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A rebate sounds like a positively insane idea. It's just a corporate subsidy with extra steps.
If you want to lower prices, you can't give people money to give to the oligopolies. You have to break up the oligopolies, regulate the hell out of them, and send some people to prison for price fixing.
Yup. When gov't does things like this they're only treating a symptom and not the cause of the issue.
And making the problem worse in the process
They could save $12.4B and dust off Canada's anti-monopoly laws which haven't been in use in 30 years. Break up Roblaws.
Roblaws
🔥
We're waiting to see if a corporate lapdog wins NDP leadership in March before I say anything about who could be willing to try that lol.
Grocery prices shot up by more than 30% since 2020, says StatsCan
Obligatory - Loblaw is out of control
The PBO report estimates the one-time payment will cost more than $3 billion this year, while the annual increases will cost between $1.7 billion and $1.9 billion annually through to 2031.
Not that expensive. Still these moves without addressing the rent seeking (profit maximization) in the consoludated supply and retail chain is a band aid. Minimum wages are also woefully underadjusted but they'd only have positive effect if the grocers can't just jack up their prices to where they think the new market conditions would bear.
Not that expensive.
list the hospitals and schools you would like to close to subsidize Loblaws.
Zero obviously.
If we assume Loblaws gets 100% of this money and those 12M Canadians get no extra food as a result from it, then I would be 100% against this. However I bet that 12M people will get some more food, probably not the equivalent of 100% of the spend but not zero. Loblaws would get the rest. Hunger isn't lower priority than healthcare. Both are cut-to-the-bone issues and food very much affects health and healthcare. So I think this will provide needed relief in the near term. We all know what happens in the long run. It's very much not the type of policy I would do if I were PM.
Don't get me wrong, I'd prefer an Avi Lewis gov't setup a non-profit public grocer and distributor and have zero money go to Loblaws, which is why I'm getting people to vote in the NDP election. I'm just commenting on the current material reality.
It's becoming quite necessary to have some help given the financial situation of many Canadians.
This is clearly going to be a difficult time for many ordinary people.
Any chance that > $12.4B is directly taxed or siphoned from the big grocery chains?
shakes magic 8ball
Slim to none.
Any chance that most of our politicians are replaced by magic 8-balls of similar efficacy but 0 cost?