Canada’s Competition Bureau has launched investigations into the parent companies of grocery chains Loblaws and Sobeys for alleged anti-competitive conduct, court documents reveal, with Sobeys’ owner calling the inquiry “unlawful.”

The Federal Court documents show the commissioner of competition launched the probes on March 1, saying there’s reason to believe the firms’ use of so-called property controls limits retail grocery competition.

The commissioner claims the controls that the grocery giants have baked into lease agreements are designed to restrict other potential tenants and their activities and are hampering competition in the grocery market.

The Competition Bureau revealed its investigation into the use of property controls in the grocery sector in February.

  • Beaver
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    1 month ago

    Please do something towards the grocer cartel.

    If the liberals don’t smarten up here we could end up with a conservative majority and lose all the hard fought progress.

    • psvrh
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      1 month ago

      In case you’re wondering why we’re even doing this now, it’s likely because of the election. The LPC always pulls out the goodies before an election.

      • Beaver
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        1 month ago

        Hopefully we can get proportional representation as a goodie too!

        • psvrh
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          1 month ago

          No, that one you’ll never get.

          The LPC (and the CPC) quite like the current setup where they can get a majority with 30ish percent of the vote. This means they get exclusive access to the levers of power every four to eight years and have to trade off periodically, which suits them fine.

          PR would mean they’d never get another majority again. It’s also mean that the NDP, BQ and/or Greens could get real political power and drive legislation without their involvement, and since the Canadian electorate is generally more left wing that. It’s politicians, that would mean more progressive and less business-friendly legislation.

          The LPC would be effectively shut out of power as they know it, and their donors would be dealing with a Canada that looks and acts more like western Europe.

          The LPC would rather FPTP, where they’d lose an election or two on knowing they’d eventually get a chance again, then see PR where they’d be shut out forever.

          For the record, the CPC would have it even worse. They’d instantly lose their protofascist base to extreme right-wing and/or western nationalist parties. There’s very little ideological room between the LPC and CPC if you take away the latter’s playing footsie with fascism.

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          1 month ago

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