no, nothing's happened, just giving a price update. if you're coming across this for the first time, essentially the loblaw family have a total-dominance grocery monopoly in most of canada and got caught doing what "seemed to be" price fixing, specifically they were caught on this because their bread price fixing was affecting international markets. a threat was given by one of the loblaws that grocery prices in canada would rapidly go up if regulators started looking into it. regulators started looking into it.
prior to the Loblaw Family Temper Tantrum, prices retrieved from a no frills (late 2022):
- noname olive oil: $7.99CA
- noname not-individually-edible bread: $0.99CA
- noname kidney beans: $3.99CA
- tamam kidney beans (imported by franchise owner, used for reference): $4.49
now, june 2024:
- noname olive oil: $11.99CA (1.5x)
- noname not-individually-edible bread: $1.69 (1.7x)
- noname kidney beans: $4.99CA (1.25x)
- tamam kidney beans (reference): $4.99CA (1.1x) < within normal. can is much larger than noname can.
comments: most of the things which have been affected the hardest are staple items which people buy a lot of, frequently. franchise owners who add imports they sourced themselves often are a sort of refuge for people who don't have access to non-loblaw-owned grocery stores, and also don't have money, atm.
prices above are things I have an exact number on at the moment.