If we’re going to hand out gift cards …

The price of bread is not something to trifle with. Just ask King Louis XVI. When France’s grain crops failed in 1788 and 1789, French labourers suddenly found themselves spending almost all their daily wages on bread. Result: revolution.

No one is likely to lose their head over bread in Canada today. But last month’s admission by Loblaw, the country’s largest grocer, and George Weston, the country’s largest baker, that they “regularly increased prices on a co-ordinated basis” for packaged bread from 2001 to 2015 certainly qualifies as Big News.

In copping to the conspiracy, Loblaws announced it will hand out $25 gift cards to compensate for 14 years of inflated bread prices.

“This sort of behaviour is wrong and has no place in our business,” said Galen Weston, CEO of both companies.

A proper bread business is presumably one that displays the textbook attributes of a free market. That is, sellers compete with one another and prices are freely negotiated without collusion or interference by any cabal.

But if you’re mad as hell about paying a few extra cents per loaf, be warned there’s plenty more of price-fixing still going on outside the bread aisle. And most of the time the cabal involved is your government.

The price of milk, cheese, eggs, chicken and turkey, for example, are all set and maintained by government mandate via supply management to the great detriment of consumers. Recent research from the University of Manitoba shows Canadian prices for milk, butter and yogurt are between 29 per cent and 40 per cent higher than comparable stores across the border in the United States. Whole chickens are, on average, 69 per cent more expensive in Canada.

According to the Conference Board of Canada, supply management costs the average Canadian family $276 per year, likely quite a bit more than the Loblaws/Weston bread conspiracy cost you.

And this scheme is approved by all major political parties. With the brief exception of former federal Tory leadership candidate Maxime Bernier, every politician in the country seems to think price fixing for dairy and poultry is a good thing because it keeps farmers happy.

So why do we care so much more about the mood of farmers than bakers? And where’s my milk scam gift card from Ottawa?

There’s plenty more price-fixing outside grocery stores. Here in Waterloo Region, taxpayers continued to suffer from an open conspiracy between unions and the provincial government to deliberately jack up the cost of regional construction projects through absurd closed shop rules that exclusively benefit the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners, and affiliated unions and firms.

In a recent column I pointed out the outrageous example of a paving contract at the Region of Waterloo International Airport when two firms submitted bids to pave parking lot P4. Capital Paving said it could do the job for $524,000. Ball Construction demanded $658,000.

Which bid would you accept? If Waterloo Region was operating under competitive, free-market rules, the answer would be Capital Paving. Instead, Ball won the competition after Capital Paving was declared ineligible due to these absurd union rules.

This sort of price fixing is costing local residents an extra $134,000. When can regional taxpayers expect their gift cards from Ball Construction?

(With another union currently applying for certification in a different area of construction work with the region, we may see even more pricing conspiracies of this sort in the near future. Stay tuned.)

Then there’s the new minimum wage imposed on Ontario businesses earlier this week.

Once again the time-honoured system of free and open negotiations between buyer and seller has been discarded in favour of government fiat. This time the losers will be young, inexperienced workers who’ll have a much harder time finding their first job.

The Canadian Federation of Independent Business recently surveyed its members on the effect the wage hike will have on their hiring. One of many responses: “[We] won’t be able to hire the same number of students next year — we normally hire eight or more; this year we are thinking maybe two.”

Robbed for their ability to work for a lower wage than more-experienced applicants, many youths will find themselves unemployed next summer because their government has imposed its own pricefixing scheme on labour. Will out-of-work students be getting gift cards as well?

Finally, the housing market is yet another example of how government interference distorts free markets, raises prices and disadvantages consumers.

The OECD recently scolded Canadians for their high debt load, a product of skyrocketing housing prices and related mortgages. The most obvious fix, the organization observed, would be to increase housing supply by releasing more land for development. “Rigid planning systems … (in) Canada restrict the supply of available and affordable housing,” the OECD noted.

Provincial Green Belt rules and similar municipal land-use restrictions, such as the hard countryside line in Waterloo Region, arbitrarily take valuable land off the market. By preventing willing sellers of land from connecting with willing buyers of homes, governments are thus engaged in a scheme that artificially hikes the cost of housing. How about gift cards for young couples unable to afford a house?

When grocers do it, it’s called a conspiracy. When governments do it, it’s called policy.