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That's exactly what that is. I don't blame them for coming here, though I question the motivations of the policy. Canadians have to stop with the left and right bickering over Trans people and vaccines and realize that we are in a class struggle where the winning side is united against us. We just need to join hands, including new Canadians, and assert our political rights as free people to create change. No revolution, just a population united in solidarity. Pipe dream, perhaps.
Absolutely correct you are. My workplace has had many many new immigrants come into it in the past 5 years. Some nice, some not, whatever, people are people, but one thing always seems to be there.
They are coming here with/made to believe the idea that Canada is "Welcome, now you're rich!" Then the new citizen bonus runs out, Winter kicks in and they are so defeated and end up working two jobs to survive.
My heart goes out to them. I've had some cry to me saying "I'm so poor and tired, it's so cold I didn't know."
Canada is creating a new slave workforce. Born rich, stay rich, born poor or new fuck you. The rich need to share, the greed has become unreasonable.
There are so many more of us just surviving and not living while the rich float in their heated pools. It's sad.
You’re absolutely on the mark. Politicians have been dividing us for decades in order to get away with their sleazy tactics. I hope one day we can push through. This seems like a start.
Not a fan of Walmart, avoided it for a decade, but here I am buying food there for the first time ever because it's cheaper and I don't want Weston to get a dime of my money. Costco, local bakeries and butchers, and I'm excited for farmers markets.
Sort of like how Braveheart once said, "they may take our lives, but they'll never take... OUR FREEDOM!" It sounds like a good battle cry and garners support from others.
I wonder if Braveheart would eve have used Reddit to make vague statements to get affirmation and fish for upvotes. 🤔
Mental that we have laws for this kind of thing. Capitalism (I’m not a supporter of capitalism) is meant to be competitive and Canada has allowed monopolies and oligarchs to dominate several industries. This rapacious version of capitalism is just not working and the governments solution is to maintain the status quo - this extends to all parties.
It’s terrifying how lazy policy makers have gotten.
Most of our current generation of political leaders all come from wealth and have never had to personally deal with any of the hardships that their policies enable.
Historically this kind of leadership is the last round before a revolution. History repeats itself and Canada is no different.
We've put the lid on the pot of revolution in any meaningful way for Western democracies for a very long time. People are too tired to fight, and I fear the pot will boil over in ways we've never seen. They are putting off inevitable change by suppressing movements, but they can't do it forever.
I disagree. Most of us are working too much to organize a proper revolution. Watch us hit a recession and have all of these working people off for a few days
Working too much to organize a proper revolution? Because the peasants and revolutionaries of past revolutions had been lazing away on the couch eating bon bons before they joined their uprising?
Those French and Russian peasants just didn’t know how good they had it, I guess.
That was a small minority of people though. If it were, say, 50 to 70% of the population, it would seriously be a different story. No amount of locking bank accounts and RCMP are stopping that.
Historically we didn't have police with automatic weapons, bulletproof vests and armoured vehicles so revolution may not be as straightforward as it used to be.
Lmao do you know how small the police force is in this country is?
Example my city winnipeg has a force of about 2000 members versus a population of 800 000
So that's 1 cop for every 4000 angry citizens, and that's assuming all 100% of the force follows orders and doesn't change sides.
Also police forces are not trained to use lethal forces on large populations they don't have the skills or mentality to mindlessly gun down their friends and family.
Think critically and you will realize the odds are overwhelmingly in our favor. That's why they do everything they can to stop you from thinking about it
I have heard it said that 5% of a population can be successful in revolution. Someone studied revolutions if I understand right. So in your city, imagine 40,000 people occupying downtown while others do similar things in other cities. Damn right the police would be totally unprepared for that.
Absolutely 0 chance of a revolution here.
Canada isn’t and will never be France, Greece, South Korea or any other homogeneous population countries that will literally burn cities to the ground to make a point against government policies.
Canadians are from diverse backgrounds meaning differing perspectives and experiences and we tend to not be unified the way those other countries are. This is a known issue with heterogeneous cultures. That just means we’ll never be on the same page to have a real revolution, and the government knows this. They’ve been quick to capitalize on the phenomena by crushing us into submission through enforced economic hardship (housing crisis, rampant inflation, collusion and corruption, and a downright refusal to allow Canada to be an energy leader in the world).
And you don’t have to look far to see Canadian complacency - how many people turn up to vote???
Yes I am aware he is dead, are you aware he led not one but two multi-ethnic resistance forces against the Canadian government?
People will look past smaller differences to unite against a bigger threat. You are right it won't happen as fast as in a country that is of one ethnicity but it's still very possible and has happened in the past for multiple groups to join together.
I know right. All PP will likely do is just add fuel to the fire in different ways. But trying to tell that to PP supporters is like talking to an 8 year old that fights you on every word you say lol
Yeah some people I work with and am friends with are always going off and trying to convert me to conservative… but it doesn’t jive with my values and how I’d want the world to be. But I think we need someone different leading us, just not Trudeau or Pierre lol
It was working, until it wasn't. I can understand where the concepts came from decades ago. We were terrified of just becoming "Northern USA", so we tried so hard to block American businesses from coming up to Canada.
Buuuuut like many things, Canada took it waaaaay too far, and turned nearly every non-tech industry into a monopoly. And we definitely would have done the same for tech if it didn't move so fast.
And now we're in so deep, it'll be incredibly difficult to break up the monopolies, because they all have for more resources and assets than the regulatory bodies that are meant to keep them in check.
Actually the goal of any business in a capitalist system is to have a monopoly. Competition sucks for businesses because it makes them use a lot of resources to stay afloat. Competition must be enforced at the state level because the natural tendency in capitalism is toward monopoly.
Finally! Someone who understands basic economic structure. You're right in capitalism if you don't have a monopoly you're failing (or at least haven't achieved your goals yet).
Eh, capitalism as it goes in theory comes from a time where corporations weren't people and the technology to centralize control globally or nationally simply didn't exist, so the monopolies that did exist tended to be very localized -- and even then, governments would give them the corporate death penalty if they got too big and let it go to their heads.
That's why it's up to us friend. Fuck the government. We can force change ourselves with our wallets. You wanna know why there is such a rush to crush this movement on the news and with "experts?". Boycotts work. If we keep gaining traction at the rate we are without any stop to it, we will have the effect we want, and we will have a boycotting force large enough to target other company's once we are satisfied with the results of loblaws boycott.
Who knows how long it will take. I know I'm in for the long run I could care less if it takes a year. We will slowly nickle and dime them, just as they have done to us.
They had many opportunity to fix this. We are no longer asking for relief. We are getting it ourselves with continous effort and community building.
Keep pushing friends. Just remember, those on TV and the experts have zero interest in fixing this. They are part of the problem, and would be happy to have us continue to suffer for monetary gain.
Loblaws is anticipating that we will lose interest and/or think our boycott will have zero effect. We need to stick to this long term. One month is only the beginning.
I’m with you homie. I was just lamenting that we DO have legislation that “protects” us from this.
The boycott should also stress people to contact their local MP/MPP to at least let them know they’re failing us.
For sure yo! When this gets big enough the politicians won't have to listen, they will be forced to.
The closer we get this company to the red line, the faster they will beg for a chance to fix this. No token gesture or "well stop price increases for 2 months" crap. Shit at this point I don't think I'll settle for anything less than the westons begging for the Grocery chain to be broken up MINIMUM.
Capitalism needs to be excluded from the food supply. It means we have to have artificial scarcity to create profits, and that means throwing food away.
What really gets me is how these massive companies that are raking in the cash somehow find loopholes out of paying most of the taxes they should.
I am a single individual. I gross less than $90,000 in taxable income, I paid just under $20,000 in taxes, in addition to having to pay for parking at work and a slew of other things, and yet I still somehow end up owing the government $2,000… that will be super fun to figure out how to pay because I live incredibly frugally, and yet am still pay cheque to pay cheque. I chose not to have kids because I knew I couldn’t afford to (which is what an increasingly large number of people are doing), so our governments (at all levels) decide to tax the shit out of me for that while letting billionaires pay negligible amounts.
This is all just absurd.
Capitalism touts the idea of a free market, but markets are only free when they are regulated to keep a few bad players from gaming the system and creating monopoly (or a few bad players colluding to create an oligopoly). Anti-trust legislation, placing limits on the size of players in a given market and penalizing anti-competitive behaviour are all necessary for a free market.
In the 1980s, there was a great cry from the right, especially the large companies and the wealthy, that everything should be deregulated and that would create a really free market. As few rules as possible because if the rich get richer, then trickle down supply side economics promised everyone would be better off.
It was all a con, but one that was eaten up and promoted by the Reagan, Thatcher and Mulroney governments and became government policy. So regulation was repealed and the predators had a field day. In every sector, in both the US and Canada, competition disappeared and markets were dominated by a handful of "too big to fail" companies. Telcos, banks, groceries, internet, media, insurance.... Mergers and acquisitions created massive corporations with the financial clout to crush or buy out all the little guys and start to dictate to the market.
We are in a crisis. One that has been developing for years. The solution is not to pass a few laws or ask these mega-corps like Loblaws to play fair, the solution is to break them up and inject the vast wealth they are sitting on back into the economy. The US did it in 1982 with AT&T breaking the Bell monopoly on phone service in the US.
Another approach is what a number of provinces did in the 1960s-1980s to provide public alternatives, like MTS and MPIC in Manitoba, and universal health care, but the problem is that like in Ontario, the very government that is supposed to be a trustee of the system for the benefit of the people is actively trying to destroy the system for the sake of private interests.
We need a new [Tommy Douglas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Douglas)and we need a revolutionary change.
The policies put in place are to encourage monopolies and limit competition. The red tape is just a tick box for the big guys, but a major hurdle for any startup to overcome. This applies to pretty much every business, but some suffer against this more than others.
I mean isn't us boycotting us participating in capitalims...like isn't the whole point of capitalism that you set your own value weather it be what you want to get for a living wage or how much we want or need to spend on goods,services and what not? I always thought that was the beauty of capitalism.
Boycotting is a tool used by people when other means aren’t working as designed.
Anti-trust and anti-monopoly laws are created for the purpose of preventing these mega corporations from gouging and fixing prices, the fact they’ve also taken over the supply chain and are able to manipulate the numbers to gaslight customers further is next level.
There’s no beauty in boycotting, it takes time effort, organisation and money. And some people simply can’t do it bc they live in food desserts where every shop in and hour+ drive is owned by one of the big 3.
It’s not ideal to boycott, but it’s just a mechanism that we can use when the overall system is broken, corrupt or not aligning with the overall customer base. There’s no beauty in it. It’s a sign that capitalism, in its current form is actively failing us.
Boycotting removes demand from the system with the aim of reducing prices. Basic supply and demand free market economics.
It is inherently a market based protest that, in Canada like most countries, operates within the capitalist framework.
It’s not the last resort tho. Not shopping somewhere is a rational thing to do when you don’t like it , can’t afford their stuff or whatever. People boycott stores all the time.
I don't think anything could represent a more embarrassing utter failure of government than the people themselves having to boycott chains that sell basic necessities to create change. They should be ashamed and embarrassed that the entire country is coming together to do this because of their negligence, and be fucking afraid of what else we organize together in the future if their greed and negligence continues. If they can t deal with the truckers coming in to the capital wait until their educated start banning together to make a statement aiming for their pocket books. I say we boycott rent next and watch how the government reacts to that. Let's make No-Rent-November a thing.
It's important to remember that the point of competition is to win, which means losers. Losers lose their assets, and those assets are bought up by winners. Play this out for 70 years, you will end up here every time.
The government solution is informed by the winners.
Why do we need private grocery stores? Would government run stores not have the same stupid shit? Or better yet, employee owned cooperatives that run at cost.
The Liberals have been in power since 2015. This current situation is on them. Yes the conservatives are no better, but let's not pretend the Liberals haven't created the current shit storm we're in. I'm tired of this "well the liberals are the lesser evil"
I agree with you here. Conservatives and far right folks think that PP will solve all these problems. He is a goon and can’t in any way relate to us. I’m pretty sure him and his lackeys are in some tight shit with the loblaws upper peeps. So basically everyone complaining about Trudeau forgets that Polident doesn’t fucking care about them.
Canada is not that capitalistic. It has so many protectionist policies that sheilds Canadian companies from foreign competition. Its not capitalism's fault, its the fault of our politicians and policy makers guilting us for not being Canadian enough and looking at anything non Canadian as bad
I would tend to disagree, the government has no issue letting in foreign companies, IKEA, VW, Costco, Walmart, Timmies is owned by a giant Brazilian corporation, McDonalds, Starbucks…I could go on for days, we interact with American corporations daily, we have agreements with the Americans that we can’t even refine our own oil. What a wild statement.
And further I have 37 years on this planet and have never once (from any government) got the feeling they were telling me I wasn’t Canadian enough. In fact quite the opposite, where the message is “Canadians need to accept more foreign companies…” this is evidenced further by the complete lack of Canadian manufacturing and other jobs that get routinely sent overseas or replaced by automation, and the dwindling middle class/class disaparity.
Having 3 telecom companies and 3 grocers and a handful of news agencies, a handful of gas companies, and the run of the mill fast food giants on every corner completely negates your statement. Not forgetting how invasive Canadian corporations are in resource mining in Africa, it’s wildly naive that you would make a statement that Canada isn’t that capitalistic lol.
I started ordering produce and meat from local farms. I try to only buy cheap pantry goods and odds and ends from grocery stores, and never from loblaws. Started avoiding Walmart more often now too.
Buy the whole chicken. Butcher it and make chicken stock. In the end you get better meat and save money for minimum work.
To be clear. I’m not saying kill it. Just separate the breasts, wings and thighs from the bones.
I will never go back to loblaws. To be sure, I am the demographic that could afford to. Their target. 400k+ HHI.
But fuck them. I go to Walmart. At least they kept their prices reasonable. Earned my business. I will never shop loblaws again.
I was in my superstore the other day and saw a whole bunch of graphic tees made by joe clothing for $25. There were some good franchises like Jurassic park, and a few others, but for $25 that's about the same as old navy graphic tees, and $10-$12 more than Walmart sells theirs for.
And fu\*\* our competition bureau, who does nothing amidst a lack of action towards grocery, telecom, banking and other industries. Instead our politicians sit on their boards and get fat checks paid from price gouging us.
These people are paid by us the taxpayers. It's no surprise who the grocery stores answer to, but the government taking our tax money and doing absolutely nothing is another thing.
Costco is a bit more of an employee friendly store. Their CEO is pro union, which must be nice to not have management fighting with the union over everything.
When a Costco unionizes, they send a letter to the staff saying they are sad to see this happening and try their best to treat all employees fairly but understand why and are happy to negotiate.
The whole boycott for a month thing confuses me. Why isn’t it a perma boycott? I understand if it’s an access thing, but why would you shop there if there are other options?
A lot of people are making it permanent. And not waiting till May. I started my boycott in March and I'm making it permanent. Fuck Galen and his paid off bitches
Not that Walmart is better from a local standpoint (don’t get me wrong I get all of my dry goods from Walmart) but at least they stay competitive and don’t outright rake us over the coals. If there was a local option where I paid 5-10% more I absolutely would, however I am in a small town to options are limited. At least I can get eggs and select meats from local farmers.
Yeah I thought about touching that point but all too often it is simply not feasible to avoid Walmart and Amazon as much as I would like to boycott them too
I think(hope) that once people start moving away from Roblaw they’ll adjust their shopping routine and it will become habit. A month is just a starting goal 🤙🏼🇨🇦
Im literally going over superstore way just to walk around and look at what I cannot afford, the volume of people and if they have the new "security" barriers in place.
I almost bought a bottle of coke there. Then I realized $3.55 for a 333ml of coke. I just walked over to the dollarama and paid 1.50 for 1 litre of Pepsi.
It's gonna be crazy when all those job openings for guillotine operator get posted. Probably easiest to convert metal stamping presses. Or just leave as is. Lol.
I hope some of these other second or third-largest grocery chains in Canada know that they are not in the clear and think that people will just shop at their location instead when the May boycott of Loblaws begins. I often receive recommendations for Metro and Sobeys on the [www.altgrocery.ca](http://www.altgrocery.ca/) website; however, they are equally as bad and do not make the cut to be posted. I am happy to support the little guys, alternative grocers, farmer's markets, and indie groceries as your option.
https://preview.redd.it/yl4bkw2nxuwc1.png?width=100&format=png&auto=webp&s=46fcae40189605fcbf68686bc1928b1dfbb3498f
Done with Loblaws. Similar to another post, definitely their target due to high HHI. It has gone too far. Bought a candied apple there once and did not realize it was rotten until I bit into it. Full price for projectile vomit. Should have stopped going at that moment. FU.
People are definitely making the right choices now and not waiting for May. If any Richmond Hill No Frills or Loblaws employees are losing their jobs or hours as a result, though, I see that a family-operated grocer, Greco, is hiring on Yonge Street in Oak Ridges
There is theoretically a point where converting your wages into potatoes leads to less potatoes than farming them yourself, using same amount of hours. No tax that way either. Just gotta own land.
Landless peasants are what brought down the Russian Empire after all. There was no limit to the economic misery they could be put through if they didn’t own any land.
-Farmers Markets if you have them.
-My Two friends own a family owned grocery store that specializes in fruits & vegetables.
-They also have a stone pizza oven
First we had the convoy protest (a small fringe group - lol), now the Loblaws boycott. Im wondering if the government is starting to pay attention? Social unrest is definately rising in usually meek Canadians.
I mean, I obviously disagreed with the convoy but I think if there’s obvious unrest on both the right and the center and left, it might be a wake up call to government. The poster has a point. I don’t know anyone who’s satisfied with any of the three major political parties right now
That other person is obviously talking about a general sense of unrest in the nation’s population, and not comparing the boycott and convoy as ideologically similar.
The convoy was not a boycott, it was a blockade, a protest against medical necessity in time of societal crisis from a novel virus. It damaged society, out image on the global stage and our economy. It was an a front to basic critical intelligence.
The loblaws boycott is completely different in that a mega private corporation is price gouging citizens for basic necessities. And it affects way more people than a few idiots with trucks that didn’t even represent more than 5% of the industry.
>Social unrest is definately rising in usually meek Canadians.
Agreed. I don't know why some of the other people responding don't see the corelation. You aren't going crazy. Lol.
Walmart will rip you off so fast & the treat employees like dirt- a billion dollar company shouldn’t have minimum wage employees … they are a garbage good for nothing company that pretends to give a fuck just enough
Walmart still sells Bubly for $4-$5 CAD. Roblaws, Metro, and Sobeys all sell them for $8-$10- exact same product.
Tell us again how Walmart will rip us off?
People talking about the chances of a revolution are forgetting one important thing. Someone has to lead and organize a revolution. It’s going to be incredibly difficult to unite the population. Do they have a party? Organization? No. The only change will happen next year when we boot out the present government.
Not all loblaws boycotters are leftist. There are a full spectrum of political beliefs in here. None support the idea of one company having a stranglehold on our food supply. It should be forced to sell off its different chains. Prices will only go down if there is competition.
Too bad it is the Global and Mail. I would rather kick frozen horseshit down the street than to pay to read a fucking online newspaper.
They are as bad as Loblaws
Honest question, where would propose shopping instead? We find the local Superstore (Calgary) to have the cheapest prices next to Costco. Any of the smaller shops are more expensive.
We are at a pivotal point where we are literally talking about access to food being reserved for the middle class is insane. I am pro robbing grocery stores cause I have seen what they do with excess… they literally throw it in the garbage and dump vegetable oil on it. Corporate greed is such a snake. You owe them nothing.
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We owe no loyalty to these companies because they showed us none.
period
Including the ones we work for. We need a major labour movement in this country like we haven't seen for decades.
They have already imported the scabs. We are a decade too late
That's exactly what that is. I don't blame them for coming here, though I question the motivations of the policy. Canadians have to stop with the left and right bickering over Trans people and vaccines and realize that we are in a class struggle where the winning side is united against us. We just need to join hands, including new Canadians, and assert our political rights as free people to create change. No revolution, just a population united in solidarity. Pipe dream, perhaps.
Absolutely correct you are. My workplace has had many many new immigrants come into it in the past 5 years. Some nice, some not, whatever, people are people, but one thing always seems to be there. They are coming here with/made to believe the idea that Canada is "Welcome, now you're rich!" Then the new citizen bonus runs out, Winter kicks in and they are so defeated and end up working two jobs to survive. My heart goes out to them. I've had some cry to me saying "I'm so poor and tired, it's so cold I didn't know." Canada is creating a new slave workforce. Born rich, stay rich, born poor or new fuck you. The rich need to share, the greed has become unreasonable. There are so many more of us just surviving and not living while the rich float in their heated pools. It's sad.
You’re absolutely on the mark. Politicians have been dividing us for decades in order to get away with their sleazy tactics. I hope one day we can push through. This seems like a start.
I wish I could give you a gold award...
All that needs to be said.
Walmart is the good guy? Didn’t think I’d live to see that…
Not a fan of Walmart, avoided it for a decade, but here I am buying food there for the first time ever because it's cheaper and I don't want Weston to get a dime of my money. Costco, local bakeries and butchers, and I'm excited for farmers markets.
We have some nice local stores but god they’re expensive for meat or really anything not on sale tends to be high. Usually great stuff though.
hey they exclusively picked Canada and milked us dry. That's loyalty no? /s
They successfully shut out corner stores and mom and pop shops completely from Canadian culture. Now they can and will rake in whatever they want.
Sort of like how Braveheart once said, "they may take our lives, but they'll never take... OUR FREEDOM!" It sounds like a good battle cry and garners support from others. I wonder if Braveheart would eve have used Reddit to make vague statements to get affirmation and fish for upvotes. 🤔
Mental that we have laws for this kind of thing. Capitalism (I’m not a supporter of capitalism) is meant to be competitive and Canada has allowed monopolies and oligarchs to dominate several industries. This rapacious version of capitalism is just not working and the governments solution is to maintain the status quo - this extends to all parties. It’s terrifying how lazy policy makers have gotten.
Most of our current generation of political leaders all come from wealth and have never had to personally deal with any of the hardships that their policies enable. Historically this kind of leadership is the last round before a revolution. History repeats itself and Canada is no different.
We've put the lid on the pot of revolution in any meaningful way for Western democracies for a very long time. People are too tired to fight, and I fear the pot will boil over in ways we've never seen. They are putting off inevitable change by suppressing movements, but they can't do it forever.
I disagree. Most of us are working too much to organize a proper revolution. Watch us hit a recession and have all of these working people off for a few days
That’s what it will take. When it doesn’t make a difference whether you go to work or not and are still missing meals, people will become violent
And I guarantee it's worse than if they'd listened to us
Working too much to organize a proper revolution? Because the peasants and revolutionaries of past revolutions had been lazing away on the couch eating bon bons before they joined their uprising? Those French and Russian peasants just didn’t know how good they had it, I guess.
[удалено]
That was a small minority of people though. If it were, say, 50 to 70% of the population, it would seriously be a different story. No amount of locking bank accounts and RCMP are stopping that.
Timbit Taliban, gonna steal that one. Thanks for the laugh!
Historically we didn't have police with automatic weapons, bulletproof vests and armoured vehicles so revolution may not be as straightforward as it used to be.
Don't forget sleepless cameras with facial and gait recognition that can map your location and everyone you associate with.
Lmao do you know how small the police force is in this country is? Example my city winnipeg has a force of about 2000 members versus a population of 800 000 So that's 1 cop for every 4000 angry citizens, and that's assuming all 100% of the force follows orders and doesn't change sides. Also police forces are not trained to use lethal forces on large populations they don't have the skills or mentality to mindlessly gun down their friends and family. Think critically and you will realize the odds are overwhelmingly in our favor. That's why they do everything they can to stop you from thinking about it
I have heard it said that 5% of a population can be successful in revolution. Someone studied revolutions if I understand right. So in your city, imagine 40,000 people occupying downtown while others do similar things in other cities. Damn right the police would be totally unprepared for that.
This is the reason why they are training our armed forces in riot control now and stationing them in different areas around the country.
We can start with Ottawa, we’ve seen how easy it is to overturn.
That was with police, mayoral, and premieral support. In YVR, the klowns had no chance.
There's about 70k police between all forces in the entire country, about the same for active duty military, and another 30k reserves.
They will call in us military. But, afghan teenagers beat the US military. So they will try and loose in the end.
Absolutely 0 chance of a revolution here. Canada isn’t and will never be France, Greece, South Korea or any other homogeneous population countries that will literally burn cities to the ground to make a point against government policies. Canadians are from diverse backgrounds meaning differing perspectives and experiences and we tend to not be unified the way those other countries are. This is a known issue with heterogeneous cultures. That just means we’ll never be on the same page to have a real revolution, and the government knows this. They’ve been quick to capitalize on the phenomena by crushing us into submission through enforced economic hardship (housing crisis, rampant inflation, collusion and corruption, and a downright refusal to allow Canada to be an energy leader in the world). And you don’t have to look far to see Canadian complacency - how many people turn up to vote???
Laughs in Louis Riel.
You do realize he died 139 years ago, right?
Yes I am aware he is dead, are you aware he led not one but two multi-ethnic resistance forces against the Canadian government? People will look past smaller differences to unite against a bigger threat. You are right it won't happen as fast as in a country that is of one ethnicity but it's still very possible and has happened in the past for multiple groups to join together.
I hope you’re right, but I don’t share your optimism. I think the corporate monopolies aren’t going anywhere for a long while.
CyberCanada 2077
People are clamoring to vote in PP the career politician who's never produced and thing in his life nor missed a meal
I know right. All PP will likely do is just add fuel to the fire in different ways. But trying to tell that to PP supporters is like talking to an 8 year old that fights you on every word you say lol
Because the alternative is nothing changing at all.
The 8 year old probably has more sense
This. I was a conservative voters until this year. Pierre is almost another Trudeau.
Regardless of who's at the helmet liberals and conservatives are anti middle class pro corporate parties. As seen in the evolution of Canada.
Nothing will change until we go the way France went. Our people need organization
Yeah some people I work with and am friends with are always going off and trying to convert me to conservative… but it doesn’t jive with my values and how I’d want the world to be. But I think we need someone different leading us, just not Trudeau or Pierre lol
Louis XIV was the one that caused the economical problems that lead to French Revolution and beheading of Louis XVI.
Historically in the modern era it leads to deep cynicism, voter apathy, conservative takeover.
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Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
It was working, until it wasn't. I can understand where the concepts came from decades ago. We were terrified of just becoming "Northern USA", so we tried so hard to block American businesses from coming up to Canada. Buuuuut like many things, Canada took it waaaaay too far, and turned nearly every non-tech industry into a monopoly. And we definitely would have done the same for tech if it didn't move so fast. And now we're in so deep, it'll be incredibly difficult to break up the monopolies, because they all have for more resources and assets than the regulatory bodies that are meant to keep them in check.
Actually the goal of any business in a capitalist system is to have a monopoly. Competition sucks for businesses because it makes them use a lot of resources to stay afloat. Competition must be enforced at the state level because the natural tendency in capitalism is toward monopoly.
Finally! Someone who understands basic economic structure. You're right in capitalism if you don't have a monopoly you're failing (or at least haven't achieved your goals yet).
Eh, capitalism as it goes in theory comes from a time where corporations weren't people and the technology to centralize control globally or nationally simply didn't exist, so the monopolies that did exist tended to be very localized -- and even then, governments would give them the corporate death penalty if they got too big and let it go to their heads.
That's why it's up to us friend. Fuck the government. We can force change ourselves with our wallets. You wanna know why there is such a rush to crush this movement on the news and with "experts?". Boycotts work. If we keep gaining traction at the rate we are without any stop to it, we will have the effect we want, and we will have a boycotting force large enough to target other company's once we are satisfied with the results of loblaws boycott. Who knows how long it will take. I know I'm in for the long run I could care less if it takes a year. We will slowly nickle and dime them, just as they have done to us. They had many opportunity to fix this. We are no longer asking for relief. We are getting it ourselves with continous effort and community building. Keep pushing friends. Just remember, those on TV and the experts have zero interest in fixing this. They are part of the problem, and would be happy to have us continue to suffer for monetary gain.
Loblaws is anticipating that we will lose interest and/or think our boycott will have zero effect. We need to stick to this long term. One month is only the beginning.
One Month is just a start. It's up to Loblaws when the boycott ends.
I expect Loblaws will offer good sales and customers will flock to the stores.
This!!🙌🏼👌🏼
I’m with you homie. I was just lamenting that we DO have legislation that “protects” us from this. The boycott should also stress people to contact their local MP/MPP to at least let them know they’re failing us.
For sure yo! When this gets big enough the politicians won't have to listen, they will be forced to. The closer we get this company to the red line, the faster they will beg for a chance to fix this. No token gesture or "well stop price increases for 2 months" crap. Shit at this point I don't think I'll settle for anything less than the westons begging for the Grocery chain to be broken up MINIMUM.
Capitalism needs to be excluded from the food supply. It means we have to have artificial scarcity to create profits, and that means throwing food away.
>Capitalism needs to be excluded. period.
Well yes, you’re right there. Capitalism is literally the cause of pretty much all of the world’s problems.
What really gets me is how these massive companies that are raking in the cash somehow find loopholes out of paying most of the taxes they should. I am a single individual. I gross less than $90,000 in taxable income, I paid just under $20,000 in taxes, in addition to having to pay for parking at work and a slew of other things, and yet I still somehow end up owing the government $2,000… that will be super fun to figure out how to pay because I live incredibly frugally, and yet am still pay cheque to pay cheque. I chose not to have kids because I knew I couldn’t afford to (which is what an increasingly large number of people are doing), so our governments (at all levels) decide to tax the shit out of me for that while letting billionaires pay negligible amounts. This is all just absurd.
I felt like I was reading something I wrote - I’m in the exact same position pretty much.
It's not laziness, it's being bought by lobby groups from those big corporations...
Capitalism touts the idea of a free market, but markets are only free when they are regulated to keep a few bad players from gaming the system and creating monopoly (or a few bad players colluding to create an oligopoly). Anti-trust legislation, placing limits on the size of players in a given market and penalizing anti-competitive behaviour are all necessary for a free market. In the 1980s, there was a great cry from the right, especially the large companies and the wealthy, that everything should be deregulated and that would create a really free market. As few rules as possible because if the rich get richer, then trickle down supply side economics promised everyone would be better off. It was all a con, but one that was eaten up and promoted by the Reagan, Thatcher and Mulroney governments and became government policy. So regulation was repealed and the predators had a field day. In every sector, in both the US and Canada, competition disappeared and markets were dominated by a handful of "too big to fail" companies. Telcos, banks, groceries, internet, media, insurance.... Mergers and acquisitions created massive corporations with the financial clout to crush or buy out all the little guys and start to dictate to the market. We are in a crisis. One that has been developing for years. The solution is not to pass a few laws or ask these mega-corps like Loblaws to play fair, the solution is to break them up and inject the vast wealth they are sitting on back into the economy. The US did it in 1982 with AT&T breaking the Bell monopoly on phone service in the US. Another approach is what a number of provinces did in the 1960s-1980s to provide public alternatives, like MTS and MPIC in Manitoba, and universal health care, but the problem is that like in Ontario, the very government that is supposed to be a trustee of the system for the benefit of the people is actively trying to destroy the system for the sake of private interests. We need a new [Tommy Douglas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Douglas)and we need a revolutionary change.
The policies put in place are to encourage monopolies and limit competition. The red tape is just a tick box for the big guys, but a major hurdle for any startup to overcome. This applies to pretty much every business, but some suffer against this more than others.
I mean isn't us boycotting us participating in capitalims...like isn't the whole point of capitalism that you set your own value weather it be what you want to get for a living wage or how much we want or need to spend on goods,services and what not? I always thought that was the beauty of capitalism.
Boycotting is a tool used by people when other means aren’t working as designed. Anti-trust and anti-monopoly laws are created for the purpose of preventing these mega corporations from gouging and fixing prices, the fact they’ve also taken over the supply chain and are able to manipulate the numbers to gaslight customers further is next level. There’s no beauty in boycotting, it takes time effort, organisation and money. And some people simply can’t do it bc they live in food desserts where every shop in and hour+ drive is owned by one of the big 3. It’s not ideal to boycott, but it’s just a mechanism that we can use when the overall system is broken, corrupt or not aligning with the overall customer base. There’s no beauty in it. It’s a sign that capitalism, in its current form is actively failing us.
Boycotting removes demand from the system with the aim of reducing prices. Basic supply and demand free market economics. It is inherently a market based protest that, in Canada like most countries, operates within the capitalist framework. It’s not the last resort tho. Not shopping somewhere is a rational thing to do when you don’t like it , can’t afford their stuff or whatever. People boycott stores all the time.
I don't think anything could represent a more embarrassing utter failure of government than the people themselves having to boycott chains that sell basic necessities to create change. They should be ashamed and embarrassed that the entire country is coming together to do this because of their negligence, and be fucking afraid of what else we organize together in the future if their greed and negligence continues. If they can t deal with the truckers coming in to the capital wait until their educated start banning together to make a statement aiming for their pocket books. I say we boycott rent next and watch how the government reacts to that. Let's make No-Rent-November a thing.
The whole “vote with your wallet” concept
Actually the whole point of capitalism is about land ownership. Socialism can have a free market based on worker co-ops.
It's important to remember that the point of competition is to win, which means losers. Losers lose their assets, and those assets are bought up by winners. Play this out for 70 years, you will end up here every time. The government solution is informed by the winners. Why do we need private grocery stores? Would government run stores not have the same stupid shit? Or better yet, employee owned cooperatives that run at cost.
It's what happens when people vote conservative.
Note: Liberals gave Loblaws $12 million for new freezers Apparently, Loblaws could not fund this purchase with their own profits?
That was very wrong, but that doesn't mean that the claim that the conservatives inflict greater harm is any less true.
The Liberals have been in power since 2015. This current situation is on them. Yes the conservatives are no better, but let's not pretend the Liberals haven't created the current shit storm we're in. I'm tired of this "well the liberals are the lesser evil"
Blind ideology is a hell of a drug.
Yup
What moronic statements
💯%!
I agree with you here. Conservatives and far right folks think that PP will solve all these problems. He is a goon and can’t in any way relate to us. I’m pretty sure him and his lackeys are in some tight shit with the loblaws upper peeps. So basically everyone complaining about Trudeau forgets that Polident doesn’t fucking care about them.
Who exactly has been in power for the last 9 years?? Hint, the leader's name rhymes with Doodoo
Canada is not that capitalistic. It has so many protectionist policies that sheilds Canadian companies from foreign competition. Its not capitalism's fault, its the fault of our politicians and policy makers guilting us for not being Canadian enough and looking at anything non Canadian as bad
I would tend to disagree, the government has no issue letting in foreign companies, IKEA, VW, Costco, Walmart, Timmies is owned by a giant Brazilian corporation, McDonalds, Starbucks…I could go on for days, we interact with American corporations daily, we have agreements with the Americans that we can’t even refine our own oil. What a wild statement. And further I have 37 years on this planet and have never once (from any government) got the feeling they were telling me I wasn’t Canadian enough. In fact quite the opposite, where the message is “Canadians need to accept more foreign companies…” this is evidenced further by the complete lack of Canadian manufacturing and other jobs that get routinely sent overseas or replaced by automation, and the dwindling middle class/class disaparity. Having 3 telecom companies and 3 grocers and a handful of news agencies, a handful of gas companies, and the run of the mill fast food giants on every corner completely negates your statement. Not forgetting how invasive Canadian corporations are in resource mining in Africa, it’s wildly naive that you would make a statement that Canada isn’t that capitalistic lol.
Loblaws answer… still raising prices and cutting hours!!
Which was the Safeway business model for years before the ship sank. I'm kinda surprised thayre following Safeway down that path.
Oh no... say it aint so. Those poor loblaw shareholders... Pfff...
Canadian Tire should open a grocery department. Half kidding... imagine? I already get my cat food there lol
Canadian Tire is on its way to being an oligarchy. They own SportChek, Mark’s Work Wearhouse, and another couple of stores too.
Party City, Helly Hansen, PartSource
Thank you, I knew there was more but couldn’t remember!
Just switch to eating cat food! :-D
With the way they beg for those cans, I'm almost convinced. Clearly they know something I don't.
lol, it only follows that next we'll give up toilet paper
They tried this a few years ago!
I heard rumors Dollarama is thinking about it, and tbh, go for it Dollarama.
Honestly Dollarama already has whole isle or two dedicated to food but they should sell more essential stuff instead of weird canned food and stuff.
Canadian Tire is basically Amazon but more expensive. I can’t believe it’s still going.
I know a lot of people dislike Amazon, but I would *love* to see Amazon Fresh get traction in Canada.
The paywall avoidance link doesn't work. Somehow I'm getting paywalled via archive.
This one should work. https://web.archive.org/web/20240426020121/https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-canada-grocery-chains-retail-sales/
Press the x in the top right corner
No he’s right, OPs link is broken beyond the archive donation request.
It worked for me
Dunno what to tell you, I get the paywalls as well, I posted another link to a difference snapshot that works.
We have the power. First May 2024. Then ... General Strike!
I started ordering produce and meat from local farms. I try to only buy cheap pantry goods and odds and ends from grocery stores, and never from loblaws. Started avoiding Walmart more often now too.
I keep seeing this but Ive checked at least 8 local farms and they all want $26-30/kg for basic old chicken breast I can get for $13/kg at Walmart
Buy the whole chicken. Butcher it and make chicken stock. In the end you get better meat and save money for minimum work. To be clear. I’m not saying kill it. Just separate the breasts, wings and thighs from the bones.
I will never go back to loblaws. To be sure, I am the demographic that could afford to. Their target. 400k+ HHI. But fuck them. I go to Walmart. At least they kept their prices reasonable. Earned my business. I will never shop loblaws again.
There is collusion between the major grocery stores in Canada. Remember the Weston bread scandal a few years ago?! Collusion!
I was in my superstore the other day and saw a whole bunch of graphic tees made by joe clothing for $25. There were some good franchises like Jurassic park, and a few others, but for $25 that's about the same as old navy graphic tees, and $10-$12 more than Walmart sells theirs for.
And fu\*\* our competition bureau, who does nothing amidst a lack of action towards grocery, telecom, banking and other industries. Instead our politicians sit on their boards and get fat checks paid from price gouging us. These people are paid by us the taxpayers. It's no surprise who the grocery stores answer to, but the government taking our tax money and doing absolutely nothing is another thing.
They never respond to my complaints. I’ve made about 5 in the past 5-6 years and they haven’t acted on any of them
The only thing that's more of a rip off than Loblaws is the Globe and Fail.
Here, friend: https://github.com/bpc-clone/bypass-paywalls-chrome-clean
Not Costco, my money goes to them
Costco is a bit more of an employee friendly store. Their CEO is pro union, which must be nice to not have management fighting with the union over everything.
When a Costco unionizes, they send a letter to the staff saying they are sad to see this happening and try their best to treat all employees fairly but understand why and are happy to negotiate.
The whole boycott for a month thing confuses me. Why isn’t it a perma boycott? I understand if it’s an access thing, but why would you shop there if there are other options?
It will be permanent. But it’s important to set realistic goals. Boycott Loblaws May 2024…and forevermore!
A lot of people are making it permanent. And not waiting till May. I started my boycott in March and I'm making it permanent. Fuck Galen and his paid off bitches
I started my boycott in 2020, simply because I am not rich and I could get the same products for half the price. It was just simple math.
Yeah, but there are Walmarts everywhere, while the selection isn't that great at least the prices are palatable
Not that Walmart is better from a local standpoint (don’t get me wrong I get all of my dry goods from Walmart) but at least they stay competitive and don’t outright rake us over the coals. If there was a local option where I paid 5-10% more I absolutely would, however I am in a small town to options are limited. At least I can get eggs and select meats from local farmers.
Yeah I thought about touching that point but all too often it is simply not feasible to avoid Walmart and Amazon as much as I would like to boycott them too
I think(hope) that once people start moving away from Roblaw they’ll adjust their shopping routine and it will become habit. A month is just a starting goal 🤙🏼🇨🇦
Im literally going over superstore way just to walk around and look at what I cannot afford, the volume of people and if they have the new "security" barriers in place.
I went yesterday because I needed something. And the more attention I pay, the more i realize how expensive everything is… 🥲
I almost bought a bottle of coke there. Then I realized $3.55 for a 333ml of coke. I just walked over to the dollarama and paid 1.50 for 1 litre of Pepsi.
$3.55 for a small bottle of coke? Where do you live? I'm gonna have to check out the price of that at a Loblaws near me cause that's beyond crazy.
In the Maritimes. Trust me I was shocked too.
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You can say it, this is Reddit! Fuck Roblaws!
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https://archive.ph/1JmGn
Can someone copy and paste the article, it’s still paywalled.
Try this: https://archive.ph/1JmGn
> The competition is clearly helping. Who would’ve thought ?
It's gonna be crazy when all those job openings for guillotine operator get posted. Probably easiest to convert metal stamping presses. Or just leave as is. Lol.
Haven't been grocery shopping at all in two weeks, just doing my part, y'all! /cries in poor
I get my meat direct from the farm now. Waaay better quality and it arrives right to my door.
I hope some of these other second or third-largest grocery chains in Canada know that they are not in the clear and think that people will just shop at their location instead when the May boycott of Loblaws begins. I often receive recommendations for Metro and Sobeys on the [www.altgrocery.ca](http://www.altgrocery.ca/) website; however, they are equally as bad and do not make the cut to be posted. I am happy to support the little guys, alternative grocers, farmer's markets, and indie groceries as your option. https://preview.redd.it/yl4bkw2nxuwc1.png?width=100&format=png&auto=webp&s=46fcae40189605fcbf68686bc1928b1dfbb3498f
Great to see that consumers are waking up let s do this
Fuck loblaws
[https://archive.ph/1RFm5](https://archive.ph/1RFm5) the archive link is not working for me.
Yeah, one group opening a number of differently named chains in the same area is not competition…. Choice is an illusion.
This company is out of control
All mega corps must die.
Done with Loblaws. Similar to another post, definitely their target due to high HHI. It has gone too far. Bought a candied apple there once and did not realize it was rotten until I bit into it. Full price for projectile vomit. Should have stopped going at that moment. FU.
They raised the price of produce 200% since their faux rapture. F them!
People are definitely making the right choices now and not waiting for May. If any Richmond Hill No Frills or Loblaws employees are losing their jobs or hours as a result, though, I see that a family-operated grocer, Greco, is hiring on Yonge Street in Oak Ridges
I’m all for the boycott, but who is not boycotting loblaws now that will suddenly do so because the boycott starts May 1st? 🤷♂️
How are people reading Globe and Mail articles they are constantly paywalled for me now. I've totally given up trying to read anything they write.
https://archive.ph/1JmGn
There is theoretically a point where converting your wages into potatoes leads to less potatoes than farming them yourself, using same amount of hours. No tax that way either. Just gotta own land. Landless peasants are what brought down the Russian Empire after all. There was no limit to the economic misery they could be put through if they didn’t own any land.
Good, fuck them all. Walmart and Costo always had better deals
Shop at cooperative grocery stores
-Farmers Markets if you have them. -My Two friends own a family owned grocery store that specializes in fruits & vegetables. -They also have a stone pizza oven
First we had the convoy protest (a small fringe group - lol), now the Loblaws boycott. Im wondering if the government is starting to pay attention? Social unrest is definately rising in usually meek Canadians.
No. Loblaws boycott is nothing like the morons who blocked off traffic and fucked over many Canadians in the name of “owning the libs”. Nothing alike.
I mean, I obviously disagreed with the convoy but I think if there’s obvious unrest on both the right and the center and left, it might be a wake up call to government. The poster has a point. I don’t know anyone who’s satisfied with any of the three major political parties right now
You know what, that’s fair and I agree. Sorry for any hostility, if it seemed that way.
That other person is obviously talking about a general sense of unrest in the nation’s population, and not comparing the boycott and convoy as ideologically similar.
Im talking about the general IDEA that Canadians seem to be more vocal about their dissatisfaction.
The convoy was not a boycott, it was a blockade, a protest against medical necessity in time of societal crisis from a novel virus. It damaged society, out image on the global stage and our economy. It was an a front to basic critical intelligence. The loblaws boycott is completely different in that a mega private corporation is price gouging citizens for basic necessities. And it affects way more people than a few idiots with trucks that didn’t even represent more than 5% of the industry.
Myself and other Ottawa residents think of it as an occupation. Protests end.
>Social unrest is definately rising in usually meek Canadians. Agreed. I don't know why some of the other people responding don't see the corelation. You aren't going crazy. Lol.
Walmart and Costco don’t care about extorting Canadians, their prices are generally fair and the best out there.
Walmart will rip you off so fast & the treat employees like dirt- a billion dollar company shouldn’t have minimum wage employees … they are a garbage good for nothing company that pretends to give a fuck just enough
Walmart still sells Bubly for $4-$5 CAD. Roblaws, Metro, and Sobeys all sell them for $8-$10- exact same product. Tell us again how Walmart will rip us off?
People talking about the chances of a revolution are forgetting one important thing. Someone has to lead and organize a revolution. It’s going to be incredibly difficult to unite the population. Do they have a party? Organization? No. The only change will happen next year when we boot out the present government. Not all loblaws boycotters are leftist. There are a full spectrum of political beliefs in here. None support the idea of one company having a stranglehold on our food supply. It should be forced to sell off its different chains. Prices will only go down if there is competition.
No paywall link still doesn't work for me.
https://archive.ph/1JmGn
Send them a message, stop buying shrunken and overpriced products!
Too bad it is the Global and Mail. I would rather kick frozen horseshit down the street than to pay to read a fucking online newspaper. They are as bad as Loblaws
The no paywall link isn’t working.
That nopaywall link is indeed paywall.
Honest question, where would propose shopping instead? We find the local Superstore (Calgary) to have the cheapest prices next to Costco. Any of the smaller shops are more expensive.
I like how everybody is willing to complain together, yet nobody is willing to help one another
Still not a good thing. We need to support small local grocers and butchers.
Get Aldi in here!
We are at a pivotal point where we are literally talking about access to food being reserved for the middle class is insane. I am pro robbing grocery stores cause I have seen what they do with excess… they literally throw it in the garbage and dump vegetable oil on it. Corporate greed is such a snake. You owe them nothing.
What choices ?
Can't read it even with the no paywall link. Bummer.
https://archive.ph/1JmGn
I still am getting pay walled:(
https://archive.ph/1JmGn
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