this post was submitted on 17 Nov 2023
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Agreed.
There are about 40M people in Canada.
Presumably, all of them eat food.
Granted, not everyone shops at the same chain, but for quick/easy math, let's say ~25% (10M) shop at "GroceryCorp".
If GroceryCorp fixes prices by just $1 per shopping trip, they will make an extra 10M.
If we assume biweekly shopping trips, that's an extra $20M per month of stolen money.
These numbers are all very generously underestimated ($1?? I wish), and this corporation still nearly breaks even in one single month of price gouging. This has been going for years.
I almost hesitate to say this bill is better than nothing, even. Those responsible need to be subject to prison, not some mildly bigger slap on the wrist ffs.
That's the problem, isn't it? Any large corporation will happily eat fines all day long if they are still turning a profit from whatever crime they are committing.
This is why Facebook and Google continue to commit privacy violations. Why Bell Canada still practices deceptive marketing and sales. And why Loblaws and friends are reporting record profits each new year.
If the fines don't HURT these companies, they are ineffective.
The moment corporations outgrew fines was the moment capitalism seriously turned sideways. Not that there weren't always serious issues, but it's insane that we allow these entities to exist entirely outside of meaningful legal prosecution.
I'd prefer to see fines linked to profits AND length of time they were stealing, ie: $20 mil x 44 months of theft = $968 million fine
That will get their immediate attention.
Fines of any sort for large corporations are literally just legal bribery to get some responsible party out of facing prosecution. Corporate bad actors have the power to do far more damage to people and land than an individual can, yet they get to buy their way out.
That's exactly why any punishment has to do damage. And it needs to be swift and severe.
An individual who ruins lives tends to have their lives ruined buy the justice system in most cases. The same needs to apply to companies, or at least, the people running those companies.
It's worse than nothing because a lot of people will see this and think "well a million is a lot, so this is good."
Appeasing people with what amounts to nothing is not a good thing.
That's exactly what I'm thinking. It's worse than nothing, because it's in place of anything actually useful.