Well, our friends at Loblaws are in the news again. They've released their second

quarter profits. We're looking at $508 million. The shareholders can divvy up amongst

themselves. Just to be clear, that is just in the second quarter alone. This is

like a 30, over a 30% increase from what they earned last year. And I don't think

I need to remind anybody of what groceries cost right now. Santiago, didn't you just go

grocery shopping?

Yep, basic ingredients today cost me $90 and I still have no idea

what happened. What walked into the grocery store to just like

try and spend as little money as possible. And it seems that

no matter how hard one tries, you cannot, you cannot spend. affordable

amount of money at the grocery store and I'm not even talking

about one of the more expensive groceries. I'm talking about

No Frills in Parkdale where it's supposed to be one of the cheaper

grocery stores.

You mean you're not boycotting La Blas?

I mean, I don't know that I could boycott Loblaws if I wanted to

not like well Maybe like Loblaws as in Loblaws the grocery store

but not like I still got to pick up my ADHD medication and my Anxiety

at Shoppers.

medication as shoppers and the no frills is like so close to them,

right? Like the closest grocery store would be far away and then it's

like, okay. Well, it's still Not great. So

As I was doing my notes here and knowing the levels of food insecurity that exist, I'm

going through the articles to find the figures, you know, just to see how much

money they made. The numbers aren't really important, but the way almost all those

articles were framed was just awful. They gave no space at all to talking about

groceries or food security advocates. They spent most of that space allowing Loblaws

to defend these profits. To again say like they're not all from food, we have a really

diverse portfolio, manufacturers are still making us pay a lot of money for what

we need and it completely lost focus on the fact that this company is making record

profits off of starving Canadians. Right? Food bank usage is going through the

roof. They cannot keep up with demand at all. Meanwhile, they're rolling in the Benjamins

at the grocery store. This is maddening, maddening.

Yeah, to say the least. And it's such an intersectional issue

too, because this plays into all the aspects of people's life.

that anxiety affects everything, but also not having access to nutritious

food affects the way you think. It affects your ability to have

energy throughout the day. I mean, this is really a case of capitalism

shooting itself in the foot once again in the name of short-term

profits, but it's so maddeningly like in a fit, not even in it,

just absurd. It's just so completely absurd and It doesn't end

here either because we've seen inflation slowing down, but it has

had no effect on the grocery stores and people already can't

afford. So it's like where is the natural stopping point for them

where they say enough? We've price gouged enough. The answer is nowhere

because we know that growth is the constant necessity. Otherwise,

if they're not growing in profits, their shareholders won't be happy

and they'll make changes and price gauges even more and they'll

buy up everyone else and it's already all bought up by three people

so it's this is just another depressing part of living in late stage

capitalism i guess

but you got your grocery rebate, right? Don't worry, the federal liberals have come

in and saved the day. Of course, the NDP will take credit for it and we'll be fine.

That will cover not even my family's week of groceries. All of this kind of coming

together at the same time, we're getting reports that food bank use is just going to

go up even higher. And the focus that was on blah, in the House of Commons. It's

still appalling to me that we don't go, you know, we still have terms like greedflation

to describe this and not as you say, capitalism shooting itself in the foot, although

I'm not sure it is shooting itself in the foot. As I dug it. into the story and

was reading about Loblaws and alerted by our guest from this week, Bruno of the York

Southwest Intenet Union, when he kind of had that ominous line about Loblaws getting

into the housing game. I think at first I thought he was joking, but I dug into it

and yeah of course choice properties there. One of the largest you know called REITs.

I should insert here what that acronym is. It's like real estate investment trusts

or something like that. FEC.

That's

Okay.

exactly what it is.

All right. So they're the largest one of these things in Canada and most of their

stuff for now is of course my dog.

Oh, it's tasty!

uh... largest reit

Okay, so, you know, yeah, so they're the largest real estate investment trust in

Canada, which means they own a lot of properties. And they even say on their website

that they benefit from their relationship with Loblaws. It's essentially one in the same.

But it's the way they frame how their portfolio is based that really got me mad because

of how we talk about essential goods being controlled by profiteers. rupulous insatiable

profiteers. They boast about most of their portfolio being necessity-based businesses,

meaning things you need to survive. They house them all, you know? All those things,

pay leases to choice properties. And they're also getting into rental properties.

You look at their website, they've got plans for Toronto and a few other urban

centers. All of it looks very gentrifying. I can't imagine any of it's going to be affordable.

This is a bad development for me, you know, to start off getting really mad about

the groceries and then spiraling down to realize just how many essential goods are

controlled in this way and becoming out of reach.

And I think one thing that's really absurd about this situation is

that This, I feel like is a very familiar thing for a lot of

people from third world countries, like this kind of relationship

to a single business or a single individual. What immediately comes

to mind is Mexico and someone like Carlos Lim, who, you know,

people say you can't go a day in Mexico without contributing to

his fortune somehow. Usually people are aware of it, right? But

In Canada, we're so completely disconnected from how much of

an oligarchy we live in. I mean, people are living in complete ignorance

about this. This is an advanced level of oligarchy. This is

not... This takes a while to get to this point. And there are

many warning signs before you get to this point, which shows that

this has been an intentional decision that has been facilitated

over decades. And... It did. I... The thing is, I don't really know

where you go from there when it doesn't seem to matter how much

bad press Galen Weston or Loblaws gets.

Well, I think that's the thing because we go after the personality and not the system.

And then we also design policies that are going to be aimed at you at limiting CEO

salaries, which, you know, is great. And we could just likely get rid of CEOs, to

be honest. I've seen business structures. That's ridiculous. But we don't, right? As

you were describing that oligarchy, and I thought of it too, as I was seeing in

the many ways Loblaws has diversified its profits. Made me think of the movie Wall-E.

You know, that's where you know, the branding is everywhere. There's no doubt about

it. By and large, it owns everything. The banks,

I can hear

the grocery

the jingle.

stores. I mean, was that not a cautionary tale for us? I mean, the planet ended up a

whole bunch of garbage with only rich folks being able to... orbit in space until

it's inhabitable again. But yeah, it didn't go well.

Yeah, I feel like that's not even like I also immediately think

of the Lorax as another example. And I feel like, you know, all these

my generation, I guess we were kids. Well, when these movies

were come up and I do feel like it had an influence, but it

seems that. There's just the disconnect is connecting those stories

to the real life examples because. There's, we become so good

at blaming the wrong people for this. And the thing is, as you mentioned,

it's that continuation of attempting to blame individuals as opposed

to realizing that this is baked into the very system itself.

This is how capitalism needs to function because there is a limited

amount of money that you can gouge from non-essential goods and

services because eventually people will just stop spending money

on them because they're non-essential. And capitalism demands that

constant growth, which means inevitably those corporations that

are most successful at the moment and are no longer making money

from those non-essential goods and services will immediately start to

attempt to privatize and profit as much as they can off of the things

we need. And that's just what Loblaws is doing here. It's nothing

special. There's nothing different about them. This is the way

that capitalism functions. This is inevitably how it will always out.

Yeah, no, we spend a lot of time here shitting on Loblaws, but you made the point

earlier before we started recording that, you know, they're not alone in this.

In the food game and in the real estate game. I think, you know, even the existence

of REITs, the treatment of land and shelter as investments and the rise of- these

institutions is so problematic, right, at a time where really we need to be decommodifying

housing, framing it as a human right. And meanwhile, there are the wealthiest amongst

us that are just gathering up properties, scooping them up, building them, turning their

profits into more profits, and all of it means an increased cost of living for

us. nothing of this is done with any kind of advancement in mind, which is what

people always go on about capitalism being the engine for innovation and making

our lives easier. When the fuck is that happening?

And they also, they like to talk about choice, right? That capitalism

creates choice because of competition. It's like, what the fuck are

you talking about? There's no competition whatsoever. Like, although

you go look at, so we're looking at grocery stores, but you start

looking at food brands, right? And there's like eight companies that

are like every single brand that you would recognize when you go

to a grocery store. Eight companies own like everything. Like I

think of like Nestle and Kellogg and so I guess some of the big

ones, right? But they own everything. Right. And it's that illusion

of competition, that illusion of choice that is baked into the very

foundation of every single thing in capitalism. It's, I, it's that

duopoly. It's that, you know, as long as we're debating between

who likes what you like better, Coke or Pepsi, you don't realize

that you're the, you're actually being played for a fool. into

making you think that you have a choice because you get to choose

between Coke and Pepsi.

Absolutely. And, like, don't get me wrong, those folks compete against each other

for our dollar, you know, in a really playful way in the marketing sphere. But do

not think for a second that they don't unite behind closed doors and set bread prices.

Or conspire with one another to pressure, you know, folks like Dream Un- Dream- I don't

want to get that wrong. Dream Unlimited, not to cave to a rent strike, right? We heard

that the landlord lobbyists were kind of united on that front, so.

Lots of ruling class solidarity is what they have. They know that,

they know who they are. They know that if they're competing against

each other and ripping each other apart, that they all stand to lose

from it.

Absolutely. They know they're in a class war. Too many of us do not. Um.

One thing that President's Choice, La Blas, hopefully, I say this, but I could

be wrong, don't have game in, is public transit. Did you like my segue?

That works. I don't even know if it's true though, if they might.

Hehehehe.

Well, I thought Bruno was joking and so now I don't know. I'm not even going to

look at that because I have enough things to be upset about. But, you know, I

grew up in Scarborough for most of my life and seeing the debacle that's been

surrounding the Scarborough RT. Can you help us get caught up to speed, Santiago?

Well, essentially what happened was the Scarborough, I still

not sure if it's LRT or RT, but he said it's RT, so I'm gonna

go with that. One of the trains derailed, I believe it was, when

was that?

Oh yeah, that's a good call.

I feel like I should know.

that article in the notes. Hold on.

I'm just gonna say a few days ago, derailed a few days ago and

five people were injured. Now, this line was already supposed

to be shut down in the coming months. But it reminded me once

again of the absurd divestment in public transit that Scarborough

has experienced. I mean, we're talking about a borough of 600,000

people, which is bigger than most cities in North America. And

they have one of the most underserved public transit networks

that I have ever seen anywhere.

when we were talking about the wait time increases on the TTC, the

vast majority of the routes that we're seeing above five minute

wait time increases were bus routes in Scarborough. The way they

treat Scarborough when it comes to public transit is frankly,

it's just malicious. I mean, this is Scarborough is a predominantly

visible minority community, working class community. It is not

a place of wealth, which is why it seems to be that it doesn't

matter that it's 600,000 people. They will never get the service

they deserve.

I just want to give folks perhaps outside of Toronto a little bit of perspective. Scarborough

takes up the entire east end of the City of Toronto. It's massive. It goes north

to south the entire length of the city I suppose. And the Scarborough RT was light

rail above ground and it was the only way to really get to the subway system. Either

that or you're essentially taking an east west bus. all the way to Yonge Street,

which would take hours, does take hours. I've had to do that to Finch station many times.

So this is the only fast way to get to the subways, which essentially run right

down the middle of the city in the south end, for the most part. That's where

most folks are going. And now all of these people, you're talking about seven, over

17,000 people a day, weekday. are going to be shuttled on buses. And even though this

probably spells the very end of the RT. that was already scheduled. That was always

the only plan for at least seven plus years is to bus all of those people on shuttle

buses. You know, albeit Olivia has promised to build a dedicated bus lane, that's

17, over 17,000 people alone on this busway that the money is not even earmarked

for at this point. So in the meantime, those folks are pooched.

and a reminder of how much worse it is with once again all the

wait time increases on all the other bus routes in

that

Scarborough.

already exist, right?

Yeah, the ones

Yeah.

that already exist are the ones that the city decided were the

ones that would most make sense to increase their wait times even

though once again we knew that the light rail was scheduled to

be decommissioned in the coming months. There was no real plan

to deal with this. And this goes beyond, I think that this is

an issue that goes beyond car-centric design, in my opinion, because

it's not like Scarborough is designed in a way that also makes driving

the most logical thing either. For me, like, this

There's

is simply...

plenty of parking in Skirrmer, I'll tell you that. You don't have

This...

to pay for it either.

Yeah, no, this is simply this is simply the I don't even want

to say nor ignoring of a underserved community. This is like the

active, active malice against an underserved community. This is beyond

indifference. And there's no real. There's no real urgency for

anybody, it seems, to talk about this. This wasn't a big issue

during the recent mayoral election, either of the recent mayoral

elections. It's

No.

not like s-

So I go back to see, you know, what is Olivia's position on this? We're going to

talk about it. What can people look forward to it? And yeah, she's promised $60

million to build this busway. Other than that, you couldn't find hardly anything

on transit at all. Even there was an article by The Rabble, which normally does

really great stuff. And the headline labeled Olivia as a champion for transit and

housing. But the word transit didn't appear again in their article.

Oh, I thought you were fact checking me.

Sorry about that.

It's okay. And in a city that has so many people that are relying on transit, it

was astonishing that it wasn't front and center. But I think that speaks to what

you just said. It's not just the Scarborough debacle, but it's transit underfunding in general

that is spitting on poor folks. Like,

I wanna

ideally,

met.

it's built for all people, but it's not.

I want to mention when it comes to article, I attempted to write

an article about this actually about the cut cuts, the wait

time increases specifically affecting Scarborough. And my professor seemed

utterly disinterested in the idea of me writing that story.

You see from Lee's side.

He worked for the Toronto Sun as a crime reporter. So you know,

I'm not sure where he's from. But anyways, point being. that like,

yeah, I remember, okay, I'm not writing this, somebody will write

this. And I remember waiting to see that article be written because

it was on my radar. And I'm just a journalism student. So if it's

on my radar, somebody who is actually working in the industry should

definitely have noticed and nobody was writing articles about this

and it was absolutely infuriating. And like I said, this is a massive

community. Bigger than, like if you were to start naming major,

I remember I saw a list earlier this morning about major cities

in North America that Scarborough is bigger than, and it is,

it's shocking. I don't have the list, but there is many recognizable

cities that have major sports teams that are like big cities

that are,

It's not the burbs that people think it is.

no, it's a massive community. And the fact that nobody even cares

to talk about this. And once again, like, and bringing it back

to, you know, economy and stuff like that, there's no logic in isolating

the people of Scarborough from the rest of the GTA from the core of Toronto.

There's no logic in this. It doesn't make.

Well, let's be fair, they've already been priced out of the core. Most city attractions,

anything to do, most families can't afford to do them. And they will travel. I've

had to, living in Scarborough, take two hour bus rides to school and back to work

and back. You just have to do it. You don't have a choice. And so it's just the suffering

they don't care about. You

And

know,

also

you still

just

have to

the

get

impact

where you gotta go.

and the impacts of that time. I mean, that's how many hours a

week does that become of time? That is that is wasted on a commute.

I mean, this is this is not logical Scarborough is a borough of

Toronto that has no access to Toronto. No easy access to Toronto.

And You know, like you start talking to people who, because I

live in downtown and a lot of people here, they just never been

out to Scarborough. They don't even, they never been to Scarborough

in their life. They don't even know what Scarborough looks like,

you know. People have been to the other boroughs, you know,

everyone knows North York. Everyone's been to East York. Everyone's

been at some point had to go to Etobicoke for something or another.

But people have never been to Scarborough. And

It's

that's

a nice

strange.

place they should visit.

I mean, the food is

It

incredible.

can't be all that bad, I grew up there. But I think we're being unfair to Chloe Brown

because I think if there's anybody during the election that was focused on Scarborough

and the needs of the communities usually ignored, Chloe Brown consistently brought up

solutions for that area. So I'm sure if she was listening, she'd be like, I did,

I did, no one would listen. So, and. TTC writers, we had them on a few months ago.

They have been advocating for solutions in Scarborough for some time now, so. going

to

Oh yeah.

summarize them. Hold on, I'm going to need a nerd.

So obviously the long-term goals that TTC riders and advocacy group for public transit

have become a lot more urgent with the derailment and the possible end of the

Scarborough RT, but they've got some great ideas that I think you will like if you

haven't taken a look already. So, you know, they've got eight years at least, because

let's be honest, if Metrolinx is involved, we're probably talking about 15 years until

that subway's built, or whatever they end up building. And... They want to decommission

it and turn that into the busway with a green public space, you know, for pedestrians

and cyclists, free transfers. In the meantime, for folks going between Go Transit

or the other service providers so that people can get around in Scarborough in more

ways than having to rely on that busway. The Eglinton LRT, the Eglinton East LRT is

another big issue with Toronto Transit. It's just sitting there not being used, which

again is stopping people from the East end of the city getting into the core. And

it's just sitting there driving my dad crazy in this neighborhood. You still can't

get in and out. Um, they also want to preserve that corridor long-term for that

same kind of public space that we were talking about. So another shout out to TTC

writers for having so many solutions. I hope they go far with the current mayor.

I mean, they're great ideas, but still, but still it still means no matter what for

the next minimum eight years, a whole lot of people in Scarborough will only have

a bus to get them into the core of the city. Like that

It's...

is unacceptable that if you read through the story of this. fucking Scarborough expansion,

it's such a soap opera of political debates gone wrong and indecision and flip-flops.

I'm not gonna take the space to go into the exact history of it, folks can look

it up for themselves, but it's just an example of political inaction. And even

the counselors in Scarborough did are such a poor job of advocating for the folks

Oh,

there.

yeah

They were just like mad they couldn't have. hard rail instead of light rail and didn't

want to be treated as second class citizens. It's like such a horrible perspective

to come at it from.

And it's also just to be clear, like this is not the norm across

the world in industrialized nations. I mean, we're talking about a transit

system in Toronto that is truly, truly behind. Every single major

city across the world that is even a lot of major cities in non-industrialized

countries are more Developed than Toronto's and I can't help but

think of places of high density cities in Asia that have incredibly

Developed public transit them somehow managed to move Millions

more people than what we have in Toronto and Toronto once again

is one of the it's either third fourth I forget I think it's third

no it's the fourth largest city in North America fourth largest

city in North America we're not talking about a city and it's a major

financial hub. We're not talking about a city that doesn't have

access to the kind of population slash funding that would generally

be allocated to a city of this caliber to be able to develop

something. I mean, for fuck's sake, go look at like the, just

the subway map of any fucking European city and then look at

Toronto's and it's embarrassing, even compared to Montreal and

it's embarrassing. This is truly what should be. We are to a certain

extent an international laughing stock for this kind of thing, but

we don't feel that. We think that this is the norm because we have

no idea what's going on anywhere else. And we act like it's so difficult.

I'm just laughing because you stole that line like right out of my mouth. Like

I was thinking there's nothing more embarrassing than comparing Toronto subway

map when you go abroad. Do it for fun while you're listening. Um, in that comparison,

though, it made me think of something I wanted to share back to what Herman said

in our TTC writers episode, when he stressed the need for transit to be for everyone.

Now, right now it's mostly geared towards poor folks who absolutely need it for the most

part and that's why it's largely underfunded because nobody advocates for the poor, right?

We know that. But in the same way... Stop. Herman says this in the episode mostly

because we're talking about climate change and transit as a solution higher ridership

would have on lowering our emissions. But I think he was also getting at something

else that I didn't really get until now, not fully, until I started chirping about

private schools. And the reason I don't think private schools should exist is because

everyone's kids should be in the public school system. Yes, there's problems with the

public school system and how it's structured and it needs work and it needs a lot more funding.

However, the existence of charter schools and private schools and religious schools allows

rich folks to not give a shit. Literally, our ministers of education in Toronto and Ontario

have never even gone to public school. They don't know what it needs, they don't care.

And so it's lost. The same would exist if we designed our cities to public transit

and not to cars because you would have to take public transit, right? Making people

have to take public transit would incentivize politicians and rich folks alike to have good,

well-funded transit, clean transit, safe transit, fast transit. But they don't,

it's just for the poor folks right now. Right? And not even. Because every time

you see root cancellations, they're again, in the most underserviced areas. It's

like a cost benefit analysis rather than a how else are those people gonna get

where they need to go analysis and realizing it's a public service and not something

that is always gonna be cost effective. Because you know, John Tory adds $53 million

to the transit budget. And you're like, oh, yay, like that is a significant increase.

And then you find out, well, that also went to hiring 50 more security constables.

Yeah, no.

And he promised to make most of it up with fare increases. So on the backs of

the people who can't afford to drive, they're gonna pay for more constables on the

line.

And a reminder that we already pay within the top five or ten.

fares, I think it's top five for monthly fares, top 10 for single

rider fares of any transit system anywhere in the world. Like

we're paying already way, way more. And you look at the countries

that are paying more than us and they all have incredibly elaborate

complex transit systems that can get you anywhere you want to go in

the city. We don't. So we're paying all of these incredibly high

fares for nothing. We get nothing in return. We get a broken system

that barely meets the needs of many Torontonians and doesn't

meet the needs of so many more Torontonians. And not even to

mention all the people who are not even Torontonians, but who work

in Toronto and how difficult it is just to get into the city and

how talking about how expensive go transit is right like you

want to take the go train into city I know people were paying

$20 a day for those round trips in and out of the city from the

suburbs where and then they still have to drive their car to

get to the station because their suburbs don't have adequate transit

systems to take them to the go train station and if they do well

guess what you're paying an additional oftentimes I see it Right

because you're paying four dollars four dollars for that take it

in a different area. And same thing, like ask anybody who lives

in Mississauga who works in Toronto. I know so many people who

live in Mississauga and who work in Toronto, who are paying incredibly

high prices every single day. And on top of that, losing so much

of their time. And of course, every now and then I hear people

say, things about how employers should be compensating for that

time. And I strongly agree. And of course they don't. But...

In fairness, that should be done in their taxes, right? Their under-taxed

Yeah,

businesses.

no, but that's the point. It's just like We're getting a really

shitty deal here yet. We think we live in this Ad this advanced

city. It's like no, please I beg people to go learn what the rest

of the world looks like Like so many of these issues only exist

out of out of ignorance Because we don't know what the rest of the

world looks like

One of the things that has plagued Canadian cities as well is really poor leadership.

And to give folks an understanding of how Canadian politics work in that regard,

municipalities have very limited ways of raising funds. So it's no wonder they raise

fares every time they have to increase funding for the transit system. They only really

have property taxes and... building permits, very limited revenue resources. It's

the provinces and the federal government that take in most of our taxes and should be

putting it back into transit. But not to worry, here's my sarcasm tone for those

who might not be able to recognize it. Justin Trudeau has announced billions in

permanent public transit funding. So for example, knowing the busway. may cost 60

million dollars. That's just Scarborough's busway to solve one little problem for eight

years. 60 million. So what do you think federal government funding for permanent transit,

sorry, so what do you think the yearly allotment from the federal government should

be for all of Canada when we're talking, when they say permanent public transit funding?

Santiago, do you want to give it a guess? Like what should it be?

Honestly, don't have a number, but I am of the belief that it should

be whatever is necessary.

whatever it takes.

Because any investment in public transit will pay for itself and its

benefits to society. So it's not the type of thing where we should

be. even concerning ourselves with how much it costs. That money

will make itself back in not being lost in other ways. So it's

like, if it costs, you could give me a hundred billion, say,

Well, I'm only

to develop

going to give

public.

you three.

Yeah.

You get three from the feds and that's got to be split across Canada. $3 billion a

year. And they were very excited about this announcement.

Of course they were.

So clearly the federal government cannot help Toronto with its transit funding woes.

They won't help Olivia with her housing issue either. I mean that's a story for another

day, but the feds love to pretend they're doing a lot of help and they really do nothing

at all, but that's okay. They're never one to be outdone by the provincial government.

Doug Ford standing there like he wasn't on council during all of this and saying, oh

well, the province could have fixed this years ago. Council could have fixed this

years ago. We have no idea if he's going to fix this. My guess is no.

I'd strongly believe no. And it's funny because it's like, if you

did fix this, then you'd have a bunch of people supporting you

and you'd guarantee power for your party or whatever, you know?

But apparently like they're that secure in their control that they

don't have to worry about 600,000 people. That doesn't matter.

for folks who want to, a call to act, wait, start again.

For folks that want a way to push back in all of this, we do highly recommend TTC

writers. You'll remember they were on a few episodes ago, but they have a petition

specifically aimed at the issues in Scarborough, but they do so much more. So again,

we will link you to them in our show notes.

I can't end like that.

Let me think. Sorry, I've never been good at endings.

I think we put it back on Olivia. Maybe just.

Yeah, maybe just like end. Olivia Chow has the ability to make,

pressuring Olivia Chow, yeah.

Yeah, so in the end, it's going to come down to what Olivia Chow's willing to

do on this portfolio. The jury's still out on that. So that tells us that the work

of TTC writers and other advocates still need to be holding people's feet to the

fire because there is no solution for Scarborough right now. But this is just a microcosm

of the transit woes in Toronto and in Canada in general. Is that good?

Yeah. It'll do. It'll do.

Okay.

I feel like you're allowed to kind of end roughly, because, you

know, if people stuck around long enough, I don't think they're too

concerned.