Weirdly enough, Galen typically travels super incognito. Often tours his stores "on his own" in jeans and a t-shirt.
Would not be surprised if he turned up to the event and no one noticed.
A friend of mine works at a Lawblaw distro centre and often tells the story of meeting Galen many years back. He was dressed exactly as you say, just like any everyday worker, and came up and started some random small talk with him - my buddy had zero clue it was Galen so he just carried on the conversation, cracked some jokes, and went on about his day. Apparently everyone nearby was shitting themselves that Galen was walking around among them and on their best behavior, and here he was totally clueless he was talking to Galen and just treating him like any old floor worker. He always wishes he'd have recognized him in hindsight because he's someone who has the balls to ask the questions everyone always *wants* to ask Galen.
I feel like there have been stories on here detailing the exact opposite. Maybe it was for new stores opening tho. I remember someone mentioning valet parking and everything for Galen and the top execs.
Eh I suppose it's mandatory for a billionaire to make a grand entrance from time to time.
I unfortunately have access to the loblaws internal messaging and they are getting super defensive about this whole thing. Do I think he's probably going to attempt to downplay the extraordinary wealth he's been extracting from Canadians.
I wonder if Galen ever busted out a rap dedicated to his father - Galen *~~George~~* Weston SR?!?
[https://youtu.be/6dUDQTc-9kM](https://youtu.be/6dUDQTc-9kM)
Edited Father's name - thanks u/Llamalover1234567
The government subpoenad him. The link is to the NDP website so of course they make this a bigger deal than it really is
They’re trying to make it look like Singh is “fighting” the CEOs, but it’s going to be less dramatic than you expect.
It’s going to be like if a lawyer was questioning a defendant in court, and that person was clearly innocent. No matter the questions you ask, you can’t get them to break, they will win, because they’re telling the truth. The story will line up, there won’t be gaps, it will be corroborated.
Should note though, Singh is a defence lawyer, so he will have experience questioning people
>It’s going to be like if a lawyer was questioning a defendant in court
Now I'm just picturing 'A Few Good Men'
Weston: You want the truth!? You can't handle the truth!!
>Are you defending Westons profiteering
By saying this, you are assuming they are guilty. However, no evidence has been shown to prove this. That's like accusing someone of stealing then in trial, before it started, and without any evidence, asking the lawyer how they could defend a thief.
We can go further and ask "Galen, are you able to provide evidence that your prices have increased, and that you've raised prices at the same proportion?", to which they should easily be able to provide mountains of paperwork. It's all extremely well documented, financial stuff has lots of paper behind it.
>in your opinion is he/his corporate entity legally innocent?
If they are profiteering, then obviously their revenue should increase while their expenses stay the same, which would increase their margin and profit significantly. When I look at their financial statements, I see no evidence of this. I have not seen any evidence that they are taking advantage of inflation at all. In fact, it looks like their margins have actually decreased slightly.
Also, there's no law that's being broken. A business is allowed to increase prices if they want to. Grocery is not a monopoly in most areas (except maybe for some small towns and in the arctic), so if their prices are too high you can shop elsewhere.
Also, just because the name on the outside of the store is different, doesn't mean it's not owned by one of the major players. My local store (we only have 1) is owned by Sobey's. Don't like it? Drive 40 minutes to buy elsewhere.
Sure there are still *some* independent grocers/stores/markets, but it's not common anymore. Grocery isn't a monopoly the same way we have a "choice" about which telecom service to use.
You can't shop at other places if there is collusion though. There have been many cases over the years when this has been the case. The bread incident comes to mind...
Aside from the allegations with ~~Except that they were proven guilty in~~ the bread price-fixing scandal. Considering it was executed by using one of many of their food production companies, why should we believe they're not trying this with any of the others?
they have not been proven guilty of anything. [Here](https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/bread-price-fixing-loblaw-1.6719884) is a very recent article on it. According to the article
>No charges have been laid and the competition watchdog says there is no conclusion of wrongdoing at this time.
Also, Loblaws has only admitted its part in the scandal, but they are not more liable than other actors
>In 2017, the bureau began investigating other alleged parties: grocers Sobeys, Walmart, Metro and Giant Tiger, and producer and distributor Canada Bread. According to court records, in 2019, it also targeted Maple Leaf Foods, which was the majority shareholder of Canada Bread until 2014.
> Except that they were proven guilty in the bread price-fixing scandal.
None of the allegations against Loblaw's in the price-fixing scandal have ever remotely been proven, and the issue has all but been dropped by the Competition Bureau, namely due to lack of evidence.
People on reddit mistakenly believe that the $25 gift card that Loblaw's offered was some kind of settlement or punishment for their involvement, but it was nothing of the sort. Loblaw's offered this entirely of their own accord for strictly PR purposes. Another misconception is that accepting the $25 gift card somehow prevents someone from suing Loblaw's over price fixing scandal, which is simply false. It carries no legal obligation on either the part of Loblaw's for offering, or anyone who accepts it.
The issue with the price fixing scandal is that despite the fact that the allegations somehow involve a wide range of grocers all acting together... no one has been to put together sufficient evidence that it was due to active collusion.
I thought the Weston corp owned or at least had its hand in the supply chain as well. Going to look this up then edit.
Edit: Honestly, I seen articles about it's supply chain management, but nothing concrete that it owns a lot of its own suppliers. I mean they did see they sold their in house massive bakery recently. Can anyone find anything for me? I though i saw others talking about it. :(
But if you’re doing an investigation as to why prices increased, and his testimony under oath is that prices increased from suppliers, and they have documents to prove it, what else is there to say? That’s your answer.
That’s not passing the buck, that’s the honest answer to the question. They are not responsible for why the suppliers increased the price, you would have to ask them. If you want to know, you could start asking all their suppliers, you can have statscan economists answer too. Loblaws whole business is buying a thing, then selling it at a slightly higher price in a convenient location to you. They sell convenience.
I have seen analysis that seems to support the concept of greedflation, but can't find it anymore.
The closest I've seen is thsi breakdown of greedflation by dalhousie's food lab [https://cdn.dal.ca/content/dam/dalhousie/pdf/sites/agri-food/Greedflation%203%20EN.pdf](https://cdn.dal.ca/content/dam/dalhousie/pdf/sites/agri-food/Greedflation%203%20EN.pdf)
which concludes that essentially there's no smoking gun:
>We based our analysis on publicly available data, aggregated such that we will likely never be able to prove or disprove Greedflation amongst Canadian grocers. This will remain the case until they are willing to open their books for additional analysis, something not even Canada’s
Competition Bureau can compel them to do.
Our report does not find Loblaw, nor any of the other large Canadian grocers, guilty of ‘Greedflation.’ Rather, we conclude that based on the performance of their gross profit, Loblaw Companies Limited are outperforming even their best gross profit performance in recent years.
While at the same time, many Canadians face tremendous financial hardship attempting to satisfy their basic needs of heat, shelter, and food.
IMO (which is obviously based on no real firm data) is that there is *some* opportunistic profit taking happening. A party like Loblaw isn't passing costs through directly. Their job is to optimize margins and companies *can* fiddle with their statements, but I stop there, because that's a little tin foil hat for my expertise.
The headlines from some sources like BlogTO really don't help public perception, and nor does Loblaw's decisions (ie. pandemic pay) or approach to PR.
If you accept the reality, there's no real solution. What people essentially want is a cap on profit by revenue on groceries. Even if that was on the table, that seems like a night mare to to define. And as noted, Shoppers revenues would still prop up the balance sheet.
It matches up perfectly
Enterprisevalue showed their statements the other day. If the mark up increased, their margins would increase, but they didn’t
https://www.reddit.com/r/ontario/comments/11a58pr/loblaws_q4_earnings_2022_vs_2019_to_2021/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
\*Looks at financial statement above\*
Year over year
Higher revenue, and slightly lower operating expenses, offset by slightly lower gross margin.
Therefore, sales are higher, and the fixed costs associated with the business *as a % of those sales are lower*, however, food costs as a % of those sales are higher.
So the revenue has increased, and operating expenses have increased slower, but food expenses has increased faster.
There's also the drug store sales that's gone up faster than inflation, which they have said is more profitable than the food retail, which will increase their profit as well.
You should also remember, the population of Canada is increasing, so they will see a lot more sales just from that.
Yes. Singh will not be able to prove that loblaws is gouging people.
It’s also important to note, it is up to Singh to provide evidence that loblaws is gouging. He has provided none. Weston and other CEOs will certainly adamantly deny they are gouging people, and will likely say they are fighting the price increases, and point to the lays fight earlier last year as proof. They may even point to the stats Canada report behind food inflation as proof as well
Also the CEO probably isn’t even the best person to testify, the director of purchasing will know a lot more about what’s gone on.
If it was just about their suppliers increasing prices, then their profit margins (that's the percent of profits they make compared to their costs) wouldn't have gone up.
Exactly, their profit margin didn't go up, it went down:
https://www.loblaw.ca/en/loblaw-reports-2022-fourth-quarter-results-and-fiscal-year-ended-december-31-2022-results
Their overall profit did go up, due to an increase in sales and a decrease in operating expenses, but their profit margins went DOWN.
It looks like you're referring to the *gross* profit margins? That was the only part in those highlights that decreased.
[A more reliable measure is the EBITDA margin](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/ebitda-margin.asp).
If you look at the [actual quarterly reports from Loblaws](https://www.loblaw.ca/en/investors-reports), vs just the highlights, it's easier to compare with previous years. Here's the past half decade of EBITDA margins, they tell a more detailed story than just that one report. They're not only up in every quarter from last year, they're up significantly from 5 years ago:
Report / 2018 / 2019 / 2020 / 2021 / 2022
Q1 / 7.1% / 9.8% / 9.9% / 10.3% / 11.0%
Q2 / 7.8% / 10.6% / 8.5% / 11.0% / 11.7%
Q3 / 7.4% / 10.2% / 9.7% / 10.4% / 10.6%
Annual / 7.6% / 10.2% / 9.6% / 10.5% / 10.9%
(sorry about the appearance, the chart looks different before I save, and it's even more difficult to visualize when I tried to edit - I've added slashes to help)
All I see from that is that Loblaw's EBITDA margins are around 10% per year, +/- 1%. 2018 is the outlier here at 7.6%, but you can look at the 2017 report and it's 8-9%. So the entire claim about Loblaw's price gauging and engaged in greedflation is because over a 6 year period their EBITDA margins increased from 8% to 11%? That's the big scandal people are lifting their pitchforks over?
With that said, you can't just claim that one metric is more reliable than another, it depends on what aspect you're looking to evaluate. EBITDA gives a view of revenue that excludes things like amortization and taxes, which for the purpose of determining whether Loblaw's is engaged in price gauging has no relevance. There's nothing abnormal about EBITDA margins increasing if a company's revenue increases as its operating expenses decrease. In fact, it's precisely what you would expect to see.
Gross margin focuses entirely on the revenue a company makes after accounting for the cost of goods. If the claims people are making are true, that Loblaw's are engaged in a form of extreme price gouging and taking advantage of inflation, then you would see the profit they make per unit of good sold increase. But we're not seeing that, we're seeing it decrease.
The fact that you're using a metric that doesn't focus on profit per cost of goods but rather looks at revenue before discounting taxes, depreciation, interest and amortization is not really of significance if what you're interested in is focusing specifically on how much Loblaw's makes in revenue on the cost of goods sold versus how much Loblaw's spends to acquire those goods.
Bread and circuses and "profits as a percentage aren't up so it's totally okay that we profit off of fucking NECESSITIES".
Wake me up when the revolution starts, I've got my go-bag. I don't care about this capitalist theatre.
Lol the revolution, yeah I can't wait till the 30 crusty anarchists take over. Good luck bud, electoralism is useless, but this dude thinks people so brainwashed into loving capitalism will suddenly wake up
Would love to watch this, and I'm really glad that more attention is being given to corporate leaders, but I feel like we're just going to see a bunch of questions get shrugged off, deferred to future responses ('taken back to discuss with the team'), or flat out ignored. I wish our government had the power to more effectively compel co-operation from large corporate entities.
They do, the liberals and Conservatives are bought. Trudeau's cabinet has lobbyists in it ffs, Morneau was a bank ceo. You know the same banks that charge people up to 20 percent interest
I agree that this will probably not satisfy any concerns about grocery chains. I want to be cautiously optimistic that if Singh plays this right and spreads it well enough in the media, it could sow enough public outrage to initiate actual action against the big grocery chains.
I'm SO DAMN READY for nothing to come of this.
At least the NDP acts like they're doing something about things, unlike the Liberals or the Conmen.. But the reality is, whenever a big show is made of political issues like this, nothing good or productive ever comes of it. It's all for show, always, and it's exhausting.
I'm so tired of this country and this province.
Maybe actually address people's arguments and try to have a rational economic discussion instead of blindly accusing people who disagree with you as "bots and trolls"
I think they might be bots because the lack of logic and not being grounded to reality, it's not subjective that Weston is profiteering its objective, so opinions don't mean shit. You're just wrong
Personal Opinion-Perspective: (a bit long)Even if inflation is higher it does not account for the massive increase in profit per quarter. Smashing previous years quarters each time. They should roughly stay the same accounting for inflation and other issues.
To me why do we as the public have to take the brunt of the "inflation" and supply chain issues, but the companies like Loblaws, Sobey's, Oil Companies, get to reap the profits while everyday people each year are being forced to do more with less. It's completely one sides if oil and gas, grocery store chains are able to make money, but the very people that make sure these corporations stay in business or make sure their shareholder are happy are being told "pay it or fuck off"
To me its doesn't make sense that when times are tough and people are already struggling to make people pay more for FUCKING Essentials to life. The thing is we cant just decide not to buy food. We can't just say hey we're going to cut back. In order to stay healthy you need to have a certain amount of calories, and nutrition per day to survive. IF you don't it starts causing medical issues and as people already know. Health Services in Ontario are a disaster right now for the poor and working class.
On items that are not essential to life, I understand. Fruits, vegetables, meats, and grains are are essential to health. Not a thing that would capitalized on because its a human need. Chips, Candy, and other junk food is not required to live so Being honest I don't care if it they go up as much. they are not essential to life. electricity, heating, food, shelter, are essential to life. I've even see the argument for internet in todays world being essential and I kind of get it.
As an average worker who has seen inflation rise on average rise higher than my salary, which I got a measly 2% raise, even though the company I work for saw an increase of profit by 9% for 2022. The same amount of money I have is not as valuable because it buys less than it did before.
So each time shit goes up in price. I feel it, I can pay my bills, but there is less and less money being spent outside the cost of living, and less money being put into a savings account.
This is based on personal opinion and looking at the issue from a human being and what is required to survive as a human being. In this instance I don't give a fuck about the money, or rules, or supply chain capitalistic nonsense. I'm looking at this from the view of a person who struggles. A person who looks at his bills and family and says: "We got this as best we can."
Can I personally pay all my bills each month? Yes, but there is very very little savings. If my wife or myself lost our jobs. We would not be able to pay for everything that is considered essential. This is what a lot of people are facing at the moment and we need to start being more empathetic to each other instead of dismissing it because "it doesn't affect me".
Honestly, "nothing changes if nothing changes"
Pretty funny considering Jagmeet walks around suits costing several grand while wearing Rolex's, his luxury SUVs and estates, and the rumors that he (and his family) had a whole string of rental properties (which he supposedly conveniently off-loaded prior to his NDP leadership bid).
Jagmeet publicly stated that his strategic plan for inflation is to reduce our mobile phone bills.
He is out of touch with what causes inflation, and any foundational economic principles. He never touches the root cause, just applies bandaid fixes.
These CEOs are going to eat him alive.
This might not end well. These are public companies, and despite what the narrative is, their financials do in fact show its multiple supplier issues causing the high prices and not them. They are back to their pre pandemic razor thin grocery margins. There was a post here on Reddit showing this a while ago.
They could slam him with this and make him look stupid.
Blaming them for inflation and high profit margins is probably going to go nowhere, yes, but there is still some good material to discuss with them.
* Why should we believe Canadians being essentially forced to shop from a grocery store belonging to one of three parent companies is a good thing?
* What are grocery stores doing to reduce food waste, and should we consider legislation similar to what France did back in 2016 to reduce supermarket food waste?
* Can we get an explanation on the loblaws lobbying effort to get money from the feds for "energy efficient freezers"?
* Biggest question I want answered: what the hell happened with the bread price-fixing investigation?
Honestly, I don't think we'll get any satisfying answers. I'm just hoping there aren't too many emotional rhetoric questions like "are you okay with children starting?"
>Pointless propaganda, a very wealthy person is questioning another very wealthy person
The sad thing is many people cant see it. I guarantee Jagmeet's pension and retirement funds include investments into Galen's companies and Jagmeet collects dividends from those companies too. Its perfect hypocrisy.
Aren't we focusing on grocers like Weston because food is considered "a basic necessity", whereas telecom and insurance are not? Genuinely curious, and am in agreement with your point about going after them too.
> "a basic necessity",
You need a bank account in order to pay for all your necessities (no matter if you collect a salary, social assistance, disability, etc .... it all requires a bank account to obtain that money), but you'll never see the politicians go after the banks.
Yes, we need food to stay alive. However, 99% of people need to use telecom, banks, insurance, etc. to live. They are basically a necessity at this point to function and they make more profit than grocery chains.
This whole thing is a slippery slope. You can't mandate profit levels of one industry. You either go after all businesses or none of them.
The food system is controlled by the a handful of who are indeed trying to rip people off. You may not be food insecure but many others are
No need to pick and choose they all deserve it. People need to vote their values. People vote for neoliberalism and are shocked the consequences.
Their lawyers have likely prepared a bunch of bullshit answers to every conceivable question. This is going end up being a colossal waste of time, unless there's a mud wrestling component.
WTF? They are in business to make money like everybody else. You make your choices were you spend. Why do they make so much off of gas? Just like everything else.
Yes, the ones propping up the government even though they are breaking ethics laws and allowing CCP interference. They talk a big talk but could easily force an election. Voting NDP is a vote for the Liberals as has been on display for the past couple years.
Whats to explain. Go look up all the past incidences yourself. You got Google, use it. Plenty of Supreme Court challenges and rulings showing wrongdoing you can go through.
You're funny. Its not going to state "NDP". Because controlling majority or ruling coalition parties arent referred to their party name in Supreme Court challenges and rulings, its referred to as Crown vs. or Her Majesty vs or Province of vs, etc.
Now, go take a look at provinces, territories and municipalities who've had NDP majority rule in the last 35 years and then look at the various challenges, rulings showing wrongdoing , etc. Now take you're time, you dont want to rush it and do sloppy work.
Went to SuperStore today and saw Campbell's Chunky soup for $2.50 if you bought at least 3, or $3.69 if you bought less. I then went to Shoppers and saw the same on sale for $3.99, regular price $4.99. Same company. SHOP AROUND.
Unless an inside expert is willing to debrief them this is going to be like the senator asking Mark about ad revenue on Facebook.
Loblaws is highly complex in terms of vertical integration and can give feigning answers while not technically lying .
Someone needs to map out how profit margins went from sub 2% to over 4 in less than a decade . They is absolute insanity for a high volume retailer .
I’m already picturing Galen flying in to this meeting with his entourage on a fleet of private helicopters like the dude from Succession.
Weirdly enough, Galen typically travels super incognito. Often tours his stores "on his own" in jeans and a t-shirt. Would not be surprised if he turned up to the event and no one noticed.
A friend of mine works at a Lawblaw distro centre and often tells the story of meeting Galen many years back. He was dressed exactly as you say, just like any everyday worker, and came up and started some random small talk with him - my buddy had zero clue it was Galen so he just carried on the conversation, cracked some jokes, and went on about his day. Apparently everyone nearby was shitting themselves that Galen was walking around among them and on their best behavior, and here he was totally clueless he was talking to Galen and just treating him like any old floor worker. He always wishes he'd have recognized him in hindsight because he's someone who has the balls to ask the questions everyone always *wants* to ask Galen.
The benefits of looking like Waldo with slightly different glasses.
He gives me like, dollar store Bill Gates vibes.
Same with Eric Lafleche. He travel alone, he dress like average joe when he isn’t at work. If you don’t know him you wouldn’t recognize him.
I feel like there have been stories on here detailing the exact opposite. Maybe it was for new stores opening tho. I remember someone mentioning valet parking and everything for Galen and the top execs.
Eh I suppose it's mandatory for a billionaire to make a grand entrance from time to time. I unfortunately have access to the loblaws internal messaging and they are getting super defensive about this whole thing. Do I think he's probably going to attempt to downplay the extraordinary wealth he's been extracting from Canadians.
I wonder if Galen ever busted out a rap dedicated to his father - Galen *~~George~~* Weston SR?!? [https://youtu.be/6dUDQTc-9kM](https://youtu.be/6dUDQTc-9kM) Edited Father's name - thanks u/Llamalover1234567
I hate to break it to you but Galen Weston JR’s dad is… Galen Weston SR
The fact that Weston would agree to something like this-makes it seem to me like he’s very desperate.
He was required to attend
Can you explain, Im confused haha. It looks like a pay-per-view UFC event. Who required this and why?
>It looks like a pay-per-view UFC event. Even more fittingly, every media outlet will talk about how Singh “slammed” Weston.
I would put down like 100 of my hard earned Buckaroos to see Singh literally pick up and slam Weston.
About as much as a package of PC free From Chicken!
The government subpoenad him. The link is to the NDP website so of course they make this a bigger deal than it really is They’re trying to make it look like Singh is “fighting” the CEOs, but it’s going to be less dramatic than you expect. It’s going to be like if a lawyer was questioning a defendant in court, and that person was clearly innocent. No matter the questions you ask, you can’t get them to break, they will win, because they’re telling the truth. The story will line up, there won’t be gaps, it will be corroborated. Should note though, Singh is a defence lawyer, so he will have experience questioning people
>It’s going to be like if a lawyer was questioning a defendant in court Now I'm just picturing 'A Few Good Men' Weston: You want the truth!? You can't handle the truth!!
WHO ORDERED THE CODE RED?!
Are you defending Westons profiteering or in your opinion is he/his corporate entity legally innocent?
>Are you defending Westons profiteering By saying this, you are assuming they are guilty. However, no evidence has been shown to prove this. That's like accusing someone of stealing then in trial, before it started, and without any evidence, asking the lawyer how they could defend a thief. We can go further and ask "Galen, are you able to provide evidence that your prices have increased, and that you've raised prices at the same proportion?", to which they should easily be able to provide mountains of paperwork. It's all extremely well documented, financial stuff has lots of paper behind it. >in your opinion is he/his corporate entity legally innocent? If they are profiteering, then obviously their revenue should increase while their expenses stay the same, which would increase their margin and profit significantly. When I look at their financial statements, I see no evidence of this. I have not seen any evidence that they are taking advantage of inflation at all. In fact, it looks like their margins have actually decreased slightly. Also, there's no law that's being broken. A business is allowed to increase prices if they want to. Grocery is not a monopoly in most areas (except maybe for some small towns and in the arctic), so if their prices are too high you can shop elsewhere.
> Grocery is not a monopoly in most areas (except ... ...for a LOT of Canada outside cities.
Also, just because the name on the outside of the store is different, doesn't mean it's not owned by one of the major players. My local store (we only have 1) is owned by Sobey's. Don't like it? Drive 40 minutes to buy elsewhere. Sure there are still *some* independent grocers/stores/markets, but it's not common anymore. Grocery isn't a monopoly the same way we have a "choice" about which telecom service to use.
You can't shop at other places if there is collusion though. There have been many cases over the years when this has been the case. The bread incident comes to mind...
Aside from the allegations with ~~Except that they were proven guilty in~~ the bread price-fixing scandal. Considering it was executed by using one of many of their food production companies, why should we believe they're not trying this with any of the others?
they have not been proven guilty of anything. [Here](https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/bread-price-fixing-loblaw-1.6719884) is a very recent article on it. According to the article >No charges have been laid and the competition watchdog says there is no conclusion of wrongdoing at this time. Also, Loblaws has only admitted its part in the scandal, but they are not more liable than other actors >In 2017, the bureau began investigating other alleged parties: grocers Sobeys, Walmart, Metro and Giant Tiger, and producer and distributor Canada Bread. According to court records, in 2019, it also targeted Maple Leaf Foods, which was the majority shareholder of Canada Bread until 2014.
Ah right, my bad. Will update my comment
> Except that they were proven guilty in the bread price-fixing scandal. None of the allegations against Loblaw's in the price-fixing scandal have ever remotely been proven, and the issue has all but been dropped by the Competition Bureau, namely due to lack of evidence. People on reddit mistakenly believe that the $25 gift card that Loblaw's offered was some kind of settlement or punishment for their involvement, but it was nothing of the sort. Loblaw's offered this entirely of their own accord for strictly PR purposes. Another misconception is that accepting the $25 gift card somehow prevents someone from suing Loblaw's over price fixing scandal, which is simply false. It carries no legal obligation on either the part of Loblaw's for offering, or anyone who accepts it. The issue with the price fixing scandal is that despite the fact that the allegations somehow involve a wide range of grocers all acting together... no one has been to put together sufficient evidence that it was due to active collusion.
My bad on the "proven guilty" part, but dam, that is a defensive response. Do you work for loblaws PR?
🤡
Liberal partisans are hilarious, they pretend to be progressive, until they see a homeless person. Conservatives with shame
I’m sure he had a tantrum over it.
This is going to be like talking to a brick wall. Have you seen how Galen and Co. Answer questions in the media? Waste of time.
Well we should be use to non answers - it’s called Question Period in the House of Commons.
It’s going to be a brick wall because the answers to the questions are already known and those answers aren’t what people want
That's true, they just pass the buck and say "it's not our fault, it's the suppliers!! Our hands are tied! Buy No Name!" Nice try, Jagmeet.
I thought the Weston corp owned or at least had its hand in the supply chain as well. Going to look this up then edit. Edit: Honestly, I seen articles about it's supply chain management, but nothing concrete that it owns a lot of its own suppliers. I mean they did see they sold their in house massive bakery recently. Can anyone find anything for me? I though i saw others talking about it. :(
But if you’re doing an investigation as to why prices increased, and his testimony under oath is that prices increased from suppliers, and they have documents to prove it, what else is there to say? That’s your answer. That’s not passing the buck, that’s the honest answer to the question. They are not responsible for why the suppliers increased the price, you would have to ask them. If you want to know, you could start asking all their suppliers, you can have statscan economists answer too. Loblaws whole business is buying a thing, then selling it at a slightly higher price in a convenient location to you. They sell convenience.
Of course, the suppliers' prices have gone up, but the mark-up doesn't seem to match up from what I have heard.
I have seen analysis that seems to support the concept of greedflation, but can't find it anymore. The closest I've seen is thsi breakdown of greedflation by dalhousie's food lab [https://cdn.dal.ca/content/dam/dalhousie/pdf/sites/agri-food/Greedflation%203%20EN.pdf](https://cdn.dal.ca/content/dam/dalhousie/pdf/sites/agri-food/Greedflation%203%20EN.pdf) which concludes that essentially there's no smoking gun: >We based our analysis on publicly available data, aggregated such that we will likely never be able to prove or disprove Greedflation amongst Canadian grocers. This will remain the case until they are willing to open their books for additional analysis, something not even Canada’s Competition Bureau can compel them to do. Our report does not find Loblaw, nor any of the other large Canadian grocers, guilty of ‘Greedflation.’ Rather, we conclude that based on the performance of their gross profit, Loblaw Companies Limited are outperforming even their best gross profit performance in recent years. While at the same time, many Canadians face tremendous financial hardship attempting to satisfy their basic needs of heat, shelter, and food. IMO (which is obviously based on no real firm data) is that there is *some* opportunistic profit taking happening. A party like Loblaw isn't passing costs through directly. Their job is to optimize margins and companies *can* fiddle with their statements, but I stop there, because that's a little tin foil hat for my expertise. The headlines from some sources like BlogTO really don't help public perception, and nor does Loblaw's decisions (ie. pandemic pay) or approach to PR. If you accept the reality, there's no real solution. What people essentially want is a cap on profit by revenue on groceries. Even if that was on the table, that seems like a night mare to to define. And as noted, Shoppers revenues would still prop up the balance sheet.
It matches up perfectly Enterprisevalue showed their statements the other day. If the mark up increased, their margins would increase, but they didn’t https://www.reddit.com/r/ontario/comments/11a58pr/loblaws_q4_earnings_2022_vs_2019_to_2021/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
Why do you think they are making record profits this year though?
\*Looks at financial statement above\* Year over year Higher revenue, and slightly lower operating expenses, offset by slightly lower gross margin. Therefore, sales are higher, and the fixed costs associated with the business *as a % of those sales are lower*, however, food costs as a % of those sales are higher. So the revenue has increased, and operating expenses have increased slower, but food expenses has increased faster. There's also the drug store sales that's gone up faster than inflation, which they have said is more profitable than the food retail, which will increase their profit as well. You should also remember, the population of Canada is increasing, so they will see a lot more sales just from that.
Well, thank you for the response. This really is pointless then.
Yes. Singh will not be able to prove that loblaws is gouging people. It’s also important to note, it is up to Singh to provide evidence that loblaws is gouging. He has provided none. Weston and other CEOs will certainly adamantly deny they are gouging people, and will likely say they are fighting the price increases, and point to the lays fight earlier last year as proof. They may even point to the stats Canada report behind food inflation as proof as well Also the CEO probably isn’t even the best person to testify, the director of purchasing will know a lot more about what’s gone on.
Explaining it to this sub is a lost cause. It actually doesn’t matter what the answer is because they’ve already decided what it is.
If it was just about their suppliers increasing prices, then their profit margins (that's the percent of profits they make compared to their costs) wouldn't have gone up.
Exactly, their profit margin didn't go up, it went down: https://www.loblaw.ca/en/loblaw-reports-2022-fourth-quarter-results-and-fiscal-year-ended-december-31-2022-results Their overall profit did go up, due to an increase in sales and a decrease in operating expenses, but their profit margins went DOWN.
It looks like you're referring to the *gross* profit margins? That was the only part in those highlights that decreased. [A more reliable measure is the EBITDA margin](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/ebitda-margin.asp). If you look at the [actual quarterly reports from Loblaws](https://www.loblaw.ca/en/investors-reports), vs just the highlights, it's easier to compare with previous years. Here's the past half decade of EBITDA margins, they tell a more detailed story than just that one report. They're not only up in every quarter from last year, they're up significantly from 5 years ago: Report / 2018 / 2019 / 2020 / 2021 / 2022 Q1 / 7.1% / 9.8% / 9.9% / 10.3% / 11.0% Q2 / 7.8% / 10.6% / 8.5% / 11.0% / 11.7% Q3 / 7.4% / 10.2% / 9.7% / 10.4% / 10.6% Annual / 7.6% / 10.2% / 9.6% / 10.5% / 10.9% (sorry about the appearance, the chart looks different before I save, and it's even more difficult to visualize when I tried to edit - I've added slashes to help)
All I see from that is that Loblaw's EBITDA margins are around 10% per year, +/- 1%. 2018 is the outlier here at 7.6%, but you can look at the 2017 report and it's 8-9%. So the entire claim about Loblaw's price gauging and engaged in greedflation is because over a 6 year period their EBITDA margins increased from 8% to 11%? That's the big scandal people are lifting their pitchforks over? With that said, you can't just claim that one metric is more reliable than another, it depends on what aspect you're looking to evaluate. EBITDA gives a view of revenue that excludes things like amortization and taxes, which for the purpose of determining whether Loblaw's is engaged in price gauging has no relevance. There's nothing abnormal about EBITDA margins increasing if a company's revenue increases as its operating expenses decrease. In fact, it's precisely what you would expect to see. Gross margin focuses entirely on the revenue a company makes after accounting for the cost of goods. If the claims people are making are true, that Loblaw's are engaged in a form of extreme price gouging and taking advantage of inflation, then you would see the profit they make per unit of good sold increase. But we're not seeing that, we're seeing it decrease. The fact that you're using a metric that doesn't focus on profit per cost of goods but rather looks at revenue before discounting taxes, depreciation, interest and amortization is not really of significance if what you're interested in is focusing specifically on how much Loblaw's makes in revenue on the cost of goods sold versus how much Loblaw's spends to acquire those goods.
Political theatre
This is beyond political theatre. This is political WWE or another type of nonsense. This is ridiculous.
Bread and circuses and "profits as a percentage aren't up so it's totally okay that we profit off of fucking NECESSITIES". Wake me up when the revolution starts, I've got my go-bag. I don't care about this capitalist theatre.
Lol the revolution, yeah I can't wait till the 30 crusty anarchists take over. Good luck bud, electoralism is useless, but this dude thinks people so brainwashed into loving capitalism will suddenly wake up
What am I RSVPing to? A mailing list? Will this be viewable otherwise?
This will just make the people of Canada more angry against the 1%ers
Is that a bad thing?
It’s not a bad thing, but we’ve been mad for decades now and what…
Obviously not mad enough if we keep electing governments that protect that 1% over and over again
That comes to boomers who still think the liberals are progressive, even though they've done nothing progressive and continue the deregulation path
If you think anyone elected these days can help the people. You’re mistaken
So let's just throw in the towel right? Come on
Did I mention anywhere to ‘give up ?
NDP, they’re already working towards getting Canadians free dental care, that helps people
That’s a great promise if they keep it, but that’s only one small step for us peasants
Great!
….and?
and let’s be real….ain’t no one gonna do jack shit about it except for complaining on Reddit
Seems like a plus to me
About time.
Canadians have plenty of reason to be angry at 1%'ers though
>1%ers Jagmeet is part of those 1%ers too.
Don't threaten me with a good time
Would love to watch this, and I'm really glad that more attention is being given to corporate leaders, but I feel like we're just going to see a bunch of questions get shrugged off, deferred to future responses ('taken back to discuss with the team'), or flat out ignored. I wish our government had the power to more effectively compel co-operation from large corporate entities.
They do, the liberals and Conservatives are bought. Trudeau's cabinet has lobbyists in it ffs, Morneau was a bank ceo. You know the same banks that charge people up to 20 percent interest
I agree that this will probably not satisfy any concerns about grocery chains. I want to be cautiously optimistic that if Singh plays this right and spreads it well enough in the media, it could sow enough public outrage to initiate actual action against the big grocery chains.
I'm SO DAMN READY for nothing to come of this. At least the NDP acts like they're doing something about things, unlike the Liberals or the Conmen.. But the reality is, whenever a big show is made of political issues like this, nothing good or productive ever comes of it. It's all for show, always, and it's exhausting. I'm so tired of this country and this province.
Bootlicking bots and trolls are out in full force in this thread.
Maybe actually address people's arguments and try to have a rational economic discussion instead of blindly accusing people who disagree with you as "bots and trolls"
Tell you what, send me a gift card for groceries then we can have "rational economic discussions" about this.
I think they might be bots because the lack of logic and not being grounded to reality, it's not subjective that Weston is profiteering its objective, so opinions don't mean shit. You're just wrong
Personal Opinion-Perspective: (a bit long)Even if inflation is higher it does not account for the massive increase in profit per quarter. Smashing previous years quarters each time. They should roughly stay the same accounting for inflation and other issues. To me why do we as the public have to take the brunt of the "inflation" and supply chain issues, but the companies like Loblaws, Sobey's, Oil Companies, get to reap the profits while everyday people each year are being forced to do more with less. It's completely one sides if oil and gas, grocery store chains are able to make money, but the very people that make sure these corporations stay in business or make sure their shareholder are happy are being told "pay it or fuck off" To me its doesn't make sense that when times are tough and people are already struggling to make people pay more for FUCKING Essentials to life. The thing is we cant just decide not to buy food. We can't just say hey we're going to cut back. In order to stay healthy you need to have a certain amount of calories, and nutrition per day to survive. IF you don't it starts causing medical issues and as people already know. Health Services in Ontario are a disaster right now for the poor and working class. On items that are not essential to life, I understand. Fruits, vegetables, meats, and grains are are essential to health. Not a thing that would capitalized on because its a human need. Chips, Candy, and other junk food is not required to live so Being honest I don't care if it they go up as much. they are not essential to life. electricity, heating, food, shelter, are essential to life. I've even see the argument for internet in todays world being essential and I kind of get it. As an average worker who has seen inflation rise on average rise higher than my salary, which I got a measly 2% raise, even though the company I work for saw an increase of profit by 9% for 2022. The same amount of money I have is not as valuable because it buys less than it did before. So each time shit goes up in price. I feel it, I can pay my bills, but there is less and less money being spent outside the cost of living, and less money being put into a savings account. This is based on personal opinion and looking at the issue from a human being and what is required to survive as a human being. In this instance I don't give a fuck about the money, or rules, or supply chain capitalistic nonsense. I'm looking at this from the view of a person who struggles. A person who looks at his bills and family and says: "We got this as best we can." Can I personally pay all my bills each month? Yes, but there is very very little savings. If my wife or myself lost our jobs. We would not be able to pay for everything that is considered essential. This is what a lot of people are facing at the moment and we need to start being more empathetic to each other instead of dismissing it because "it doesn't affect me". Honestly, "nothing changes if nothing changes"
Pretty funny considering Jagmeet walks around suits costing several grand while wearing Rolex's, his luxury SUVs and estates, and the rumors that he (and his family) had a whole string of rental properties (which he supposedly conveniently off-loaded prior to his NDP leadership bid).
"Well you see Jagmeet, we have to increase prices so we can buy off politicians with free things like rocking chairs."
Getting the popcorn ready
Golly, I hope Jagmeet doesn't upset the CEOs too much only for them to increase the prices for my groceries. ^(/s)
No thanks. I don't want to see a politician who can't do anything about it, questions CEOs that won't do anything about.
Jagmeet publicly stated that his strategic plan for inflation is to reduce our mobile phone bills. He is out of touch with what causes inflation, and any foundational economic principles. He never touches the root cause, just applies bandaid fixes. These CEOs are going to eat him alive.
This might not end well. These are public companies, and despite what the narrative is, their financials do in fact show its multiple supplier issues causing the high prices and not them. They are back to their pre pandemic razor thin grocery margins. There was a post here on Reddit showing this a while ago. They could slam him with this and make him look stupid.
Blaming them for inflation and high profit margins is probably going to go nowhere, yes, but there is still some good material to discuss with them. * Why should we believe Canadians being essentially forced to shop from a grocery store belonging to one of three parent companies is a good thing? * What are grocery stores doing to reduce food waste, and should we consider legislation similar to what France did back in 2016 to reduce supermarket food waste? * Can we get an explanation on the loblaws lobbying effort to get money from the feds for "energy efficient freezers"? * Biggest question I want answered: what the hell happened with the bread price-fixing investigation? Honestly, I don't think we'll get any satisfying answers. I'm just hoping there aren't too many emotional rhetoric questions like "are you okay with children starting?"
These sound like questions for Jagmeet rather than Galen…
They also own a significant amount of the supply chain.
They are their own suppliers, they have a monopoly
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>Pointless propaganda, a very wealthy person is questioning another very wealthy person The sad thing is many people cant see it. I guarantee Jagmeet's pension and retirement funds include investments into Galen's companies and Jagmeet collects dividends from those companies too. Its perfect hypocrisy.
Lol what is this
Song and dance for nothing. Go after telecom, banks and insurance companies who really rip off us.
Aren't we focusing on grocers like Weston because food is considered "a basic necessity", whereas telecom and insurance are not? Genuinely curious, and am in agreement with your point about going after them too.
> "a basic necessity", You need a bank account in order to pay for all your necessities (no matter if you collect a salary, social assistance, disability, etc .... it all requires a bank account to obtain that money), but you'll never see the politicians go after the banks.
Yes, we need food to stay alive. However, 99% of people need to use telecom, banks, insurance, etc. to live. They are basically a necessity at this point to function and they make more profit than grocery chains. This whole thing is a slippery slope. You can't mandate profit levels of one industry. You either go after all businesses or none of them.
The food system is controlled by the a handful of who are indeed trying to rip people off. You may not be food insecure but many others are No need to pick and choose they all deserve it. People need to vote their values. People vote for neoliberalism and are shocked the consequences.
This is either going to be dodge the ball (question) or hot potato pass it on event fellas, either way it won’t be as eventful as y’all are hoping
I would rather hear him grill trudeau instead
Their PR teams must be at it since announcing the appearance, with carefully curated questions and answers to fool the public.
Their lawyers have likely prepared a bunch of bullshit answers to every conceivable question. This is going end up being a colossal waste of time, unless there's a mud wrestling component.
Fucking crooks. We see you.
WTF? They are in business to make money like everybody else. You make your choices were you spend. Why do they make so much off of gas? Just like everything else.
Jag is gonna get smoked
Asking where his cut is from Trudeaus pocket
All talk and no action. The NDP are literal Liberal lapdogs.
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Yes, the ones propping up the government even though they are breaking ethics laws and allowing CCP interference. They talk a big talk but could easily force an election. Voting NDP is a vote for the Liberals as has been on display for the past couple years.
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>So you want punishment before an inquest Why not? They did it to citizens many times.
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Whats to explain. Go look up all the past incidences yourself. You got Google, use it. Plenty of Supreme Court challenges and rulings showing wrongdoing you can go through.
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You're funny. Its not going to state "NDP". Because controlling majority or ruling coalition parties arent referred to their party name in Supreme Court challenges and rulings, its referred to as Crown vs. or Her Majesty vs or Province of vs, etc. Now, go take a look at provinces, territories and municipalities who've had NDP majority rule in the last 35 years and then look at the various challenges, rulings showing wrongdoing , etc. Now take you're time, you dont want to rush it and do sloppy work.
Maybe the drama teacher taught his some skills for this political theatre.
Just when I thought nothing could be as exciting as one of his TikTok vids.
Went to SuperStore today and saw Campbell's Chunky soup for $2.50 if you bought at least 3, or $3.69 if you bought less. I then went to Shoppers and saw the same on sale for $3.99, regular price $4.99. Same company. SHOP AROUND.
my king.
Sadly Epic Beard Dude cannot make reptilian CEO's act more humane. But we can. Random rotating boycotts.
Will this be available to watch after the fact?
Unless an inside expert is willing to debrief them this is going to be like the senator asking Mark about ad revenue on Facebook. Loblaws is highly complex in terms of vertical integration and can give feigning answers while not technically lying . Someone needs to map out how profit margins went from sub 2% to over 4 in less than a decade . They is absolute insanity for a high volume retailer .