Unless of course you're a conservative. Then it's somehow always immigration's fault.
They are colluding... to keep prices low
If anything, Costco's higher prices is more likely to suggest collusion (but still does not imply it).
Focusing on the overlords is almost always a distraction on the underlying issue - that of the the electorate being too stupid, or ignorant to realize that they are being taken advantage of.
Who is to blame? (not a rhetorical question)
Blaming politicians/system get really old, doesn't it?
Based on a brief look by my layman eyes, it does not seem like Canadian grocery chains are vastly more concentrated relative to the US. It's hard to compare because so many of the chains are owned by the same few brands, but this chart is helpful:
https://www.howtocook.recipes/the-largest-grocery-stores-and...
I'd look at the top ten and then ignore Walgreens and CVS. I think you've got 8 conglomerates serving the vast majority of the 330M Americans. (Unclear to me whether Target should be included; I don't know how much of the sales listed there are actual groceries.) The OP article suggest 5 conglomerates serve the large majority of the 38M Canadians.
Regarding food, I beg to differ. The top 3 grocers have price-fixed bread [1] (one prosecution since that article), wage-fixed [2] and have no-compete agreements for certain times of the year [3]. Food prices are not driven by underlying costs here.
1. https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/bread-price-fixing-loblaw-1... 2. https://financialpost.com/news/economy/how-hero-pay-scandal-... 3. https://www.cochranetimespost.ca/opinion/columnists/charlebo...
Food prices are absolutely driven by costs, there is no other basis for them.
Loblaws is a luxury retailer with a limited set of stores and hardly counts as competitive. When someone complains about margins on certain products, ask them to explain complementary goods to you. This project is theatre for people whose understanding of economics ends at monopoly and scrooge mcduck.
Uh? Loblaws is the largest or only grocery chain in many parts of Canada.
Is that why they own the chain "No Frills"?
> with a limited set of stores
Only in the sense that it is a finite number of stores. Loblaw Companies is Canada's largest food retailer.
Loblaws and other companies have a lengthy history of illegal price fixing, monopolistic behaviour and other manipulative activity. Pretending that just more unregulated free market nonsense is going to help the situation is really naive.
Every sane government uses taxes, to ensure food independence. A country needs farms beyond all else. The US does this on the back end, using taxes to shore up pricing. One method the US uses is "government cheese", where their federal government buys megatonnes of milk, turns it into cheese, then gives it to welfare recipients. By buying up surplus, the feds keep the price of milk up.
Canada instead regulates milk pricing via quotas.
Both methods involve keeping the price artificially high.
The US follows suit in other markets too.
GFO continued to run an optional pool until the 2020 crop year, but that has now also come to an end. I can't imagine anyone was still using it. It was a product of a bygone era.
At the same time, you missed eggs and poultry, which are also under supply management like dairy. If we're to be technical it the milk/egg/chicken/turkey marketing board is responsible for managing the supply and therefore prices, which is decidedly not a government entity, but the existence is granted by the government so we'll give you that one.
Instead, your analysis is simply: "Government bad!"
Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying the government isn't a very large part of the problem (ie for increasing the money supply and a lot of the things you mentioned) but to try and explain what happened to food prices without even mentioning Covid, or record corporate profits, is extremely disingenuous.
But damn those "economically illiterate" serfs complaining about high prices, eh?
That's not exactly a strong indictment: when the average margin for the industry is about 1%, all kinds of things are going to cause this or that industry participant's margin to fluctuate up or down by a factor of 50%, i.e., to go down to 0.5% or up to 2%.
It's not the same thing as Apple's margins, which last time I checked 12 years ago or so hovered around 33%, so if they went up by 50% (i.e., to 50%) it would mean something (at least if they stayed at that high for many years, which BTW you have not mentioned whether the largest grocery chain's did).
That tracks with their financial statements (no new efficiencies).
So, the only way to increase profit margin when input costs are rising is to raise prices more than your costs are rising.
As an aside... Loblaw's margin is upwards of 3.7% not 1%. Before Covid it was around 2% (give or take) for over a half century. The grocery industry may have low margins but they were remarkably stable. Until Covid.
the reason food is so expensive is because of fuel costs from the last few years, which were further not-helped by both an increase in federal taxes on fuel and the semi-official policy of weakening the CAD against the USD to support exports that weakens purchasing power. the effort appeals to economically illiterate constituents who support "price controls."
if you want to know where canada is on its de-kulakization spiral, the state is blaming "price gougers" for its policy failures, next are hoarders, speculators and probably "international bankers," on the list of clichés.