True Patriot Love - September 01, 2026


Is Surveillance Pricing Raising Your Grocery Bill？ ft. Ron Caughlin


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Length

26 minutes

Words per minute

168.23

Word count

4,398

Sentence count

102

Harmful content

Hate speech

2

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Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Hey everybody, this is Ron Coghlan with TPL Media.
00:00:07.760 We have Jim Lang joining us today and we are actually talking about a very interesting
00:00:12.740 topic that affects all of us with these rising prices in grocery stores.
00:00:18.400 You know, it's called grocery dynamic pricing, which actually refers to the practice of adjusting
00:00:23.620 food prices in real time based on our data, how we use our phones, what we're searching,
00:00:30.000 You know, when we're using our different loyalty cards, all that information now is being used, as they say, possibly against us.
00:00:40.440 And so, Jim, what do you think of this topic?
00:00:44.340 What do you think of this practice?
00:00:45.720 And is there anything we can do about it, you know?
00:00:49.720 Well, before we get to what we can do about it, Ron, I think this is abhorrent.
00:00:54.360 Sobeys, Loblaws, all the big grocery chains in Canada.
00:00:58.440 Routinely, we see the media reports, record profits, record profits.
00:01:03.200 The price of food in Canada has gone up over 25% since 2020.
00:01:08.580 And now we're at the point in Canada where one in four Canadians are considered or consider themselves food insecure.
00:01:16.020 So one in four Canadian households don't know whether they have enough money to buy food week in, week out.
00:01:22.540 meanwhile there's record profits this to me is not capitalism as doug ford talks about it it's
00:01:30.440 predatory profit making there of course you have you go to your cupboard or you look in your
00:01:37.520 freezer like oh i need this you search it out because there's all these apps now that help
00:01:42.240 you search for a the best price and the best store to get it and then they're going to use
00:01:47.300 this algorithm to jack up the price day in and day out like how are anyone supposed to feed their
00:01:54.100 families if they're constantly putting up the price of staple items that canadians from coast
00:01:59.720 to coast are searching in a regular basis because most people don't look at the flyers anymore don't
00:02:05.160 get flyers so they're going to the digital flyer which is really greasy because they know now
00:02:10.940 when you go to the digital flyer for the local grocery store in your area they're tracking it
00:02:16.580 and they're looking what you're looking up like oh i guess one needs some chicken and rice and
00:02:21.760 vegetables this weekend up goes the price this is this is not right and especially at this time in
00:02:28.020 canadian history with everything going on with donald trump and the terrorist of 50 first state
00:02:32.700 we need every bit of help we can get to make ends meet and they need to do something about this
00:02:39.140 dynamic slash surveillance pricing where they're using the algorithm against everyday canadians
00:02:44.300 Yeah. You know, you mentioned something about food insecurity. I live in a very affluent community called Oakville. But the lineups for the food bank are getting bigger and bigger. So it's affecting many different classes. And I think it's very unfortunate. Now, it also arose comparison shopping, right? Because as you said, if once you start searching or using apps and looking at better prices, they're tracking that and it can affect you.
00:03:12.800 um it's it's quite unfortunate you know what's going on i mean i applaud wald canoe the premier
00:03:20.200 of manitoba where they enacted laws to ban this it's in manitoba you can't do this so excuse me
00:03:27.640 other provinces can take suit they could follow suit and do exactly what he's doing there's no
00:03:33.860 reason why uh doug ford or tim houston or david eby or daniel smith don't do the same thing in
00:03:41.480 their respective provinces. It can be done, it has been done, and it's making a difference.
00:03:47.720 Yeah, didn't Olivia Chow just recently enact a law on the GTA? I read something about that the
00:03:53.760 other day. Yes, so the Ontario Liberals have put forth a thing called the Fair Grocery Prices Act,
00:04:02.020 then the City of Toronto and Olivia Chow have directed staff to explore options to restrict
00:04:08.640 the practice so obviously there are some areas of toronto where you're in government housing
00:04:15.380 you're in very low income in the most expensive city in canada arguably you know 118 with vancouver
00:04:21.280 but you get the point ron so you're in the city just barely getting by day after day
00:04:26.940 and olivia chow realizes that and is trying to get rid of the practice and you know you alluded
00:04:32.180 to it earlier the threshold for people being forced to go to a food bank in canada has changed
00:04:39.260 dramatically in the last decade we used to associate that well oh that's too bad they
00:04:44.040 have to go to a food bank and now the the income level of the people going to these food banks in
00:04:50.380 canada because of the price of rent and the price of gas and the price of food and and even with
00:04:57.280 the rate of inflation in canada is slowly going down the one thing that's not going down is the
00:05:03.360 price of food and and now we're in this battle with the united states and quite frankly there's
00:05:09.940 a lot of canadians even if it's cheaper produce if they see it's american they're not buying it
00:05:15.260 and so we're i think we have a moral duty ron as politicians in canada to think hey we're at a time
00:05:24.300 in our lives we have to do something drastic back in world war ii my grandmother told me this story
00:05:29.460 in halifax that you were allowed one skillet a small pot a big pot and like a cake pan and the
00:05:37.000 rest was picked up by trucks throughout halifax and cities across canada and melted down because
00:05:43.200 they were in a war and made into jeeps and tanks and planes and we're not at that level where we're
00:05:49.700 taking pots and pans but we are at the level where every level of government has to give canadians
00:05:55.240 a chance to get by especially heading into the winter with everything going on with the tariffs
00:06:00.440 and donald trump this is this has got to stop because there's going to be a lot of canadians
00:06:04.480 we're talking about one in four canadian households with food insecurity that number
00:06:08.740 could go up in the next six to ten months well yeah it's a very unfortunate number and there's
00:06:14.800 lot of people suffering right now and there's a lot of uncertainty absolutely now we all have
00:06:20.400 loyalty cards the airline cards and you know cards that we can fill up our gas like pc points
00:06:28.820 which also relates back to the western group and loblaws and and that type of thing but
00:06:33.980 by using those cars are we actually giving them too much information and can this actually
00:06:40.880 cause the price of our food to go up it's a you're stuck between a rock and a hard place so
00:06:47.780 we go to no frills a lot and where i live and you scan you have to scan your optimum app
00:06:54.040 to get the discount so you know like you have your phone the barcode you scan your optimum app
00:07:01.380 which a lot of canadians do it at loblaws type they have like five or six stores are considered
00:07:07.120 part of the optimum and so you want your points i mean they add up but the problem is you're saying
00:07:14.160 you're actually right then they're like oh ron bought this jim bought that and they're tracking
00:07:18.880 all that information yeah and it's it's not private either which is part of the legislation
00:07:26.800 that a lot of u.s states have put into place so they you can't track your information and it's
00:07:32.960 It's kept in a vault, so to speak.
00:07:35.120 Well, and just for reference, so people, the PC Optimum Club, in Canada, I think there's 41 million people.
00:07:43.780 There's 17 million members of Optimum in Canada.
00:07:47.420 That's a huge number because, you know, an eight-year-old kid's not probably an Optimum member.
00:07:52.260 So you think of the bulk of people who are doing shopping in Canada, a huge percentage of them are members of the Optimum Club.
00:07:59.860 Yeah.
00:08:00.020 Well, it exasperates the pressures in essential food categories, particularly, you know, vulnerable to those that are on fixed incomes, for sure.
00:08:10.500 It's a struggle for most people.
00:08:14.820 And those basic items, I mean, butter is a basic food item that everyone uses, Ron.
00:08:20.520 Yeah.
00:08:20.700 Now, my wife's cousin, my partner's cousin are dairy farmers in rural Ontario.
00:08:26.680 That thing of butter that you go to the grocery store is, depending on if there's a sale, is $6, $7, $8.
00:08:32.880 They get $0.45.
00:08:34.720 That's how much the farmer gets.
00:08:36.840 $0.45.
00:08:38.280 So you can't tell me that Sobeys and Loblaws and all those companies are not making huge profit on that butter.
00:08:45.760 And who doesn't use butter?
00:08:48.680 And that's one of those staple items like milk, flour, butter, bread.
00:08:53.720 And, you know, I mean, companies are being caught.
00:08:57.560 There was always a price-fixing ruling not that long ago where they tried to manipulate the price of bread in Canada.
00:09:06.720 So we as Canadians, if you travel, you're like, geez, this costs a lot more back home.
00:09:12.440 And of all the things that all the premiers, when the premiers get together on their first minister's conference, and the prime minister are like, hey, we're Team Canada, we're Canada strong.
00:09:24.160 Well, part of that Canada strong is giving Canadians a chance to get by week after week.
00:09:30.040 And I understand Loblaws and Sobeys and those big grocery chains are big business and big companies.
00:09:37.180 But their profits are not going to suffer greatly if they're told you can't have surveillance pricing.
00:09:43.120 I'm quite sure that if other provinces follow the lead of Manitoba, Ron, they're still going to make money every year.
00:09:52.840 Yeah, and I find it interesting that, you know, you could go into the store and then someone else can go into the store.
00:10:00.280 and the price is going to be different based on what you've done in the past
00:10:05.120 and your information and what they see might be more affordable for you
00:10:11.220 as opposed to somebody else.
00:10:14.200 And so this is a real issue.
00:10:16.440 And so it's actually also known as what we call black box pricing,
00:10:21.880 which is really unlike, you know, transparent pricing
00:10:26.160 where everybody gets the same price.
00:10:27.860 You know, shoppers are actually, you know, have this situation where they they're going to get different pricing based on who they are.
00:10:37.040 That seems unequitable. Doesn't seem Canadian. Doesn't even seem democratic.
00:10:43.560 To my point, it seems like they're picking people out. And that's a real challenge for everybody.
00:10:48.540 and um new york state and maryland and other jurisdictions including manitoba and other ones
00:10:55.360 have realized that this is unfair to use the algorithm to set prices based on searches and
00:11:01.660 your loyalty points ron so um this this i think needs to be i think we're at a point now in our
00:11:07.640 country's history um with everything going on and what we're staring down the barrel of over the
00:11:13.600 next few months unfortunately like it or not trump's still going to be in office you know
00:11:18.080 barring any catastrophe for the next two years so it could be two years of real economic struggles
00:11:25.340 in this country for a lot of canadians and it's it's the the anecdote that you related earlier
00:11:32.700 is so true that here's oakville one of the more affluent suburban communities in canada and uh
00:11:41.040 I'd rank it right up there with the Glebe in Ottawa, Westmount, Quebec, North Vancouver, those kind of places.
00:11:47.320 And you see people going to the food bank.
00:11:49.540 So the old days of, you know, the rough part of town, got to go to the food bank, they can't make, that's long gone in Canada.
00:11:56.540 And unfortunately, if governments don't get together, they don't realize this is a major issue.
00:12:01.540 And especially with everything going on, looking into the winter and what we're looking at, I mean, with the tariffs and the situation economically,
00:12:10.200 and the trade war
00:12:12.340 between the United States,
00:12:13.420 which doesn't seem
00:12:14.540 to want to slow down.
00:12:16.280 How expensive is food
00:12:17.800 going to be
00:12:18.400 through the winter
00:12:18.960 in this country?
00:12:20.020 And I worry about
00:12:20.940 a lot of average Canadians.
00:12:22.400 I worry.
00:12:24.780 Well, Jim,
00:12:25.020 what can the average Canadian
00:12:26.620 do to push back? 0.85
00:12:28.040 How can they fight
00:12:29.080 against this?
00:12:31.000 Well, to me,
00:12:31.700 it's contact your local MP
00:12:33.360 and MPP,
00:12:35.140 your provincial representative
00:12:36.560 and your federal representative
00:12:38.280 and send an email.
00:12:39.480 Hey,
00:12:40.200 And I'm Jill's citizen.
00:12:42.840 I live here.
00:12:44.600 I see Manitoba's done away with surveillance last dynamic pricing.
00:12:49.080 Why can't we have that in my province?
00:12:50.980 Why can't we do this federally?
00:12:52.700 I struggle to pay the bills and put food in the table.
00:12:57.040 And, you know, we've seen it all now, Ron,
00:12:59.140 where people have come home from the grocery store across Canada and said,
00:13:03.460 this is $100, and they spread it out.
00:13:05.780 It's not a lot.
00:13:07.380 $100 doesn't buy you what it used to.
00:13:09.160 and you know if you have kids you have extended family and you're buying for more than a couple
00:13:16.560 people that that doesn't go very far at all so this is where you have this is where the power
00:13:22.380 of democracy the power of the people all your mpps and mps in canada have their email on their
00:13:29.280 website send them an email send them a nice you know respectful email hi this is who i am this is
00:13:37.680 where I live. This is my concern. I'm gravely concerned about being able to feed my family
00:13:44.240 the price of food and this kind of pricing tactic by, quite frankly, grocery companies that make
00:13:50.640 huge profits every year. Is there anything we can do? Now you're putting it in the lap
00:13:56.000 of the lawmakers of this country. So when they're back at their provincial legislature or they're
00:14:02.800 at Parliament Hill when they reconvene, that this becomes something on the docket, that this becomes
00:14:08.420 a talking point, a point of parliamentary, you know, procedure where they're bringing it up and
00:14:13.320 it has to be discussed, at least if it's in the conversation along with all the other problems
00:14:18.440 in this country. That's, to me, that's a good first step, Ron. Yeah, I think you're absolutely
00:14:23.400 right. By, you know, lobbying the provincial government and sending letters and keeping on
00:14:30.440 top of them, we can probably have a better chance at reducing this practice. Now, you can also file
00:14:38.520 complaints with the Competition Bureau of Canada. That will help as well as actually reporting
00:14:45.180 data overreach to the Privacy Commissioner. That's another way that you can actually help
00:14:51.120 combat this practice. And I'll give Wob Canoe in Manitoba all the credit in the world. They put
00:14:57.260 some teeth into their bill 49 it's a million dollar maximum fine for repeat corporate offenders
00:15:03.140 so that's a kick in the teeth financially if you get caught enough times start paying a million
00:15:08.720 dollar fine enough times you'll stop doing it and you'll adhere to the law and you know i
00:15:15.120 like these super walmarts that have everything in a grocery store in canada they make big money we
00:15:22.700 there's when's the last time you were in one of those stores well it wasn't a lineup at the
00:15:27.260 cash and you look at all the grocery stores in this country and they're all by the way it's like
00:15:33.620 that we almost i'm sorry ron i hate to tell you but we made this much money this quarter
00:15:37.500 there no one's losing money so they can afford to stop this practice it's not
00:15:42.960 going to put them in the red whatsoever yeah no i i don't like this i'm a marketer so and a digital
00:15:49.980 marketer and we use data to help remarket things but you know maybe it's time to starve those
00:15:55.940 pricing algorithms uh with your personal data limit the use of your loyalty program cards or
00:16:02.420 you know when you're browsing browse in incognito mode those are all good ways to
00:16:08.500 truly uh help yourself it's the same with um when you book a flight with an airline
00:16:15.220 if you search the flight and you put the information in it's a certain price if you
00:16:19.780 come back a day later it's up 200 and it's all because they're trying to encourage you
00:16:25.860 to book an airline ticket prior to actually,
00:16:30.300 you know, maybe you're ready to book that ticket.
00:16:32.720 And it tracks you and is incenting you
00:16:35.240 by raising the price to make the purchase.
00:16:39.120 But the same can be true with our own personal data
00:16:42.900 and the loyalty programs, and maybe to limit that.
00:16:48.280 So my thing is, you raised a great point.
00:16:51.400 I've had to fly to Nova Scotia to see family
00:16:54.000 a couple times in the last year.
00:16:55.860 So you go to the website and you book and you get, it's all a virtual ticket now, right?
00:17:03.180 It's all scanned.
00:17:04.440 It's scanned multiple times at the airport.
00:17:06.180 So it's the days of a printed ticket.
00:17:10.860 They don't, everything's paperless.
00:17:13.220 You can't go to a travel agency and get a printed ticket.
00:17:17.420 Everything's done through a website, to an app, to everything, to book everything, to your Apple wallet or whatever.
00:17:25.860 payment structure you have so if that's the way it's evolved into modern society that you have
00:17:33.980 to go to this app or go to this website you put your credit card information you get the email
00:17:39.360 link and it goes that and then you show that when you board the plane and like i don't know anything
00:17:44.840 that isn't done digitally you can you go to a hockey game now in canada it's cashless it's tap
00:17:51.320 only they can monitor what beer you're drinking is it hot dog is it ice cream like you know what
00:17:57.260 i mean so they're tracking everything now so but it that's one thing but basic food basic groceries
00:18:04.160 is a basic human right as far as i'm concerned is a canadian actually putting food on the table
00:18:10.500 to feed your family that's if the airlines want to do that and other companies okay that's fine
00:18:16.960 you don't have to fly but you have to eat and that's where the governments have to come in
00:18:21.920 and say hey we have to just put some brakes on this or put guidelines or put limits to
00:18:26.160 what they can do to protect canadians yeah another thing you can do as well as when you are
00:18:33.440 checking prices out not to be logged in right because again they're going to track that
00:18:38.000 information um and you can you can do tactical shopping and price verification so really
00:18:44.080 um there's a lot of good apps you mentioned it earlier um on you know showing us where the best
00:18:51.400 deals are coupons uh and you can rely on these things but you have to be careful where you look
00:18:57.360 at them which is which is not necessarily great you know um okay great example you're running
00:19:04.460 around you're like oh i forgot this you you know you're in the parking lot of one place you go
00:19:10.440 online oh that store over there has what i need that's an instant reaction now as a canadian so
00:19:17.320 you've done it you've searched it because you need it and it's all part of running around and
00:19:22.360 everyone's still busy like i need to pick this up so and then by like afterwards you're like oh they
00:19:27.640 probably know that now it's too late you did it yeah another way to really counteract this is
00:19:33.640 actually to diversify where you go shopping so uh you know supporting independent grocers
00:19:39.480 local ethnic markets um you know the farmers market all those things you know which you get
00:19:45.960 great produce by the way um is a way is really a way to fight this and you know policy is also a
00:19:53.720 way so working with your you know the provincial mps at your local your body in parliament uh will
00:20:02.360 potentially help get this resolved in the future i really hope it does if you think back not that
00:20:09.720 long ago they had the carbon tax and enough canadians raised enough of a stink coast to
00:20:15.260 coast saying it was punitive and it was adding too much to their gas price and they rolled when
00:20:20.640 carney came in he rolled back the carbon tax but like six months before he took over the thought
00:20:26.640 of rolling back the carbon tax was oh no that we can't do that and then carney came in and said
00:20:30.940 we're getting rid of the carbon tax whether or not it was pure polyev's idea he didn't care
00:20:34.760 he got rid of it so things can be done right now mark carney with his power base where he is in
00:20:42.980 the polling where he is as a prime minister if he goes to these different companies and goes to
00:20:48.940 the government and says hey we're going to stop surveillance pricing what opposing politician
00:20:55.840 is going to vote against that because if i'm in the riding of the politician voting against you
00:21:01.580 like wait a second i'm having trouble feeding my family you voted against that like that's not
00:21:07.960 going to help the next election that's a third rail item that to me ron that if if it gets
00:21:13.720 proposed in the house of commons that we are going to put limits on surveillance pricing
00:21:17.980 to stop this one i mean over 25 in six years is a big big increase for food pricing and try to put
00:21:25.620 the brakes on it i can't see how anyone votes against it yeah i i just hope they actually get
00:21:31.680 serious about this you know and the other thing that's really unfortunate is this actually targets
00:21:36.920 people of lower income those that have less competitive barriers like less stores in the area
00:21:44.940 uh and that's really frustrating for a lot of people because it will affect those like in
00:21:50.740 Toronto, for example, heavily in the Jane and Finch or Rexdale or Mount Olive areas.
00:21:57.040 And because they're usually shopping at, you know, local convenience stores, single chain
00:22:05.760 outlets, and unfortunately, this is affecting them quite heavily, which actually exasperates
00:22:13.680 the issue with in terms of their economic status.
00:22:16.480 Think about all the seniors across Canada on a fixed limited income, looking for the best deal. So they did the right thing. They searched up a deal on milk, flour, bread, and butter. And now they're using that against them? Like, that's horrible, Ron, to think about. 0.54
00:22:32.740 so there are people who don't have a car and they use mass transit in the community they live in in
00:22:39.240 canada to go from their work stop at the grocery store get back on and go to their apartment or
00:22:44.900 their house they live in they they don't have the freedom to drive all around town to look for the
00:22:49.780 best deals for a lot of them it's basically as you said it's that grocery store in the community that
00:22:55.140 that single you you know independently owned that's their only choice that's yeah otherwise
00:23:00.460 they're not driving halfway across a big city to a costco because it's just not not feasible
00:23:07.660 yeah it's called the poverty penalty i guess which is unfortunate well you know it's very
00:23:15.340 frustrating so i think that some lessons learned here are that you need to protect your data you
00:23:21.260 need to do your research um not while you're signed in in incognito mode you need to go to
00:23:30.220 local markets go to farmers markets uh and maybe not shop in the same place all the time
00:23:35.980 um all these types of practices can help consumers uh right now to try to fight this surveillance
00:23:42.860 pricing um i know i i shop in oakville i know the prices are higher so we leave we leave oakville
00:23:49.820 uh and because we know we're gonna have a much better deal somewhere close to our community
00:23:56.060 but not within our community how many canadians will drive like you know what i know five kilometers
00:24:02.460 away the gas is cheaper and i you know and they're gonna i'm gonna save five bucks in a tank i'll
00:24:08.220 drive but i think a lot of canadians are at that point ron where they will drive to get the cheaper
00:24:13.820 gas or they know the food is cheaper there or the toiletries are cheaper there i mean money is so
00:24:20.060 tight these days and trying to put food on the table and pay the bills has become tougher and
00:24:26.600 tougher and will only get tougher into the winter because if we think it's tough now it's august
00:24:31.860 september when it gets in the dead of winter and and then grocery stores are importing produce from
00:24:38.960 around the world you just watch the prices and that's where i'm really worried especially heading
00:24:44.400 in this winter with everything going on and that's why i think it's imperative on canadians to just
00:24:50.860 get on the email your local politicians all have an office where they have someone that looks at
00:24:56.540 the email and respectfully ask them is there not anything we can do is there nothing we can do as
00:25:02.700 a country you can do as my representative in your province and federally to stop or put the brakes
00:25:09.600 on surveillance pricing it's the least we can do as canadians is to put it out there and ask them
00:25:14.900 can anything be done because i i refuse to believe nothing can be done and i refuse to agree with
00:25:22.400 doug ford that it's just capitalism that's not capitalism that to me smacks of greed i agree
00:25:29.340 well you know what i want to thank you for joining us today jim i think that uh there's a lot of good
00:25:34.620 points we've made here on this surveillance pricing and i think it's an unequitable and it's
00:25:41.020 not fair and yes you should be fighting back but also being smart about what you do so once again
00:25:47.580 this is the tpl media network uh we've joined us today with jim lang and we'll be back at you soon
00:25:54.540 so thanks for joining us today jim take care everybody have a great day