![](https://www.ctvnews.ca/polopoly_fs/1.6976926.1721883767!/httpImage/image.png_gen/derivatives/landscape_800/image.png)
AS IT HAPPENED Wildfire reaches Jasper Wednesday night, causes 'significant loss'
One of two wildfires threatening Jasper National Park reached the townsite Wednesday night and caused 'significant loss.'
Amid mounting outrage over high grocery prices, a retail expert says there's a solution to fostering more competition in the country.
Given that only three retailers (Loblaw Companies Limited, Metro Inc., and Sobeys Inc.) dominate 70 per cent of Canada's grocery market, Doug Stephens said the country must look at "all avenues" to raise the competition level in the country and give consumers more choice.
"At the end of the day as much as I love this country, we are small," Stephens, a retail expert from St. Catharines, Ont., told CTV's Your Morning on Monday. "We are about the same population as California, and so it's a difficult job to entice a specialty retailer like a grocer into a country that has a relatively small market that is already dominated by three major incumbents."
One solution is for Canada to create a structure that promotes domestic competition, boosting small- to medium-sized retailers and specialty grocers, he said. This would give them a framework for growing homegrown competition, he explained.
The big grocers say they want to give consumers better prices but blame too many government restrictions that prevent them from offering competitive prices, while the government says it wants to introduce a foreign competitor.
The dispute over grocery prices between the Canadian government and big grocers has been like a "ping pong match," but the actions of consumers, including the monthlong Loblaws boycott, are making an impact, says Stephens.
"What we're starting to see is consumers actually taking action and shifting their consumption from one retailer to another and in some cases actually looking for options outside of the big three," Stephens said. "So it's this kind of pressure that I believe is bringing companies like Loblaws now to the table to discuss or at least begin these discussions on what they can do to ameliorate the solution."
The Competition Bureau began investigating the owners of grocery chains Loblaws and Sobeys for alleged anticompetitive conduct on March 1, The Canadian Press reported on May 24.
Sobeys' owner called the inquiry "unlawful." The bureau said it's investigating whether the firms' use of so-called property controls limits retail grocery competition.
Stephens believes the Competition Bureau's focus with its investigations is on restrictive covenants, which have existed in retail for decades. This is when a large retailer like a Loblaws or a Sobeys takes space in a commercial property and often builds into its leasing agreement a "restrictive covenant" that tells the landlord that no one else can compete directly or even indirectly with it.
For example, the landlord can't lease out space to a butcher or bakery in the same mall the retailer occupies.
"The position of the Competition Bureau is – and it's a fair position -- is this really does have a dampening effect on competition," Stephens said.
While Sobeys' owner pushed back agains the investigation, calling it "unlawful," Loblaws' parent company George Weston Ltd. is co-operating with the bureau's review.
"Restrictive covenants are very common in many industries, including retail. They help support property development investments, encouraging opening of new stores and capital risk-taking," Sobeys' owner told The Canadian Press.
One of two wildfires threatening Jasper National Park reached the townsite Wednesday night and caused 'significant loss.'
Alberta has called in the Canadian Armed Forces to help assist with the worsening wildfire situation in the province.
U.S. President Joe Biden on Wednesday delivered a solemn call to voters to defend the country's democracy as he laid out in an Oval Office address his decision to drop his bid for reelection and throw his support behind Vice President Kamala Harris.
Staff at a Barrie child care centre say they are frustrated by what they call a local MPP's inadequate response after a car crashed through a window in one of the toddler rooms.
The North American Aerospace Defence Command (Norad) intercepted two Russian and two Chinese bombers flying near Alaska Wednesday in what appears to be the first time the two countries have been intercepted while operating together.
An analyst and an assistant coach with Canada Soccer are being removed from the Canadian Olympic Team and 'sent home immediately,' according to the Canadian Olympic Committee.
After a handful of Australian water polo players tested positive for COVID-19 this week, questions have emerged around how the spread of the disease will be mitigated at the Summer Olympic Games in Paris.
A B.C. man who was hired to help a non-profit build a food hub but instead spent the money on personal expenses – including travel, restaurants, booze and cannabis – has been ordered to pay more than $120,000 in damages.
Two people are dead and two others suffered serious injuries following a shooting that police have described as a 'gun battle' outside a plaza in Scarborough, Ont. early Wednesday morning.
A local First Nations elder and veteran is helping to bring the Ojibwe language to a well-known film for the first time.
A cat who fled her Montreal home nearly a decade ago has been reunited with her family after being found in Ottawa.
A woman in Waterloo, Ont. is out thousands of dollars for a car crash she wasn’t involved in.
A swarm of bees living in a lamppost in Winnipeg’s Sage Creek neighbourhood has found a new home for its hive.
Around 100 acres of Manitoba Crown Land near the Saskatchewan border is being returned to the Métis community.
Nova Scotia is suspending the licensed Cape Breton moose hunt for three years due to what the province is calling a “significant drop” in the population.
A well-known childhood prank known as 'nicky nicky nine doors,' or 'ding dong ditch,' has escalated into a more serious game that could lead to charges for some Surrey, B.C. teens.
It's been more than a month since their good friend was seriously hurt in an accident and two teens from Riverview, N.B., are still having a hard time dealing with it.
Halifax bridges have collected thousands of coins from around the world.