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Matthew Lau: Toronto bungles transit, now wants to sell groceries

Not-for-profit groceries won't be much cheaper even if the municipality runs stores efficiently. And who thinks it will?

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Toronto city council, a body not known for competent delivery of basic services, efficacious management of taxpayers’ money or common sense in decision-making, is at it again. By a 21-3 vote back in March — with councillors Brad Bradford, Jon Burnside, and Stephen Holyday opposed — council approved the establishment of four municipally-operated grocery stores. The idea is that government grocery stores could deliver food more cheaply than private-sector stores, which is so nutty even former NDP leader Thomas Mulcair declared just weeks earlier that “the very idea of having the government involved in something like groceries is mind-boggling.” (He was reacting to Avi Lewis, then leadership candidate, now NDP leader, proposing just that mind-boggle.)

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