$25 gift card a huge bargain

George Weston Ltd., parent of Loblaws Canada (Superstore/ No Frills), has been involved in a price-fixing scheme from 20012015. Loblaws has agreed to reimburse customers with a $25 gift card starting this year. Registration was begin on Monday, Jan.8, 2018. It could cost the company upwards of about $150 million. No criminal charges are to be laid in this case, due to voluntary admittance to the federal government’s competition bureau to this scheme.

What is the nasty part of this scheme is that those in P.E.I., earning $40,000 per year and under are the ones most hurt by this scam. Bread is a staple. Using $ .25 cents as an example of the price-fix on average per loaf of bread over 14 years, I have calculated the following: There are about 2,800 households that fall in the $40,000 earners or less; the wealthier on P.E.I. also occupy about the same number of households. The result is based on a purchase of two loaves of bread per week. That being said, the less affluent overpaid their bread purchases by $10 million as did the more affluent.

That computes to an overpayment of bread by household of $357 by people on this Island that find the going difficult. The average price-fix amount is not available. It’s a secret. It could end up that $150-million estimate would be a bargain for George Weston Ltd. but a class action suit could ensue.

David C. Campbell, Charlottetown