It's been 5 years since the bread price-fixing probe started. We still don't have any answers
CBCSep 14, 2015
On Wednesday, baked goods maker Canada Bread pleaded guilty to engaging in a years-long price-fixing scheme with competitors and will pay a fine of $50M CAD ($38M) for the violation — the highest price-fixing fine ever imposed by a Canadian court.
A Competition Bureau investigation found that executives at Canada Bread, owned by Maple Leaf Foods until Mexico's Grupo Bimbo acquired it in 2014, "had discussions about prices" for bread products with one or more senior executives at rival baker Weston Foods in 2007.
The Canada Bread price-fixing scandal is part of a much larger bug in the Canadian marketplace. Investigations into grocery cartels have continually been launched since the early 2000s, though the problem is far from fixed and market competition is still not free and fair. Government investigations and class-action lawsuits shouldn't only bring punishment to companies but also financial compensation to regular Canadians struggling with high prices.
While it's important to prevent price-fixing, governments must not use economic struggles and bad faith companies as an excuse to begin price-fixing themselves. As has been the case in Venezuela since the Hugo Chavez regime, artificially lowering prices leads to more demand without an equal supply. Therefore, as people in Caracas wait three hours in line for rice, they're wasting time and money, which actually makes life more expensive.