BY Sylvain Charlebois (AIMS Senior Fellow) Loblaw is the latest grocer to commit to offering home delivery. Starting in December, the number one food retailer in Canada is looking at deploying this strategy from coast to coast. It intends to deliver food at home, for a fee of course --an ambitious plan indeed. After spending [...]
by SYLVAIN CHARLEBOIS (AIMS Senior Fellow) A bread cartel is alive and well in Canada; or is it? The Competition Bureau is carrying out an investigation of major grocery chains in search of evidence of retail price fixing. Loblaws, Sobeys, Metro, Wal-Mart, and other companies have acknowledged the continuing investigation. The outcome of this inquiry [...]
By Joseph Quesnel (AIMS Research Associate) Charlene Combdon, 36, is an award-winning Indigenous entrepreneur and business owner from Newfoundland and Labrador. She has a history of defying expectations, particularly as a female of Indigenous background in a non-traditional area of work. She recalled a time where she was trying to get a business client on [...]
The Telegram, 1 November 2017 by SYLVAIN CHARLEBOIS (AIMS Senior Fellow) Food trends are difficult to follow these days. As with hip sectors such as the high-tech industry, the food industry is coming up with its own peculiar lingo when describing market shifts. One of the latest examples is “grocerant,” a word combining “grocer” and “restaurant.” The [...]
By PATRICK WEBBER (AIMS Research Associate) New Brunswick’s government recently announced that NB Liquor will oversee the sale of recreational marijuana in the province when legalization comes into effect next year. At the press conference where this announcement was made, NB Liquor CEO Brian Harriman said that the Crown Corporation’s goals were break even profit-wise [...]
>The Record, 31 October 2017 by SYLVAIN CHARLEBOIS (AIMS Senior Fellow) Food inflation continues to be an illusion in Canada. According to Statistics Canada, food prices have dropped once again over the last month, by almost 1%. Food prices are below the general inflation rate, just as they have been for most of the year [...]
by KEN HUGHES The Globe and Mail, 6 October 2017 As Canadians, let's be honest with each other. After TransCanada announced Thursday that the Energy East Pipeline is dead, we need – now more than ever – to honestly address this fundamental question: How does Canada work? We can't build a country without building something. [...]
by SYLVAIN CHARLEBOIS (AIMS Senior Fellow) Despite Canada’s optimism, NAFTA talks seem to be heading nowhere. Wanting to push back on Mexico’s influence over the American economy, Washington now is indicating that the bilateral option with Canada is more appealing. In Trump’s playbook, multilateral deals are highly complex and can only benefit smaller markets to [...]
The Telegram, 17 October 2017 By Ed Hollett (AIMS Senior Research Fellow) Reports by the province’s Auditor General and the federal Parliamentary Budget Officer are reminders that the provincial government continues to face a serious financial problem. If current trends continue, the cash deficit this year will be almost $2.0 billion. Muskrat Falls costs may [...]
by SYLVAIN CHARLEBOIS (AIMS Senior Fellow) If all things go to plan, as of July 1, 2018, legal-aged Canadians will be able to walk into a store, experience a perhaps not-so-friendly retail environment and buy cannabis. Federal and provincial government leaders are working out how and in what form you will be able to buy it. [...]