Last year, grocery prices were inflating at a ridiculous speed in Canada, just as support for the LPC was crashing. Nothing which François-Philippe Champagne, our dear Minister of Interventionnovation, Science and Industry, couldn't tackle.

Of course, the PLC wouldn't do anything against inflation nor add competition, but it found a way simpler formula: single out a few companies and extort promises to stabilize prices from them. It astutely picked the 5 companies consumers see the most on their grocery bills. Champagne's crusade against the Bad Grocers managed to make grocery chains surrender, promising price freezes and―wow―discounts! After a month of watching this nonsense grab Canadian headlines, the second part of At Issue's 2023-10-07 episode (at 9:50) thankfully let me blow off quite some steam.

But Champagne was way luckier: in addition to a return of inflation to normal, on that same October 7th, Hamas attacked Israel, triggering a war which quickly replaced his crusade in the headlines. Has his stunt achieved anything more than setting the agenda as the LPC wished? Did grocers actually hike their prices to pay for moving executives to Ottawa, "collaborating" and preparing their coping strategy? Only the LPC can say, since the grocers' commitments were kept secret… in the interest of competition.🙄

Perhaps thanks to a conflict in the Middle East, Champagne dropped his crusade with the grocers, preferring a more constructive approach: trying to attract new grocers in Canada… by calling them. What a surprise to see that effort fail, right after the very same guy threatened existing grocers! Short-term stunts don't work great in the long term, Mr Champagne.

It's highly frustrating to see the government waste so much of its time and of the private sector's time. It's just as sad to see our collective attention wasted, diverted from actual issues. If only the government could stay focused on its mission, perhaps it would manage to achieve guaranteeing what we do expect from groceries: selling what they promise. Let's demand grocers to be reliable and give them means to ensure availability. Let us not encourage them to defraud consumers more, cause greater environmental damage and/or decrease product quality (which―of course―are effects of price caps, as we've known for centuries).