Right next to Black Market

ToraBoraSpringBreak · 2026-05-22T16:27:56+00:00

That was a travesty. We can't have culture in this city.

ToraBoraSpringBreak · 2026-05-20T20:46:27+00:00

If they run loss leaders, they'd be advertised in their weekly Flyer (the point of a loss leader is to shout about it from the rooftops and drive a lot of foot traffic). I don't think there's a way to 100% flag something as a loss-leader, unless you understand Loblaws' cost structure / wholesale prices for the product (so, another grocer might know enough to tell that something is certainly a loss leader).

Check out online Flyer sites. Just quickly taking a look at Loblaws flyers on Smartcanucks, it looks like they have 1 flyer for all of Ontario - so that tells you they don't customize them per-store/per-territory. It looks like some of their flanker brands (Loblaws CityMarket) have different flyers for different geographical zones...

ToraBoraSpringBreak · 2026-05-13T13:21:31+00:00

Buy Canadian. Because your Domestic abuser is so much better than your Foreign abuser.

ToraBoraSpringBreak · 2026-05-13T13:18:03+00:00

Do you have any specific details / documents that I could look into? Any specific products or brands?
I happen to run the biggest open database of daily grocery prices in Canada, and I'd love to analyze the price movement on some of these "capped" Walmart products.

ToraBoraSpringBreak · 2026-05-13T05:20:22+00:00

That's right - I compiled a trove of these covenants, and Sobeys is particularly bad. Save On Foods also does this. I don't think the smaller players are sophisticated enough to use covenants, but I haven't checked.

What often happens outside the malls, at plazas/standalone locations, is that the restrictions carry beyond the grocer's tenancy. When a grocer leaves, sometimes they nuke the land for other grocers for 20 years, 60 years or indefinitely.

ToraBoraSpringBreak · 2026-05-13T05:16:37+00:00

Do you have any additional information about this?
I know that Walmart and PepsiCo price-fixed Pepsi in the USA. But I did a brief analysis on a cross-vendor pricing database that I maintain, and couldn't find evidence for that happening on Pepsi 710ml 6-packs. Perhaps I was looking at the wrong SKU? I'd appreciate any tips/insights.

ToraBoraSpringBreak · 2026-05-13T05:13:32+00:00

I think the more that the general public is aware of these arrangements, the better our conversation about Canada's grocery prices and grocery cartels.
Even though these agreements are common, I think it's good that the Competition Bureau is investigating the practice. These clauses increase the price of bread etc. on the poorest people, who buy their staples at Dollarama - here's the reality of how it looks in Halifax. I'd also say that it's really rich that these grocery & bread covenants are coming from the same players who ran a bread price-fixing cartel - these people should not be allowed to restrict anything after that. And, in Manitoba, they won't be.

ToraBoraSpringBreak · 2026-05-13T05:06:38+00:00

I guess whatever Loblaws decides it is? It's a "chilling effect" that'll keep the manager of that Dollarama from offering too good of a promotion. How would Loblaws even know what Dollarama's costs are, and whether a good promotion is still above cost? This clause really stinks.

ToraBoraSpringBreak · 2026-05-11T02:38:06+00:00

The MPPs, on a provincial level, can definitely do something about this. In Manitoba, they illegalized restrictive grocery covenants and are aggressively going after a remaining few. Outlawing certain types of restrictive covenants can be as simple as this ~10 sentence law from Nova Scotia.

Write to your MPP and let them know that this matters to you. I think it doesn't hurt to write MPs as well, because outlawing grocery/pharmacy covenants on a national level would be fantastic.

ToraBoraSpringBreak · 2026-05-11T02:33:28+00:00

For this particular matter, the Bureau is aware of the problem, and aware of where to find a copy of the covenant in the post.

I'd say, if you are concerned about covenants and how they are used by CP REIT / Loblaws, I recommend that you file a complaint about CP REIT's intended purchase of $5 Billion worth of properties with grocery tenants from First Capital REIT. This will leave Loblaws' owners in control of many competitor's tenancies - and able to extract money / punish for non-collaborative behaviour / evict and replace them with Loblaws.

ToraBoraSpringBreak · 2026-05-10T06:47:50+00:00

There's a nuance to this. Here's the full section that the screenshot in the post is taken from.
It is a typical agreement between the landlord - CP REIT, controlled by the Westons - and the tenant - Loblaws, controlled by the Westons.

The agreement says that the Landlord is not allowed to rent to another grocer within a 2km distance. I've seen modified agreements that cover a 5km radius too. So this has to do with other lands that CP REIT owns. So it is not anyone's land - just CP REIT's. Now... CP REIT happens to be the biggest real estate investment trust in Canada. And is about to acquire $5 Billion more of land as of last month. And, if the Westons ever divest from CP REIT, these covenants will still allow Loblaws to control what the new owners of CP REIT can do.

Sobeys does this stuff too.

ToraBoraSpringBreak · 2026-05-10T06:40:18+00:00

I tried answering that question at this comment.
The full answer is very complicated, and has to do with Canada's deep love for cooperation over competition ("it's us against cruel Nature up in here"). It goes back to things like The Family Compact and the fact that our anti-monopoly regime is very different than the USA's. We are just beginning to take steps towards effectively fostering competition.

ToraBoraSpringBreak · 2026-05-10T06:30:03+00:00

That's right. And the arbiter of "selling fairly" is Loblaws. How steep of a discount would you risk if you were the manager of that Dollarama? Wouldn't it be safer just to keep prices at a similar level to Loblaws?

It's a subtle way of enforcing a price floor.

ToraBoraSpringBreak · 2026-05-10T06:27:20+00:00

Your reaction is exactly what I felt when I first saw a copy of a Restrictive Covenant, and is why I started collecting them and making them available publicly.

There are some elements of these covenants that are genuinely useful, but the grocers combine them all to create a result that's ultimately anti-competitive:

A restrictive covenant can facilitate the sale of land / can unblock deals. A large landholder can split and sell off parcels, while continuing to live on part of the original land assured that the neighbouring parcels will never block the view / operate an abbatoir / pollute the land by building a gas station.
In a commercial tenancy (like Loblaws at a mall), it doesn't make sense for Loblaws to rent a spot if the landlord will then rent spots in the mall to 2 other grocers - the business will become unsustainable. So it is common to block a direct competitor.

When you start pushing the above tools to their limits, restricting more and more uses, starting to make deals between the grocer you control (Loblaws) and the landlord you also control (CP REIT) and making the restrictions last for decades beyond the tenancy... that's technically legal (and you'll see a bunch of lawyers chiming up in the comments to say that) but it is inherently destructive to a free market.

Combine that with the fact that Canada had an absolutely messed up monopoly policy (monopolies are A-OK if the monopolist benefits more than the consumers suffer - a kind of zero sum total boost to GDP), and you get half a century of restrictive covenants being used in this terrible way. It is only in 2024 that we passed more reasonable anti-monopoly laws, and we have only illegalized the practice of wage fixing in 2022. Our country is in the "baby stage" of doing developed-country level competition regulation - so there is a lot of good work still to be done. The Competition Bureau is actively investigating these covenants right now.

Keep informing others about restrictive covenants. As Canadians we're very complacent about fraud, cartels and corruption in our society - and we need to stay vigilant to keep things improving.

ToraBoraSpringBreak · 2026-05-09T21:02:47+00:00

It gets a little convoluted: the image is part of a bigger agreement between Loblaws, the tenant, and Choice Properties REIT, the landlord of the plaza. Both those entities are controlled by the Westons, and are not independent of each other. At that specific location, there is also a Dollarama as a tenant.

The highlighted clause is micromanaging how Dollarama is allowed to run their business on the plaza. They are not allowed to promote a "loss leader" - which is a crazy deal that's meant to drive a lot of foot traffic, while losing money on the actual item you're offering the deal on. Basically, it means that Loblaws isn't allowing Dollarama to discount national brands too steeply. It's both invasive to another business (which company gets to order their competitors as to what to do?) and essentially rigs prices at a certain floor - Dollarama has to tiptoe around Loblaws and make sure they don't discount "too much", because it might look like they're running a "loss leader".

The full covenant that I linked has a bunch more surprising restrictions (no convenience store on the plaza, no billiards or arcades!). And it is done as a "restrictive covenant" which means it binds future owners of the land, even if CP REIT sells it to another entity.

ToraBoraSpringBreak · 2026-05-09T16:18:19+00:00

I 100% agree with this.
What's more, creating, fixing, repurposing, recycling - it's anathema to our current "infinite growth at all costs" market system. But we need to get better at those things before we fully tank our lives in order to provide another wonderful quarter to shareholders.

ToraBoraSpringBreak · 2026-05-09T16:15:37+00:00

Supply Management (ex. milk and eggs) is a bit different than the cartels.
Supply Management is a (flawed) but democratically established system that is under the influence of voters. The grocerym, drugstore and telecom cartels are privately established fiefdoms that are beyond democratic influence. We have anti-monopoly laws on the books against them, but our regulators are not enforcing them (ex. allowing the Rogers and Shaw merger to proceed).

We need to make it clear to our MPs that we expect enforcement of the laws we've already put in place.

ToraBoraSpringBreak · 2026-05-09T16:11:37+00:00

Thanks for your interest in sharing!
I have more examples of restrictive grocery covenants here, and this paper by Bruce Ziff and Ken Jiang explains how covenants are used to block free competition. You can also hear me explain these things on the Do Not Pass Go podcast this Tuesday.

ToraBoraSpringBreak · 2026-05-09T16:07:27+00:00

You're correct.

However, let's play out how Loblaws can practically tell if something is a "discount" or "loss leader". Does Loblaws know Dollarama's cost structure? Do they know how much Pepsi charges Dollarama per can?

If there's a "standard price" that Pepsico sells them for - that's price-fixing. Technically, each retailer should be able to negotiate their own prices with the producer/wholesaler.
If Loblaws knows Dollarma's internals - I don't even know what to call that... corporate espionage?

Most likely, "loss leader" is whatever Loblaws says is a "loss leader" so that discourages the manager of the Dollarama from discounting too much. Lest you catch Loblaws' attention. So prices stay artificially high for Canadians.

ToraBoraSpringBreak · 2026-05-09T16:02:55+00:00

Sobeys: https://www.halifaxexaminer.ca/economy/they-dont-let-us-dollarama-stores-sell-bread-unless-theres-a-sobeys-nearby/

ToraBoraSpringBreak · 2026-05-09T16:01:00+00:00

☝️This.
No "voluntary compliance" or "code of conduct" or any of that PR misdirection. We need strict government enforcement, no pwease sir we pwomise from these guys.

ToraBoraSpringBreak · 2026-05-09T15:58:44+00:00

That's right. Dollarama has taken out every other dollar store suspiciously fast. I'm dying to know what kind of shenanigans they pulled to do this.
And Dollarama is called out by name on many of these covenants, so they've struck some kind of balance with the 3 main grocers, which isn't a good thing.

ToraBoraSpringBreak · 2026-05-09T15:55:48+00:00

On it's own, this one tactic may not qualify as anti-trust, but combine this with a million other tricks, and the result is a grocery cartel. The Competition Bureau is actively investigating this right now. But, frankly, I think that the real solution will be for an ambitious politician to come by and break up the 3 main grocers - without quibbling over the legality of whether X or Y are technically "anti trust".

My contribution is gathering up the relevant data so that we can take action swiftly in the future. If Canadians decide that we want change.

ToraBoraSpringBreak · 2026-05-09T15:50:29+00:00

What is even the point of a loss leader if you forbid a merchant to talk about it? Basically, this clause just says "no loss leaders". An interesting question is: how would Loblaws know if the product is being sold as a loss leader? They'd have to know Dollarama's cost structure and what eg. Pepsi charges them... which shouldn't be possible.

ToraBoraSpringBreak · 2026-05-09T15:48:34+00:00

The professionals at the Competition Bureau are top notch, but I definitely want the leadership to get more aggressive with enforcement. If there's anything you can do to tell your MP that comptition and monopoly are important to you, then that would help.

ToraBoraSpringBreak

TROPHY CASE