Trudeau calls on major grocers to create plan to stabilize food prices. (Or else he'll raise prices!)

[CdnFox]

https://www.iheartradio.ca/am800/news/trudeau-calls-on-major-grocers-to-create-plan-to-stabilize-food-prices-1.20250527

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is calling on grocery executives to come up with a plan to stabilize food prices or face consequences.

He says the government will be asking the five largest grocery companies including Loblaw, Metro, Empire, Walmart and Costco to come up with a plan by Thanksgiving.

"If their plan doesn't provide real relief for the middle class and people working hard to join it, then we will take further action and we are not ruling anything out including tax measures.''

 

So - apparently he hasn't realized if he puts taxes up then the stores will just pass it on to the consumer.

And he also apparently is aware that price fixing, where leading commercial firms meet to agree upon the price of goods,  is illegal in Canada.

And they're supposed to solve the inflation issues HE caused by thanksgiving. A month from now.

Prediction: they present some sort of bafflegab that he totally buys and hold a sale or two to make it seem like prices came down.

Sir - we've de-indexed the heteromarginal poultry/pork inverse ratio to flatten the curve (why not)  and reportioned the interholistic vegetable cartage index. Also - we've put a stop to pig-subcontracting.

Excellent! Excellent! Carry on then!

[Perspektiv]

3 hours ago, CdnFox said:

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is calling on grocery executives to come up with a plan to stabilize food prices or face consequences.

So his solution is shaming others to do his job for him o_O

Same person calls the carbon tax, which increases your overall fuel costs, necessary.

Same fuel costs, that allow farmers to use both machines to pull crops from the soil, to their delivery costs to ship their products out, soon to find themselves in your home.

How is he that dense, that rising your fuel costs by upwards of 50%, just *may* affect your overall operational costs?

Of course, Trudeau isn't responsible for that 50%, but he is responsible for adding to that number.

Even if it was 2 cents on that liter, if you spend say, 150, 000$ to fuel your fleet of vehicles, you could see the staggering increase you'd have to absorb. The timing to add such a burden, is horrible.

Also, this is a double hit, or even more for a distributor.

They have to be hit by every single supplier, by the same or similar increases, every time they receive goods.

Its just an excuse to tax these people, then try to smoke screen in the financial incentives you can scrounge around for, in time to bolster your falling approval ratings.

[OftenWrong]

6 hours ago, CdnFox said:

So - apparently he hasn't realized if he puts taxes up then the stores will just pass it on to the consumer.

Or maybe he has, since the tax revenue the government collects with these price increases has also gone up. Food prices increase by 8%, so does the tax. Government is enjoying a tax windfall.

But they need the money to do useful things, like promote wokism around the world, and for the Ukraine war.

[Nationalist]

IMO...The grocery chains should respond thus:

Dearest PM Pixie-Dust,

You are irrelevant, stupid and embarrassing. Take your threats and your taxes and fckoff. 

With all due respect, 

The grocers.

[herbie]

Or as I've explained to the mathematically challenged, if your markup stays the same and your costs go up 10% so do your earnings,
But then you can explain to dimwits that you didn't make $100 million more dollars, your "profit" didn't increase at all.

Just like if the maker sells 100 million 400g boxes of corn flakes @5.99 and next year sells 100 million 300g boxes  @$5.99, it's "sales" didn't increase at all. Same amount of money same number of boxes. People will assume your costs went up 33% in one year.

I mean, they expect us to believe inflation is around 6% means butter, milk & rents double in 3 years...

[CdnFox]

2 hours ago, herbie said:

Or as I've explained to the mathematically challenged, if your markup stays the same and your costs go up 10% so do your earnings,
But then you can explain to dimwits that you didn't make $100 million more dollars, your "profit" didn't increase at all.

Just like if the maker sells 100 million 400g boxes of corn flakes @5.99 and next year sells 100 million 300g boxes  @$5.99, it's "sales" didn't increase at all. Same amount of money same number of boxes. People will assume your costs went up 33% in one year.

I mean, they expect us to believe inflation is around 6% means butter, milk & rents double in 3 years...

There's another factor as well.  Trudeau is bniging in 500,000 people  a year and i've heard a rumour many of them are buying food.

I mean seriously - of COURSE profits will go up with increasing population. Food is something everyone needs and buys.

And the more people can't afford to go to restaurants, the more they buy from grocery stores to eat at home.

"i've been sending you an extra half million customers every year and somehow your profits went up! THat's unacceptable!"

- Trudeau, probably

 

[Nefarious Banana]

KD on for 1/2 price . . . a few wieners, feed a family of four.  Dad's walking to work. Leaves 1 1/2 hours early, late 1 1/2 hours.  Money saved on gasoline will help buy newer shoes.  Ahhhhhh Life's good here in Chinada, the land of plenty !

[Army Guy]

2 hours ago, herbie said:

Or as I've explained to the mathematically challenged, if your markup stays the same and your costs go up 10% so do your earnings,
But then you can explain to dimwits that you didn't make $100 million more dollars, your "profit" didn't increase at all.

Just like if the maker sells 100 million 400g boxes of corn flakes @5.99 and next year sells 100 million 300g boxes  @$5.99, it's "sales" didn't increase at all. Same amount of money same number of boxes. People will assume your costs went up 33% in one year.

I mean, they expect us to believe inflation is around 6% means butter, milk & rents double in 3 years...

Your earnings go up becasue you've added any additional cost to the price per unit. ie carbon tax, transport fees, etc etc...

According to the government at the end of the day all of it is profit, and they will tax you accordingly, ie like tax on tax, so your profit stays the same, the consumers are paying the difference,  but the government profit goes up... 

why would people assume your costs went up, when in reality your selling less product for the same amount of money as previous , which means your cost savings is 100 g x 100 million ... In English this is call gouging the consumer becasue you can... Had cost increased for the manufacture they would just raise the price per unit...

 

[August1991]

The government cannot fix prices. Full stop.

A politician can try - but the politician is following a fool's errand.

Edited September 16, 2023 by August1991

[TreeBeard]

14 hours ago, Perspektiv said:

So his solution is shaming others to do his job for him

When has it ever been the federal government’s responsibility to control the price of groceries?

11 minutes ago, August1991 said:

The government cannot fix prices. Full stop.

A politician can try - but the politician is following a fool's errand.

Not true.  They should be taxing profits.  Profits on groceries have shown price gouging.  So, while they shouldn’t fix prices, they should tax profits. 

[herbie]

I'm only pointing out the various ways beancounters can use distraction.

Or you truly believe tha cost to deliver butter to the supermarket has doubled in the last 2 1l2 years? Even if it had, instead of making $2 a lb., they're making $4 a lb. now.

[BeaverFever]

I expect that this “meeting with the grocers” and the public threats are just for show and nothing substantial will come of it. Trudeau is just doing some “fight the common folk” posturing for the cameras 

 

That said, allegations of grocer gouging, profiteering and exploitation are not new and probably have some truth to them but could be tough to nail down. The recent bread price-fixing scandal from a few years ago before the pandemic being one example. Media coverage at the time had  experts saying bread was just the tip of the iceberg. However the entire food system seems to have so many complex and variable factors, gouging is  hard to catch, hard to prove, and even harder to address with any kind of set rules that wouldn’t do more harm than good. 

[TreeBeard]

14 hours ago, Nationalist said:

IMO...The grocery chains should respond thus:

Dearest PM Pixie-Dust,

You are irrelevant, stupid and embarrassing. Take your threats and your taxes and fckoff. 

With all due respect, 

The grocers.

Are you in favour of price gouging?

[CdnFox]

3 hours ago, TreeBeard said:

When has it ever been the federal government’s responsibility to control the price of groceries?

 

Ummm - you're familiar with supply management aren't you? Like .. seriously that didn't come right to mind?

And the gov't does play a role in the supply of food though various means. Such as the carbon tax.

Quote

Not true.  They should be taxing profits.  Profits on groceries have shown price gouging.  So, while they shouldn’t fix prices, they should tax profits. 

They do tax profits. and those taxes are passed on to the consumer.

There has been NO evidence at all of price gouging.  In fact the opposite is true. But - lefties gonna lie

1 hour ago, TreeBeard said:

Are you in favour of price gouging?

Are you in favor of lying that price gouging is happening? Oh ... never mind...

[Nationalist]

7 hours ago, TreeBeard said:

Are you in favour of price gouging?

I'm in favor of lower taxes, no carbon tax BS, and the ousting of Pixie-Dust.

Oh...and it would be nice to have a PM fight FOR the common folk, instead of "fight the common folk" as @BeaverFever has correctly surmised.

[myata]

End the age of oligopolies, especially in food distribution. Mandatory divestment or extra tax on distributors with over 10% of the market. Return to market competition, without cute disclaimers.

Will "PP" do that? You bet (such a can of worms). Entitled buddies chatting over a golf game while Joe waiting for positive change, numbly and patiently. The eternal story.

[BeaverFever]

2 hours ago, Nationalist said:

Oh...and it would be nice to have a PM fight FOR the common folk, instead of "fight the common folk" as @BeaverFever has correctly surmised.

?

[Zeitgeist]

Add taxes to lower prices.  Overspend to lower inflation. Drug people to get them off drugs.  What a stupid government.

Edited September 16, 2023 by Zeitgeist

[CdnFox]

57 minutes ago, Zeitgeist said:

Add taxes to lower prices.  Overspend to lower inflation. Drug people to get them off drugs.  What a stupid government.

"trudeau then went on to prove that black equals white and got himself killed at the next zebra crossing".

[Zeitgeist]

3 minutes ago, CdnFox said:

"trudeau then went on to prove that black equals white and got himself killed at the next zebra crossing".

Maybe if he wears zebra-face the woke mob can argue that he shouldn’t be cancelled because he’s only half racist.  

[CdnFox]

1 minute ago, Zeitgeist said:

Maybe if he wears zebra-face the woke mob can argue that he shouldn’t be cancelled because he’s only half racist.  

Ahh but which half?  WHICH HALF?!?!?! The argument could last a decade 

Of course as a zebra he'd tell his left wing supporters he's black and his Quebec supporters he's white.

[RedDog]

The carbon tax (which they don’t pay in China, India, Russia or the USA) has to go. Everything we consume is trucked.

Ditch the GST as well.

Also, why are we paying Swiss pump gas prices in a major energy producing country? Fuel is nearly free in Venezuela, Saudi Arabia and Iran in comparison.

Why do we have the highest cell costs in the world?

Canada is out of control.

[Zeitgeist]

4 minutes ago, RedDog said:

The carbon tax (which they don’t pay in China, India, Russia or the USA) has to go. Everything we consume is trucked.

Ditch the GST as well.

Also, why are we paying Swiss pump gas prices in a major energy producing country? Fuel is nearly free in Venezuela, Saudi Arabia and Iran in comparison.

Why do we have the highest cell costs in the world?

Canada is out of control.

Exactly right.  The cost of living in Canada could be lowered overnight.  Instead we pay through the nose for goods and a slew of odd Liberal pet programs.  

[CdnFox]

The problem is that the tax is not 'revenue neutral'.  Which means cutting it will result in billions and billions of dollars in lost revenue for the gov't.    That's going to be a challenge to make up.

As a 'stacking tax' its impact on prices is grossly underappreciated by the general public. They don't realize how much tax there really is.

[RedDog]

40 minutes ago, CdnFox said:

The problem is that the tax is not 'revenue neutral'.  Which means cutting it will result in billions and billions of dollars in lost revenue for the gov't.    That's going to be a challenge to make up.

As a 'stacking tax' its impact on prices is grossly underappreciated by the general public. They don't realize how much tax there really is.

It’s pulled up layer on layer. It’s totally out of control. Why are we paying what Belgians pay for gas and four times what Japanese pay for cell service?

We’re literally floating on revenue,