Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow is looking to ban “surveillance pricing” at grocery stores across the city in an effort to curb what she describes as “unfair price gouging” that uses customer’s personal data to charge more for groceries.
Chow along with Coun. Alejandra Bravo plan to introduce a motion to ban the practice at an Executive Committee meeting on Tuesday.
“Torontonians are struggling with rising costs and making difficult choices at the grocery store,” Chow said in a press release. “The last thing we need is big retailers using your personal information to charge you more for groceries.”
“As the level of government closest to people’s day-to-day lives, we need to help reduce people’s costs,” she added. “We’re doing that already by freezing TTC fares and our school food program. But we need to go further and protect people from this emerging grocery rip off, before it’s too late.”
The initiative follows provinces like Manitoba, which introduced legislation in March to ban what it described as “predatory pricing.”
“Big corporations shouldn’t be allowed to use your internet search history and other data to raise the price of essentials,” Coun. Bravo said in a statement. “We’re looking at using every tool we have to make the economy more fair for working Torontonians.”
While Chow looks for solutions at the municipal level, Ontario Premier Doug Ford has previously nixed the idea of a ban on surveillance pricing.
At a press conference in April, Ford said that a ban would run contrary to a free market.
“There’s no better way of letting people get lower costs on no matter if it’s cars or homes or groceries, than competition,” he said.
“That is what we believe in. That’s a capitalist society, a market. The other one is socialism. Socialism does not work. You go around and dictating and overseeing every single price, no. If there’s collusion on pricing, I’ll go after them and tear them to shreds, but nothing beats a free market,” he added.
The Executive Committee is scheduled to meet on Tuesday at 9:30 a.m. to discuss the matter.
With files from The Canadian Press.
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