True Patriot Love - March 26, 2026


[TPL Excerpt] Is Toronto Going FULL NYC？! Free Grocery Plan Sparks Debate


Episode Stats


Length

7 minutes

Words per minute

174.06143

Word count

1,241

Sentence count

19


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

The idea of government-run grocery stores has been around in the U.S. for a long time, but has it caught on here in Canada? Is it a good idea or a bad one? We talk about the pros and cons of government grocery stores and whether or not they should be the default provider of food.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
00:00:00.000 There's a political shift happening in major cities, and it's not subtle anymore.
00:00:04.680 In New York, figures like Zoran Mamdani are pushing policies that move beyond emergency support
00:00:10.160 into something more permanent, publicly backed grocery access, expanded subsidies,
00:00:15.960 and a growing belief that cities should directly provide basic needs.
00:00:20.200 And here in Toronto, under Mayor Olivia Chow, we're starting to see echoes of that thinking.
00:00:24.880 city council exploring expanded food programs, deeper subsidies, and a bigger role for government
00:00:30.760 in everyday life. So what are we really building here? A stronger safety net or a system where
00:00:36.620 government becomes the default provider of survival? Because once you normalize free access
00:00:42.580 to essentials like food, you're not just helping people get by, you're redefining what a city is
00:00:48.720 responsible for. And that's a conversation Canada is just starting to have.
00:00:54.880 next thing he had which uh we spent a lot of time pre-show on city-owned grocery stores
00:01:04.360 right sounds like a wild concept doesn't it i just don't trust the city to run anything that
00:01:11.940 well of any city yeah it's been my experience it's the city can do certain things like uh you
00:01:18.160 know mow the soccer fields and plow the roads and pick up the garbage and outsource that they
00:01:24.460 actually can't really do that themselves so i don't quite trust them to run a grocery store
00:01:29.200 they will outsource it paul mark our words on this one no but they want to sell uh wholesale foods
00:01:35.300 yeah uh and their goal is to get it to people who need food and to move people i guess off food
00:01:44.880 banks into buying food at a more reasonable price i don't hate this idea to be honest with you
00:01:51.660 i don't either uh uh food banks get abused you have to manage tough to manage again great idea
00:02:00.340 however food stamps was the the precursor to this right oh boy government cheese was another
00:02:06.200 so that became a corrupt very corrupt uh bit of business and it became messy to take away
00:02:12.620 uh it still exists in many places but that's essentially this is like somewhere between food
00:02:19.260 bank and shopping at walgreens let's say in the states is there a good point to having that
00:02:25.900 transitional phase where you're actually being required to buy food and will it be different than
00:02:32.220 the food bank or hear me out can we maybe put rules in place where the companies own the grocery
00:02:41.420 stores aren't um marking up items with two ridiculous profit margins so basic items butter
00:02:50.660 milk bread eggs are sold at a reasonable price we just had a bread lawsuit in canada
00:02:56.600 we we price fixing over bread can you imagine over bread yeah i know they're boring so maybe
00:03:05.040 just say the five or six staple items are sold at a reasonable price that could help yeah it is a
00:03:11.320 good idea and you know we we had commissions we we had committees commissions we have a charter now
00:03:17.140 which really doesn't help it doesn't stop them from selling stuff expensive prices and having
00:03:23.680 the most profit in the last 10 years oh crazy profit you know and we we really you know now
00:03:30.400 with alcohol going to grocery stores and pharmacies and everything else we've loaded up these companies
00:03:36.380 really with the ability to be non-competitive for new entrants so now well they're too big they're
00:03:43.220 too big now so so okay say you put in a government grocery store how do they compete when they when
00:03:49.520 you go to the one store and there's the food there's your wine and beer there's your pharmacy
00:03:54.800 i got everything in one store they will compete so this is interesting and we had this conversation
00:04:00.500 at home the other day it's interesting how we're starting to shop and i think it reminds me of back
00:04:08.340 when i was in my 30s we used to go from grocery store to grocery store store to store depend on
00:04:14.800 what we were buying so we bought our vegetables here our meat here right so we're back to that
00:04:18.900 again so like as we move around in a week we're like okay let's go there because it's got the
00:04:24.320 freshest meat at the best price let's go here because the vegetables are good and it's reasonable
00:04:28.620 And so we kind of have that, that route we do in the week where we hit different stores now. So I think where they've, or grocery stores here in Canada right now, you know, the, the pseudo monopolies we've given them, I think where they've overplayed their hand a little is people are going to go back to that model. So, and, and the more they push it, the more they keep not adjusting the prices to be reasonable. I think it forces people down.
00:04:53.580 so the wholesale government-run grocery stores you will get people in new york who along their
00:04:59.660 path will go there and get their canned goods or they'll get their whatever yeah you know i think
00:05:03.580 it would i think conceptually it's an interesting idea putting it in practical i think it has its
00:05:10.940 flaws and i think it'll end up just being as corrupt as food stamps were so i don't think
00:05:15.260 it's i don't think at the end of the day and and that's my that's my issue is in theory like i
00:05:19.660 agree with everyone here yeah oh that's me but you have to like the execution so you don't have
00:05:25.660 that corruption it sounds very difficult yeah and then you have to get the distribution the
00:05:30.220 how do you figure out who's allowed who's allowed to use it yeah shelving space yeah how do you
00:05:34.460 determine yeah who's eligible to use it right well i think everyone is in his what he's saying in his
00:05:39.820 everyone in new york yeah everyone it's basically you know it grows they'll be gigantic at the end
00:05:45.580 end of them because quite frankly it will be the next costco now and does that put does that actually
00:05:50.560 put the other grocers out of business I don't know you don't know what the concept you know
00:05:55.880 what it's going to do it's going to take the availability of product in those stores that's
00:06:00.940 similar to the or there's going to be new products created that are made specifically for that
00:06:06.300 government grocery scenario and I don't think that you'll you'll find less of those products
00:06:12.500 available in the stores that you shop in now so if it's the canned goods maybe it won't have the
00:06:17.700 same selection yeah or they're just going to adapt and lose a little bit of profit yeah well
00:06:24.020 but it's interesting you know we this one was kind of when i heard i'm like oh no forget that's
00:06:28.660 a terrible idea patriotic means looking out for each other and fixing things together true
00:06:41.220 True patriotism is being in a country you love, surrounded by people you love and great weather.
00:06:46.660 Being a patriot is being a part of your community and caring for it.
00:06:49.700 It doesn't matter who you are or where you're from, patriotism is the one thing we all share.
00:06:54.900 It's okay to be critical of government and still be a patriot.
00:06:59.140 It's gratitude to your country.
00:07:00.740 Of course I'm a patriot. I'm Canadian. It's my home.
00:07:03.940 Well, actually true patriot love is the mission.