Juno News - Government-run grocery stores？

00:00:00.000 Today is Gary Sands, Senior VP of Policy and Advocacy for the Canadian Federation of Independent

00:00:06.600 Grocers. Welcome, Gary. Glad to be here. Thanks for having me. Well, we've heard proposals now,

00:00:12.140 actually more than just proposals. I mean, Toronto City Council has approved a pilot project for

00:00:17.140 grocery stores, government operated, owned and operated. And now we have Abby Lewis, the new

00:00:23.740 leader of the NDP saying this is such a great plan. We should roll it out nationally. What do you

00:00:29.140 thing? I think it's a case of they don't know what they don't know. You know, I think

00:00:36.420 governments should stick to what governments should be doing, what people have voted and

00:00:42.560 elected them to do. But in the grocery industry, I think what they're doing is they're pandering

00:00:52.260 to people who are looking for some sort of magic bullet solution to, you know, the rising price of

00:01:00.660 food, which is a global issue. And there just is no simple magic bullet solution to it. If there was,

00:01:08.540 I'm sure there'd be a host of countries ahead of Canada and the city of Toronto,

00:01:13.900 implementing those magic solutions. But, you know, for independent grocers, we know what's

00:01:20.080 involved in starting up a grocery store and the challenges and let me tell you there's a lot of

00:01:25.680 expertise needed you need to have a very entrenched uh deep relationships uh embedded in the supply

00:01:33.840 chain and uh there's overall for an independent grocery in canada your margin is overall about two

Juno News - March 31, 2026