The Competition Bureau announced yesterday that three companies are facing conspiracy charges over their role in fixing
chocolate prices in Canada.
The bureau uncovered evidence suggesting that Nestle Canada Inc., Mars
Canada Inc. and ITWAL Limited, a network of wholesale distributors,
conspired, agreed or arranged to fix prices of Canadian chocolate
products – a criminal offence under the Competition Act.
The accused are facing a fine of up to 10 million Dollars or even jail time for up to 5 years.
This is quite laughable. The Competition Bureau should look into the practices of our own government. It controls the sale and price of all alcohol products. Beer and wine prices are so high they make it nearly impossible for us to buy and drink them. What about milk prices, and the price of eggs, fish? Everything controlled by some kind of Marketing board. I call that price-fixing. And it is perfectly legal because the government is doing it. We, as consumers, are being gouged everywhere and there is nothing we can do. All this threatening by the Competition Bureau, a government agency, about charging some companies is nothing but blowing wind to appease us, designed to take our attention away from really important issues. Who really cares about the price of chocolates? There are other more important things going on, things that really affect our standard of living. We can live with eating fewer chocolate bars. Perhaps we should. There are too many overweight people anyway.
Let's not even mention the price of gasoline. I've commented on that in other blog posts. Strange, how every gas station changes the price at the same time to the same price. I get upset every time I have to fill up my car. Buying a chocolate bar doesn't have that effect on me. It doesn't bother me if every store charges the same price for a chocolate bar.
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