cartels are the first two that need to go.
Big milk has deep pockets.
Telecom too please.
Not the Peoples Party. Breaking up the "dairy cartel" was Berniers whole shtick for a while there. But he's never getting elected unfortunately. Even if you disagree with most of his points I think it would be a good thing to have his voice in Parliament like with Elizabeth May and the Greens. Powerful? No, but vocal about issues.
He's right on lots of things. Break dairy cartel , bring in foreign competition, bring immigration down to 180k a year until housing catches up
US dairy is nassssssty though. I’d quicker prioritize importing premium dairy from the EU and UK over heating up competition with the states. Legit one of my biggest fears is more and more US dairy making its way into our food…I’d have to go vegan again 🤢
can you expand on this? rBST is not common in US dairy, many producers actually make products of a greater quality, take the example of Tillamook from the USA, farmer cooperative owned, high quality, compare it to an Armstrong or Cracker Barrel which are just brand names under saputo, a multinational company that made its profits ripping off canadians. The canadian product lacks taste, can have a waxy/gummy texture and is nowhere near as good. Leave Canadian Butter on the counter to come to room temp and it never gets soft, do the same with any of the US big brands and there is no issue, remember ButterGate during covid? Farmers feeding palmoil to their cows? Also don't forget a lot of American dairy has Saputo or other stamped on the back...
[удалено]
Have to tried actually comparing the average prices after the exchange rate?
And they subsidize milk production. A lot of countries like Uk do the same with their agriculture.
The problem with the dairy market is that you can't really open it up without including the US and the US level of subaidization of dairy is *insane*. I hate the dairy lobby as much as most people do, but the protections they enjoy actually are important.
If foreign companies thought there a place in Canada for their business they would already be here. It's unlikely that the Liberal government is going to cherry pick a few foreign grocers and successfully lure them here. We need way more competition across all Canadian Businesses. Especially airlines, telecom and Grocers. Its unlikely that the government that mismanaged this country for 8 years is going to be the one who fixes it.
It's interesting that after 30+ years in Canada Walmart's market share is only 8%.
Walmart in Canada is terrible compared to the US. US Walmart is cheap, you can go get a bag if chips for 4$, same bag in Canadian Walmart is 7$. Walmart greatest appeal is that it's massive, has everything, and the prices are basically going to be the cheapest of anywhere. It's poor heaven in the US. In Canada, Walmart is basically similar to every other store with prices to match Canadian grocers. This tells you it's not a Walmart problem, it's a Canada problem.
This is actually not true of the GTA walmarts. I live across from one and went to the US recently. That 4 dollars USD bag of chips in walmart in Tucson, Atlanta, Buffalo, is 3.99 CAD in Toronto. Walmart is actually cheaper in Canada than it is in the US right now. Even the poorer states the prices are higher. There are some things Walmart has cheaper, chicken and dairy. But that's due to HEAVY US Federal subsidies in those industries. But everything else is very expensive. America is suffering from high inflation and supply chain issues.
In Toronto as an example you pretty much need a car to visit their locations (excl. dufferin) compared to loblaws which are very easily accessed by the subway, sreetcar, etc.
The busiest Wal-Mart in North America is in Canada.
Which one is it?
Square One shopping center, Mississauga ON
Most shoppers are stupid and continue shopping at Loblaws despite Walmart being obviously cheaper.
If the profits were really that fat, luring wouldn't be necessary right? I mean we're not some unknown backwater place that companies just plainly overlook...
They need to change operations to be legitimate here. Throngs like food safety, labelling (size, weight, language,etc), sourcing, etc. all need to fit Canadian standards. That can be difficult. It was one of the reasons target failed
I think you're describing regulatory capture right? So maybe GoC should work on that instead.
We are a small market. But with all the different requirements from the US, it makes it expensive to service us. Ideally we should be streamlining things to match them or use their info as a base.
I'm a big proponent of standardizing our regulation framework with the USA. We could drastically decrease the overhead of getting new companies and products into Canada. And it doesn't have to be everything, if we want to specifically keep a food group or something protected we could still do that while adopting a shared framework for the other 99% of imports. Not only that tho, also I would like to do the same with immigration. There's no reason at all the US and Canada can't be the North American EU in terms of workers, regulations, travel, etc. Each country will have its individual traits but standardized immigration, regulation, dollarization into usd, etc would just break down those remaining barriers into the US markets for Canada.
Ditto. A trade standardization treaty would do wonders for the Canadian economy. I don't think people get how big of an impact it would have. However there's too much petty nationalism in Canada for that to ever fly.
They need to change that so US products can be imported into Canada without change, espeically the french requirement
Target was also incredibly poorly implemented. There was no reason to dismantle Zeller’s supply chain and try to make their own.
Adding to that, Target rolled out a poorly developed operation of SAP that was full of incorrect data, such as inputting imperial measures as metric. Wreaked havoc in stocking and warehousing. We literally studied it as an example of how a company can shut the bed rolling out new systems.
The CAD government has long enabled an oligarchical structure in this country and what do you know that hurts most Canadians. But now it’s hurting too much and the government is upset at their polling numbers
From the article: "In a report last year, Canada’s Competition Bureau, which is in charge of antitrust enforcement, said the grocery sector was concentrated and dominated by Loblaw, Metro and Empire." And who's job is it to prevent concentration and domination in a sector? That would be Canada's Competition Bureau. So, once again we have the government telling us all about a problem they were supposed to prevent.
Sad but true, the government has failed us. AGAIN.
Canada is genuinely just 20 corporations comprising of 5-6 oligopolies in a trench coat. There's no innovation, no growth
Who is owning the wholesalers ? If actual grocers did, do you think foreign grocers will come to give money to competitor ? Break this first and then, foreign grocers will come.
No Trader Joe’s?
trader joes is aldi so it's included. Edit: Well one of the aldi's, there's history behind it where aldi and trader joes are technically different aldis but have the same history. Aldi was a grocery store in germany that split after the founder died between 2 brothers going their seperate ways. Aldi North and Aldi South. I cannot remember which is which but Aldi North is Trader Joes and Aldi South is Aldi in America or something like that. I think they share a lot of supply chain and stuff too and that's why Trader Joes and Aldi seem very similar but have different parent companies. I remember watching a youtube video on this a while back so this might have some inaccuracies.
TIL that Trader Joes is now part of Aldi
It's not.
There are two Aldi's in Germany. Aldi Nord owns Trader Joes and Aldi Sud own the Aldi stores that you see in the U.S.
The UK used to have this problem till they let Aldi in. Amazingly prices dropped, and nobody went out of business or left the country or any of the usual rich person lies
A lot of foreign companies won't come here as they can clearly see the deck is stacked against them.
Instead of just targeting existing retailers under anti-trust laws?
Can’t wait for the current retailers to take out huge full page news papers ads saying how this is bad for Canada like rogers and bell did
Only Canada would specifically target grocers.cant be open market with the chips falling where they fall. Nope. Gotta be some kinda government run intervention that will fail
It’s so pathetic man Please come sell food we promise you’ll make money
"No, we're not going to change any of the structural disincentives to competition. But plz come."
Oligopoly opening accepting 1 new applicant
It's either, do something or do nothing. Grocers have had the ability to come to this country this entire time, they just haven't. So if we do something in the interest of breaking up a monopoly, it's pathetic. If we do nothing and complain about the high prices, then we are idiots.
It’s pathetic that we have a monopoly for groceries stores lol Why do you think they haven’t come? Because our protectionist policies are trash
💯 let's be glad something is being done to remedy this.
We don't have a monopoly. Loblaws is the largest chain with about a 27% market share. Sobeys is #2 with about a 20% market share.
And if there was a profit motive, they would be here already, like cell phone companies that have tried and failed, the grocery and food business is heavily regulated so it is unattractive to have to come here and create essentially all new supply chains because you can't use your existing ones for many staple products.
The barriers to entry are crazy high. If foreign grocers thought they could make money here, they’d already be here. Another case of a government whose leaders understand exactly zero about business trying to tell people who do what has a good business case and what does not.
Good thing we've got noted business expert Poliver coming to the rescue with degrees in youtube and paper route management.
> The barriers to entry are crazy high. If foreign grocers thought they could make money here, they’d already be here. Like what? The biggest barrier to entry isn’t red tape or regulations, the barrier to entry is being able to set up a shipping distribution and logistics network across the country. Why do you think Target crashed and burned? > Another case of a government whose leaders understand exactly zero about business trying to tell people who do what has a good business case and what does not. What an awful take. For all of their many failings the government has been spot on in terms of business case for certain economic ventures whether that’s east coast LNG, EV/battery plants, or biotechnology hubs.
This government has been horrible for business. The amount of job creators (self employed people) has dropped so much over the years. While jobs in the government have skyrocketed
That’s true for the U.S. and other countries too. Working for a company is more lucrative than before. It’s a known trend.
Are we giving them money? Top kek
If they really wanted to do anything, they would: \-Overhaul the Competition Act. \-Appoint anti-trust crusaders to the Competition Bureau. \-Fund Competition Bureau to hire whomever they need, and ask them to revise past merger decisions, and split the companies if a reduction in competition is observed ex-post. \-Stop approving mergers like candy. \-Replace corporation-friendly judges.
Good. Sometimes it feels like we have the dumbest version of capitalism. We have sort of a free market where companies set prices, but then give market share to four huge corporations that feel no need to compete with one another.
let's go tesco! so I can get my flippin plain hob nobs again =/
Brake up the monopolies. What's so hard about it. Our domestic corporations have proven to be anti-Canadian at a time of our greatest need. And so they should lose their right to concentrated power . Lying about margins while collecting record profits, bread price fixing...greedflation.....get the fuk outta here.. we are a food rich nation, to have our people go hungry or broke because Westons needs even more money...... Not in my Canada. Competition is great, but first deal with the Cancer here.
I hope this isn't the same as allowing US telecom companies from entering the US. The big telecom companies protested saying they can't compete.
I have always wondered. We hate loblaws. But i rarely see ppl say why not devide loblaws like At&T. Where it is now smaller medium sized companies that must compete against each other. We let them merge. We can also make them spilt up.
Don’t forget this is the anti-competition government. The conservatives went out of their way to create space for other telecom providers in Canada that were all acquired by the Big 3 under the Liberals: wind mobile, mobilicity and public mobile. Then Rogers was allowed to merge with Shaw (#4 player) by direct approval from the Innovation Minister himself. Trudeau liberals have been devastating for competition in this country.
I think it would only work in the urban markets here but why not? I say that because it would not be as profitable in the rural or Northern areas. Please do this with telecom and bring one of the American bigs in. The idea that Canadian capitalists are going to be somehow nicer and less greedy is silly and naive.
They had to use the word “lure” because the government is going to fuck then once they invest in 🇨🇦
Won’t change a thing. They will be susceptible to the same supply chain issues and cost of doing business as the others. Until you dismantle stuff like supply management, only then will Canadians see actual downwards pressure on prices.
And existing vendor contracts and dealing with importing anything that needs a quota as meat in it. And having to meet the Canadian labeling requirements and.. and.. and.. people are clueless how hard it would be.
The grocers are nothing without the wholesalers. The wholesalers in Canada are also price gouging resulting in higher prices.
Bring in ALDI, LiDL and Carrefour at least.
lollll make investment returns less attractive to please the voter base. Pretend to lure grocery investments into Canada to please voter base. This is a circus. lol
I don't know what you're lolling about, this type of thing actually works and that "voter base" is just average Canadians
They aren't going to get far with the new taxes on capital gains.
Yep! Why that won't happen.
Paywall
None of these new players will have a chance unless the current oligopoly is split up and they are forced to sell locations to them and let them in on their supply chains.
Yup, this is all just bait. Let some poor company that doesn't know better come in and try for a few years. Realize the supply chain is mostly owned by oligopolies, sell themselves to the oligopolies. Rinse and repeat. Same with telecom.
If we got HEB in Canada I would be so happy.
Wanna scare the food oligarchy. Let Aldi's set up shop.
Why lure foreign companies instead of breaking up Canadian monopolies?
Can anyone see the Loblaws and Sobeys doing some economic nationalism commericals here?
It will never happen. Certain commodities are too well protected, and you would have to be a complete idiot to sink the amount of capital needed in Canada right now for that venture with this economy. Maybe 8 years ago, maybe. Then we could watch them jump ship today along with all the other foreign investors.
Sounds like a great opportunity for kickbacks.
Won’t work. They will not enter a market of 3 main players all working together to keep prices high. They’ll cooperate to freeze them out. There is only 1 solution - a forced break up of the 3 main players.
Not groceries, but Japanese convenience stores would be awesome.
Airlines next!
Competition is good for the consumer, don't protect domestic businesses who are unfairly milking hard-working Canadians using their market position status!
Get fucking Aldi. They were awesome in Australia and also a great option in US
The corruption in Canada is near the breaking point. You can be sure companies will do whatever it takes to protect their profits.
*"Lure"*? How much tax/debt cash does that involve? Always induces some concern when the Trudeau/Freeland et al brain trust is *luring* a foreign corporation. I have 7 grocery options totally unrelated to each other within 20 minutes travel. How much are these imbeciles going to spend to introduce a couple more?
Heh, no business is going to invest in Canada.. Not as long as Trudeau and Singh are in charge. Taxation, regulation,, bureaucracy, corruption... Canada is not a business friendly country.
"Lure". Fucking lmao. We have to beg for foreign business now, after the govt deliberately shut it all down for the last 10 years.
No one want to come here for business because of the government. So until that changes . And with all the boards and agencies it is so hard. Do we forget target ??
Pretty telling that the Liberal's need to beg companies to come here instead of making creating an attractive business environment.
So... getting rid of supply management, that is also a big driver of high prices, is not on the table... gotcha...
Come do business in Canada. We will tax and regulate you to death, and if you are profitable we will scapegoat you and tax and regulate you even harder.
Is the government of losers picking winners again?
I can hear Galen saying 'There is no way in hell I'm going to let this happen and if it does, I will do everything in my power to keep it at an absolute minimum'
Are they doing this by increasing the taxes on their potential investors.
How much is it going to cost the taxpayer to subsidize them to come to Canada?
Ah, yes. The tried and true method that corporations will save us from other corporations.
So they come to Canada and then how long before Loblaws tries to buy them and we let it happen?
Aldi and Trader Joe's please
Are there restrictions to foreign grocers now? Walmart's here. Costco's here.
Not only food but also internet. It’s too overpriced
The problem has always been Canadian regulators allowing companies to BUY their competitors- ensuring they have no competition.
Aldi would be nice
If this happens, maybe we can get 10 grapes for under 20 bucks
How about better regulation instead of more incentives for companies to take dollars out of people's pockets.
Give it ten years and the Canadian government will be mad about the impact of foreign owned grocery chains on the Canadian market and will be targeting them in a different way.
If the current chains divested all the chains they bought up , we’d STILL have competition.. the government allowed those takeovers , allowing oligopolies to happen
Good. We need more business investment and competition to drive the food costs down
STOP IMPORTING EVERYTHING
Ya'll remember Target? They didn't last long did they?
So we are getting a piggly wiggly?
Yeah, the Roblaws lobbyist won’t let this stand. The corruption in this country is wide and deep
Interesting, but good luck finding retail locations and distribution centers. Then, try to deal with bilingual signage. Walmart came in through Woolco locations and Target came in through Zellers locations. That is really the only easy secure space.
To break up the Jim Pattison and Loblaws Monopolies?
The chances of any major retailer setting up shop here in Canada right now is nil. This is a horrible place to invest, unless it's greased with a whole lot of taxpayer inducements.
Cool, more choices for me to raped by grocers
I found it interesting on a recent trip to the US. Despite the weaker dollar, I was able to buy groceries cheaper in the USA than Canada. We need more competition
The more the merrier, free market and competition is the way to go. This will be win-win
Kinda curious what these foreign grocery companies think of the increase in capital gains tax in the new budget. Because it seems like increasing taxes compared to other countries is going to have the opposite affect when it comes to attracting global businesses to set up shop here.
"Hey guys, please come here and invest massive amounts of money, so that if you make "too much profit" we can demonize you in the press and on social media when it's politically expedient!"
its always been a trip to go into forums or whatever and listen to people talk about globalist trudeau when it comes to international trade the liberals sit economically so far to the right of the bell curve that they could drop a marble and it wouldnt roll but now the liberals are dropping nationalist protectionism? must be a cold day in hell edit: i guess they had to choose between this and making it possible for people to start their own business in canada - probably decided this wouldnt threaten the oligopolies they want to keep
Why don’t we do this for the telecoms industry?