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Chris Selley: Government-run grocery is about one thing — expanding the public sector

'This store … will serve as physical proof of our conviction that government can be a force for good' — New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani

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Canadian media are taking the notion of publicly owned grocery stores entirely too seriously — both at the federal level, as NDP leader Avi Lewis promises a nationwide chain, and at the municipal level, after Toronto City Council recently approved a four-store “pilot project” by a fairly astonishing vote of 21-3.

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If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then the Canadian left is flattering the living hell out of public grocer Zohran Mamdani, mayor of New York City. They are practically seething with envy and misplaced ambition. But recent news from New York calls the entire project into question, if common sense and economics hadn’t done that already.

Chris Selley: Government-run grocery is about one thing — expanding the public sector Back to video

On Monday, the city announced the second planned Mamdani-mart location. It’s to be in the South Bronx, part of a new affordable-housing development — this couldn’t really be more on-brand for the mayor — on the site of a now-shuttered youth detention centre.

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