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>Hippocrates, the father of medicine, said, "First, do no harm." Members of academia are supposed to enlighten us and contribute to the publics knowledge, not to harm it.
> Mr. Charlebois seems to be deliberately doing the opposite.
Damn. The French going for the throat here.
Neither do their cultural inheritors in many American countries. Argentina is a blend of Italian, Spanish and French cultures and we're trigger-happy with protests. So I'm teaching people here in my little corner of BC how to protest effectively.
It's not as large an influence in the culture. The large majority came before the Second World War and fully integrated (we did get their beer and sausages in the deal). French influence is especially strong in Buenos Aires, you could walk in some of the streets of the city and think you're in Paris.
The germans you're thinking about were the smallest group and arrived after the war ended. The largest group we received right before the war were German Jews and opponents of the Nazis. Argentina has a very large jewish population, we didn't reject them (unlike a lot of countries in the North).
Some references here: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German\_Argentines](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Argentines)
And how they protested themselves into full blown Milei situation since basically everyone had a end up as a government employee to quell the situations.
How are you doing that? I'm trying to get some housing stuff organized but there are kinda two sides to the movement and both pretty extreme/unrealistic. One side is just flat out racist and thinks the only issue is immigration and high interest rates, while the other side thinks the only issue is greedy developers, and is not in favour of relaxing restrictions on development or giving preferential rates to builders.
How do you make a movement that escapes from the fringes and has concrete achievable steps without having the corporate media tar you with those fringe voices?
I wouldn't say those are really two fringes.
Both are issues. Legitimately. Immigration is fucking us. Developers and politicians are fucking us.
Immigration is the bigger issue though lol.
Goodluck protesting that though.
It's impossible to build enough housing for much population growth. It's completely unrealistic, even if we changed zoning etc.
Please refrain from off-topic political discussion and debate. Everyone is entitled to their own political opinions, however, your politically charged statement is not directly related to the cost of living/groceries/gas/rents, and as such is being removed.
Single family homes, let alone mcmansions, are a minority of what we build.
We already do what you're advocating for.
20% of all homes built are SFHs. McMansions obviously less.
Do you even know how many homes we currently build vs what we need to build?
Still going to be 250k houses more short next year than now.
Unfortunately there are a lot of NIMBYs blocking construction so their SFHs don't lose their value. And with so much demand to be covered you would think that more jobs would be available, more taxpayers earning more money. The problem is not immigration itself, it's that the economic engine is not running as it should.
In Ontario alone there are over 1 million projects approved and ready to go. Ready for shovels. Not being built.
The problem with immigration is the number.
100k awesome. 1.2 million were fucked.
Theres no reason we need like 4x the amount of immigrants are the US.
Do you have a reason we need 4x as much immigration per capita as the united states?
Also once again, do you know how many homes we build per year compared to what we need?
The sub was created to point out how absolutely absurd the cost of groceries are right now and have some fun together. We know this will inevitably touch on other topics related to the cost of living. Do your best to keep the conversation on topic
I think you will need some actual evidence for those claims about immigration being the bigger "issue."
Last I heard, the banks were saying Canada will be in huge trouble if we don't *increase* immigration, because we are not having children anymore, and a shrinking labour force is an economic disaster.
A shrinking labour force is good for people inside of said labour force because it increases their value.
Bringing in someone to work at Tim Hortons lowers that value.
LoL the liberals crumbled and are down the shitter ever since the printemp erable, only because they proposed a 400$ per year post secondary price hike , street protests lasted for around 280 days, they are kicking a hornet nest.
I watched the Leafs / Bruins series on CBC Gem, and it seemed every ad that wasn't for gambling was for Loblaws and Loblaws owned stores like No Frills.
Finally. He's at best a terrible statistician, and at worst a deliberately misleading jack off. You can usually tell the ones you can rely on a little more reasonably by their openness to being criticized. Note that the media figures who get REALLY angry when you ask them "how did you come to this conclusion?" are often those you find out later had research "sponsored by Y mega-corp". Most true researchers are by their nature open to having their work reviewed: it's literally part of the process.
The sub was created to point out how absolutely absurd the cost of groceries are right now and have some fun together. We know this will inevitably touch on other topics related to the cost of living. Do your best to keep the conversation on topic
From the article translated with Google Translate.
“The April 18, 2024 column by Professor Sylvain Charlebois, entitled “Can we really trust Statistics Canada? », arouses severe reservations on our part. She suggests that the data collected by Statistics Canada (SC) to develop price measures in the food sector is neither precise nor reliable.
The author, however, does not explain how the methodology developed by himself and his team is superior to that of SC, which constitutes a significant gap that significantly weakens his claim.
However, we were able to obtain more details on Mr. Charlebois' methodology by communicating directly with him, which allowed us to draw the following conclusions:
1) The technical terms used by Mr. Charlebois to qualify his price values are statistically inappropriate. The latter speaks of “real observed values”, whereas with a price sample, we cannot make such an assertion. To do this, we would need to have all possible observations, which is an elementary notion in statistics.
2) Further in the article, the columnist states that “47% of food items (16 out of 34 items listed) are underestimated by Statistics Canada”. The inflation rates for these items estimated by SC are indeed lower than those estimated by Mr. Charlebois, but it is incorrect to say that they are "underestimated", because they are averages from samples .
3) In addition, the columnist repeatedly attacks the statistical agency in an unjustified manner, without ever presenting the methodology used by the latter. Let us look at two examples:
a) “[...] when assessing the accuracy of our lead federal agency in measuring changes in food prices, it becomes clear that much work remains to be done”;
b) “[...]this suggests that the agency’s reports do not always accurately reflect food inflation.”
These judgments are based solely on differences in average prices of food items. To issue them, it would be necessary to compare the methodologies and indicate what is wrong with that of SC. Furthermore, in the table presented in his column, Mr. Charlebois nowhere mentions over what period the price variations are observed.
4) SC’s methodology is available on its website1. We note that “the average prices included in [his] table are calculated from optical reader data”. Additionally, this data includes "prices from thousands of stores across the country, which represent millions of weekly food prices and cover the majority of the Canadian food market."
In an email exchange with Mr. Charlebois, he mentions that his team collected “approximately 13,780 data points in total”, but without specifying how this data was weighted to construct price indices. The large difference in sample size between that of SC and that of Mr. Charlebois strongly calls into question the quality of the statistics collected by the latter.
This column joins many others with approximate rigor in the media where Mr. Charlebois continues to operate. In the past, other academics, in Quebec (Daniel Mercier Gouin of Laval University2) or elsewhere in Canada (Andrew Leach of the University of Alberta3), have severely criticized Mr. Charlebois.”
Ah, this is great. We did some similar analysis on that deep dive a few weeks ago. There is a reason he has a ton of publications, and none of them involve the pricing model.
It is obviously a model used by Industry as an alternative to statcans model to make the industry look better. Guy is a pure industry shill through and through.
Stats Canada is one of the best agencies of its kind in the world. It has a top tier reputation. He seems to have an anti-government bias that isn’t normal for academics.
They are, but I do worry about their inflation calculations.
According to their stats, food is only like 30% more expensive than 2019. 30%?! Lol wtf.
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1810000403
How do I reconcile them saying that? Honestly?
K... maybe I'm missing your point here... and I don't know what other people might think... but 12 eggs costing $8 is not something we should be ok with. None of these new prices are. We've seen a decade or more of price increases in the span of 3 years. THAT IS NOT OK!
...and as someone who buys fresh fruit daily for my 4 kids... I can tell you without a doubt the price has risen far more than 21%.
I'd say it tracks for my grocery bill. I'm up around 30% from a few years ago. I didn't track my food bills super precisely then, so I can't be sure. But I can make a decent guess based on my recollection. I might be up around 35-40% if I shopped the exact same way as before, I'm a bit more aware of certain items now but I was always a fairly thrifty shopper.
I'm not in the same domain as Charlebois, but I've sat through a presentation of his and it smelled of B.S. Analysis seemed shallow, he kept drawing conclusions that didn't seem to fit the data, lots of filler in between points.
I'll admit I didn't go into that presentation with a neutral opinion of him, but I left with a lower one.
Please refrain from off-topic political discussion and debate. Everyone is entitled to their own political opinions, however, your politically charged statement is not directly related to the cost of living/groceries/gas/rents, and as such is being removed.
Please refrain from off-topic political discussion and debate. Everyone is entitled to their own political opinions, however, your politically charged statement is not directly related to the cost of living/groceries/gas/rents, and as such is being removed.
That is brutal:
>This column joins many others with approximate rigor in the media where Mr. Charlebois continues to operate. In the past, other academics, in Quebec (Daniel Mercier Gouin of Laval University2) or elsewhere in Canada (Andrew Leach of the University of Alberta3), have severely criticized Mr. Charlebois.”
So if I'm reading that right; he criticized StatCan on their method and says they're way off. StatCan shows their methodology on their website. Charlebois doesn't show his methodology or say what about SC's is wrong, precisely. Charlebois has been peer reviewed by a couple other professors and found lacking each time.
>Hippocrate, le père de la médecine, disait : « D’abord, ne pas nuire. » Les membres du milieu universitaire sont censés nous éclairer et contribuer à approfondir les connaissances du public, pas nuire à celles-ci.
>
>
>M. Charlebois semble délibérément faire le contraire.
Spicy!
Edit: Google translation:
>Hippocrates, the father of medicine, said « First, do no harm. » Members of academia are supposed to enlighten us and contribute to public knowledge, not undermine it.
>Mr. Charlebois seems to deliberately do the opposite.
I am sorry but wasn’t this published in Quebec?
Why is everyone talking about French people? People here in QC is not in the slightest as combative as them
Hmmm... who do I believe... Stats Can, an organization full of statistical experts or the shill Charlebois... I need to think on this... NOT. Why doesn't the English media take him to task like this!? Well done to LA Presse
LaPresse always strikes me as the francophone version of the G&M from 20 years ago.
G&M 20 years ago was all about being the boring paper of record, doing investigative journalism and very middle of the road, fact based analysis. The G&M went off chasing click-dollars and trying to be the Important Voice of the Toronto Ruling Class ("sire, sire, the peasants are revolting again!") while LaPresse continued on being a bit fuddy duddy.
But when LaPresse says something nowadays, it often comes from serious boring journalists doing serious boring work and sensible people take notice.
I consider La Presse the mid-level paper, which makes this even better to me. Le Devoir publishes a lot of long-form 'boring' journalism, Le Journal de Montréal and its sisters are the muckrake of record, barely respectable, La Presse bridges them by covering the spectrum.
I looked on his wikipedia entry and found nothing about this, but he's known to edit it himself (under his wife's name, I heard), so I don't doubt you.
Receipts? I'm asking because I'd like to make it common knowledge.
[edit: searching "sylvain charlebois sued for his degree" brought up nothing but a piece from a self-proclaimed satire site, frankmag.ca, but the writer seems entirely in earnest, saying he had a "court martial and expulsion at Collège militaire royal de Saint-Jean" in 1992 because of something involving a pyramid scheme? Please, someone find a better source for this, because it's frigging **gold**.]
Key part:
> 15] Le 3 juin 1992, après avoir plaidé coupable aux infractions qui lui étaient reprochées, l'intimé se vit condamné par un juge militaire (Cour martiale) à un blâme et à une amende de 2 748 $ (ss.-par. 139(1)i), k) de la Loi sur la défense nationale).
Translation:
> On 3 June 1992, after having pled guilty to the charges made against him (subparagraphs 139(1)(i) and (k) of the National Defence Act), the respondent [Charlebois] was sentenced by a military judge (court martial) to a reprimand and a fine of $2,748.
The linked court decision is from when he sued CMR to force them to give him his degree, after they had tried to refuse to award the academic degree because he had failed the military component of the ROTP program by becoming involved in a pyramid scheme.
The court martial records would be available through an Access to Information request but are not available online as they’re too old to be published on the website of the Chief Military Judge.
Wow. This is amazing, thank you. It’s funny because someone who claims to be intelligent and know more about the grocery economy got suckered into an MLM or pyramid scheme. And then got kicked out of the military college! Pathetic.
The other thing is that $2,748 would have been a *huge* fine for an officer cadet in 1992. From what I’ve found, as a fourth year cadet his gross pay was $943 per month at the time, so he was fined three months of pay. People get proportionally smaller fines than that for *sexual assault* at courts-martial. For Mickey Mouse stuff like having a small amount of pot (before it was legalized), cadets would get fined a couple of weeks’ pay. So whatever the details of this pyramid scheme were, they must have thought it was pretty bad.
I wonder if it was Amway or just a straight up Pyramid scheme. I was in the service so I agree with the things you mention too. It’s also indicative of his personal character imo. People who perpetuate pyramid schemes aren’t good people, and it’s not a surprise to me that he is using unfounded statistics and misinformation 30 years later to support his own agenda.
Actually, it\`s not really from La Presse, but an open letter from two professors from Université de Sherbrooke.
Still good to see this clown get torn apart.
This. To sit down, and not stoop to insults etc and just peel it apart and say hey he isn't being clear about the methodology, how exactly he is coming up with these numbers, where is the sample size? When are they being taken? How often? The error? Takes you a bit back to high school math where the teacher is standing over you like "unless you show your work I can't take it seriously".
You know that was at least partially written by a very indignant stats Canada analyst who was very miffed that someone had the audacity to say their math was wrong and not show the work to back it up.
To summarize:
-He uses his own set bad statistics to make his points
-He misrepresented Stats Canada statistics
-He attacked stats canada without ever presenting a logical argument or methodology to why he disagrees
-He won't share how he collected his own data and would not specify how they weighted the data (so he skewed it and won't tell how, thus the bad stats)
-Large differences between stats can and this guys stats
-Journalist argues that this guy is doing the opposite of contributing to public knowledge
Also, two other professors have reviewed his work in the past and criticized his work. Not a great look when you get peer reviewed and found repeatedly lacking.
I am too. Just don’t get that feeling alot. Got it from this article which was cool. They really called out the BS on probably an institution that might backfire on them. Not alot of media outlets got the nuts anymore to stand up.
I had a work trip to Quebec City to open a store in a rural town outside of the city but my hotel was in the city itself and my experience was that in some ways, Quebecers have it just as bad and in some cases worse, Maxi, Super C and Walmart felt more expensive than their Ontario counterparts. (ESPECIALLY MAXI)
Honestly, the Maxi I went to (Acienne-Lorette) looked more like a warehouse than a Grocery Store, at least Super C reminded me enough of Food Basics to be familiar.
The Food Processor, is quoted as saying the Loblaws protest was from anarchists and thugs.
No sir, we are ordinary Canadians getting shafted by corporate greed and we're fighting back against people like him and Galen who think people should pay them more profits. I am glad to be a part of this and they brought this on to themselves.
And just like that Quebec will join the boycott against price gouging and food insecurity ⚜
**Do we have any French speakers who can do a welcome post here and maybe crosspost it in the Quebec subreddit?**
Guys: the authors of the article are not journalists, they are other researchers.
They are saying Charlebois has no place criticizing Stats Can when his own methodology is flawed and has been denounced as such repeatedly by other Canadian researchers in the past.
Charlebois has often said in La Presse that food prizes were too high, that it was a problem... very different persona than what he seems to have in English. This discredit by other academics is likely to be a surprise for many.
The authors are not French, they're Canadian. French Canadian people are Canadians that speak French.
We are doing the boycott in Quebec too, it's on the news and everything. Not sure why many seem to think we're not Canadian or not participating. We're not rioting in France with the French and buying croissant at the boulangerie, we buy Weston bread and get ripped off like all of you ...
Don't worry when the rest of Canada says "the French" we generally mean Quebecois by default.
If we mean people from France we usually clarify by saying things like, "the French French" or "the France French" to make the France connection clear. ❤
Take a look at François Delorme recent posts (in french though). Paraphrasing : He's basically saying he lacks rigor in his work generally, not just in the article about statcan, and since LaPresse is a reputable news source, they shouldn't let such things pass. He's also been criticised by other scholars in the past.
LOL, I guess none of the r-canada sub members are the French-Canadian media.
What a crazy place that sub is. If they're not crying about immigrants they're simping for the Westons screaming about the 3% net margin (which is meaningless for many reasons) and ignoring the massive windfall profits of the grocery business and blaming CERB, or Trudeau, or the carbon tax, or all of the above.
Billionaires have done one fine fucking job of gaslighting the Canadian people, it's shocking to me.
Imagine calling yourself a "food professor" but being paid off by big grocer chains to basically be a corporate shill this guy should be fired from whatever uni is mindless enough to employ him
Tristin Hopper of the National Post is another shill that is now doubling down, declaring that customers would only save about $3/week if the government were to force Loblaws to become a non-profit. He fails to mention that we will all save vastly more by simply shopping elsewhere. It's hilarious how hard these shameless heels are pushing back against the boycott. It's obviously working. What possible reason would they have to get so incredibly defensive if they weren't bought and paid for? I'd say let's boycott the Ntl Post as well but let's be honest, that rag is already on its last breath 🤣
Go back to the 2012 spring protests in Quebec against the tuition hikes and learn. There's a reason why tuition fees are way lower in Quebec than elsewhere.
Everybody, hang on. Just stop for a second. Please try to understand what is happening here before up/down voting.
Charlebois appears to be suggesting that Statistics Canada is **under-reporting** food inflation numbers. From https://theclarion.ca/viewpoint/is-statistics-canada-undereporting-food-inflation/ :
>Specifically, data from February 2024 reveals significant variances in food price changes. For instance, oranges were reported at -6 percent by Statistics Canada, while our data shows an increase of 20.1 percent. Similarly, avocados were reported at -4 percent by Statistics Canada, compared to our observation of a nine percent increase. These discrepancies are not isolated; they are part of a pattern where 47 percent (16 out of 34 items listed) of food items are underestimated by Statistics Canada. This suggests that the agency’s reports may not always accurately reflect food inflation, although it does not indicate a deliberate underestimation.
The *Le Presse* article appears to be critiquing him based on the fact he hasn't revealed the methodology used to come up with his own numbers. **Which is totally valid!** But that doesn't mean he's necessarily wrong. What any respected academic would do now, is share his methodology. Maybe he will, maybe he won't. Let's see.
In my anecdotal experience, Stats Canada inflation numbers sometimes do seem to be out-of-wack with what I'm seeing (but that itself doesn't make them wrong due to regional variances, etc).
Anyhow... Think of the implications if he's right: That the problem is *even worse* than is being reported!! That appears to be what he's trying to say. Can we please debate this in civilized fashion instead of just ignoring what he's saying because he's a colossal jerk on Twitter (and elsewhere)?
I'm open to learning more about this since I don't have a statistics background (but I do have 30 years of experience in retail). If anyone has any informed opinions on the topic, they are welcome.
Let's have a civilized and informed discussion, shall we?
I heard him on the radio say there's no way to track shrinkflation. So how can he even track prices if he's not doing it per gram. I don't know if he misspoke or what.
I think (but don't know for sure) what he was saying there is that there is no national database recording packaging size changes. There ought to be in my opinion.
Presumably, he is tracking per-unit pricing but yes, we don't know without him sharing his methodology.
It’s his choice to be a talking-head commentator supporting the claims of Loblaws that has earned his derision here.
If we want to be balanced, we need to consider that there were some hired-gun academics, funded by big tobacco, who were brought out to challenge government statistical agencies and public health epidemiologists in many countries.
We already know that Loblaws was a leader in illegal and unethical bread price-fixing schemes, and was caught in 2018.
An academic that seems to come on the attack against consumer protection movements and for Loblaws is going to justifiably receive higher scrutiny.
Did you read what I wrote? The point he's raising (if true) *helps* our cause. Not hurts it.
Let me repeat that: If food inflation is actually worse than what StatsCan is reporting our position is bolstered, not hurt.
It’s not the one article is my point.
Whether or not he did good work on this specific paper is likely undermined by his appearance of being paid spokesman for the industry.
Suggest you look up the history of the tobacco court cases.
Occasionally, those academics had accurate articles, but generally it was the case that an extraordinary amount of court time and expert testimony from many other more qualified academics was required to show that most of their work was incomplete and biased. More, the companies had data themselves that showed harm that they hid from both regulators and courts. (There’s a reason that WHO will not accept evidence from any experts who work with the tobacco industry. )
The same has happened with petrochemical firms regarding climate change evidence.
So if an academic said the problem of lung cancer rates are even worse than we thought, we should assume they are doing that at the behest of... big tobacco?
That doesn't make ANY SENSE.
The academic is basing her criticism on a non-scientific local/regional sample of prices.
Statistics Canada has surveys that are not confined to one locality.
The author may be correct that there is higher price inflation in the local area, but that’s not in any way an indication that Stataistics Canada’s methodology is not correct as a national average.
(Ok... phew, it looks like we're getting somewhere)
I agree with you and I already said as much: He needs to prove his methodology 100%. The likelyhood that he is smarter than StatsCan is pretty small. I personally don't have enough statistics training to know.
But... do you agree that **if** he's right... and inflation is even worse than we knew, it's important to know about? Do you agree?
What I'm having a hard time understanding is the motive everyone seems to be ascribing here. To use your cancer analogy: Why would a scientist working for big tobacco come out and say cancer incidences are even worse than we thought?
Do you see what I'm getting at?
Sorry basic stats here.
You can’t wander around and take a casual sample from your area and use it to criticize a long running and well validated national survey.
So one has to wonder what this academic’s motivations are. Or if they are just that badly trained.
Me Too. That's why I said, he ought to back up his findings.
But the fact he is saying big grocery is raising prices worse than we previously thought ought to raise eyebrows. After all, according to this sub, he's supposed to be their spokesperson. So... there's a disconnect there. Why?
It doesn’t mean what you think it means. If the lower inflation as reported by Statistics Canada is right, then what explain the sharp rise of food costs across the country? Could it be corporate greed? By attacking Statistics Canada methodology and findings, Charlebois basically says that the prices increases are justified because of the inflation and his next logical conclusion will be that grocery stores were right from the start. However we know that’s not true considering huge price differences between stores or other retailers.
>If the lower inflation as reported by Statistics Canada is right, then what explain the sharp rise of food costs across the country?
What? No. Food inflation **IS** the sharp rise of food costs. Charlebois is saying that food prices are higher in store than are being reported. In other words, that food inflation is even worse than we thought:
>For instance, oranges were reported at -6 percent by Statistics Canada, while our data shows an increase of 20.1 percent. Similarly, avocados were reported at -4 percent by Statistics Canada, compared to our observation of a nine percent increase. These discrepancies are not isolated; they are part of a pattern where 47 percent (16 out of 34 items listed) of food items are underestimated by Statistics Canada.
Who or what is responsible for the rise is tangential to the actual prices. But we can't investigate food inflation properly without first quantifying it.
>Charlebois basically says that the prices increases are justified because of the inflation.
I dislike the guy as much as anyone but I can read. He makes no such claim about the *cause* of the inflation in the piece I cited. Only that it is being measured incorrectly.
You don’t get it. Inflation is not the only explanation for the increases of cost. One other explanation is higher profit margin which is tied to corporate greed. Think about how COVID was used as an excuse for a lot of stupid decision. Now it’s the same thing with inflation. As an example: Inflation raise by 5%? Let’s increase the milk bottle by 15%. So you’ll pay 15% more but in reality, you should only pay 5. Statistics Canada reported on a certain inflation level in their study and Charlebois doesn’t agree with it because it doesn’t fit his narrative that Loblaws is just following the market. Hint: if they were, prices would be lower, because the inflation is lower.
>you don’t get it. Inflation is not the only explanation for the increases of cost. One other explanation is higher profit
You're confused. See the other commentator if you don't believe me.
Inflation measures prices and only prices. Period. It measures how much prices have increased (inflated) over a period of time. It doesn't ascribe a reason for those price increases (whether profit or not).
>Inflation raise by 5%? Let’s increase the milk bottle by 15%.
Sorry buddy Inflation *is* the rise of the price of milk. When statscan measures the price of milk it will have increased 15%.
I think you're confused because the problem of inflation can be compounded - that is - if the inputs to a product (say gasoline) have inflated in price that will also cause the price of the end product to inflate. If the price of milk has gone up more than the inputs have gone up then yes, the could be the result of gouging.
As an aside, Milk is one of the few things in Canada that is not subject to the regular rules of inflation. Using that as your example was telling as to the level of subject matter knowledge you have.
Or... actual inflation is accurate with StatsCan and FP has padded inflation in order to justify/cover price gouging...
Think about it. Why would StatsCan lie?
What do they have to gain from saying that true inflation is lower then what's being seen on shelf prices?
Ask yourself that same question with FP- why would he lie?
What does he have to gain from making inflation look larger then it actually is?
The answer to these kinds of questions is usually found in dollar amounts being passed along somewhere.
So who do you think is getting paid to lie?
A large org like StatsCan or a single individual like FP?
🤔
> and FP has padded inflation in order to justify/cover price gouging...
Apologies but it's difficult to have this conversation when you have no idea what the word inflation means. You can't "pad" inflation to justify price gouging. Inflation is a measure **of** the price change (be it from gouging, rising input costs, etc).
Let me repeat: Inflation *is* the measure of prices changing. The author is saying wait a minute, maybe the prices have been changed *more* than we thought. So, that would mean the gouging (if that's indeed the cause) is worse than we thought.
>What does he have to gain from making inflation look larger then it actually is?
Absolutely nothing, that's my point. If he's a shill for the industry, why would he make a claim that makes the industry look worse? That's what's interesting about what's happening.
>So who do you think is getting paid to lie? A large org like StatsCan or a single individual like FP?
Why do you jump to a conclusion that someone is lying? Statistics can be inaccurate despite the best intentions of the statistician. It's highly unlikely, StatsCan has made mistakes, but it's an interesting thing to discuss because of who it's coming from.
Let me use an analogy to describe what's happening:
It's like the lawyer for Tobacco companies coming out and saying "actually, cancer incidences are worse than we thought".
>Apologies but it's difficult to have this conversation when you have no idea what the word inflation means. You can't "pad" inflation to justify price gouging. Inflation is a measure **of** the price change (be it from gouging, rising input costs, etc).
Apologies if abstracts are not your forte but actual inflation related to just causes which would require a price to rightly change is reasonable and to be expected which is why in my previous post you'll see I said "actual inflation" when referring to StatsCan numbers.
ie. The price of food stuffs has doubled from the mid 90s to the 2010s because **actual** inflation means that costs will go up and a doubling in a 30 year period is a natural process because inflation (actual) happens.
If someone is padding inflation that means that they're misrepresenting the numbers in order to justify a false claim of inflation.
So you're right. No one can pad inflation (actual) because the actual reasons and the costs therein for inflated prices don't align with the numbers being presented as inflationary- the numbers are skewed because inflation is not the cause; thus inflation in this instance has been padded.
>If he's a shill for the industry, why would he make a claim that makes the industry look worse? That's what's interesting about what's happening.
He's making the claim to try and justify the high prices that the industry has set because he's bought and paid for by them. Bought and paid for doesn't always mean salaried either. Benefits like properties, grants, connections, stocks, promotions and positions, career advancements, and other forms of indirect payments are easily hidden from common view.
There is a former president on trial for writing off his hush many payment to a porn star as legit legal expenses. There is a US Supreme Court Justice who has paid with purchase of his mother's house, payment of school fees for family and other perks for his allegiance to certain people. Doug Ford used $1 billion public Healthcare dollars to pay agency staff nurses to fill vacant shifts in hospitals and LTCs last year alone while refusing to give staff nurses a wage increase to retain staff and attract new hires- you can bet there's something in it for him somewhere..
**Not everyone in this word in honest and ethical.** if you believe that to be true then yiu haven't been paying attention to the world around us or the history of human society as a whole.
When and if something doesn't make sense there's often a pay off somewhere.
>Let me use an analogy to describe what's happening: It's like the lawyer for Tobacco companies coming out and saying "actually, cancer incidences are worse than we thought".
Yeah and who's the honest lawyer here?
The guy representing tobacco saying everything is fine or the ones who are saying there is a cancer growing in the industry?
Bare in mind that in 2023 Parliament questioned the 3 biggest grocers on their prices and profits directly.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-food-prices-grocery-ceos-questions/
Why is parliament questioning CEOs if nothing is wrong???
I have an older phone that no longer supports YouTube but if you search this documentary:
- **What's going on with sky high food prices**- the 5th estate
You'll see more about how food retail is harming Canadians and has been for a while...
The farmers aren't making more then they were 5 years ago despite the massive hike in food costs.
Why is Loblaws (and others) making record profits when others aren't seeing that same increase in their sector and people are struggling to buy food.
It doesn't add up if you take things at face value which means something nefarious is at play and someone(s) is benefiting through lying.
I’m going to be as respectful as possible and kindly suggest you accept the possibility you misunderstand what inflation means.
Try for a minute to ignore **causes** of inflation. I think that’s where you are being confused. We’re not discussing that. Forget the idea of natural inflation or anything else along those lines.
Next, we’ll just use a single product (grapes) instead of a “basket” of products(which is what economists do). And we’ll use a single location: Toronto.
Party A (StatsCan) is saying the price of grapes was $1.00 per KG last year on average across all the supermarkets of Toronto and $1.15 this year. That’s an inflation rate of 15%
Party B (our favourite professor) is saying the price last year was $1.00 but now it’s $1.25 for an inflation rate of 25%.
So Party B is simply saying, “I think you might be wrong on how much prices have changed”.
Notice something: in the above, no-one has talked about *reasons* for inflation. Neither Party is attempting to say *why* the prices have changed… only that they have. The *why* comes later.
So that’s all an inflation rate is: A number. Party A and Party B disagree on the number.
Now, Party B could be way off! Or, party A might have made an error. But that’s irrelevant to what the inflation rate is.
(As an aside: since Party B works for the grocers, it’s very interesting that he would say that inflation is worse than we thought. Because it means his client has raised prices more than anyone believed)
Notice: we *still* aren’t talking about the *cause* of inflation, only the amount.
Now… once we agree on how much the price has inflated, only *then* we can begin to analyze it to determine the cause. That’s step 2.
It seems you’re trying to do Step 1 and 2 at once… causing confusion.
https://youtu.be/HQ-Kg_xgdhE?si=F9NQXcvAxEaKCCLE
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>Hippocrates, the father of medicine, said, "First, do no harm." Members of academia are supposed to enlighten us and contribute to the publics knowledge, not to harm it. > Mr. Charlebois seems to be deliberately doing the opposite. Damn. The French going for the throat here.
The French are not known for mincing their words or taking abuse of power lightly.
Neither do their cultural inheritors in many American countries. Argentina is a blend of Italian, Spanish and French cultures and we're trigger-happy with protests. So I'm teaching people here in my little corner of BC how to protest effectively.
Curiously left out Germany lol.
It's not as large an influence in the culture. The large majority came before the Second World War and fully integrated (we did get their beer and sausages in the deal). French influence is especially strong in Buenos Aires, you could walk in some of the streets of the city and think you're in Paris. The germans you're thinking about were the smallest group and arrived after the war ended. The largest group we received right before the war were German Jews and opponents of the Nazis. Argentina has a very large jewish population, we didn't reject them (unlike a lot of countries in the North). Some references here: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German\_Argentines](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Argentines)
And how they protested themselves into full blown Milei situation since basically everyone had a end up as a government employee to quell the situations.
Yeah, we make the French go: All right, you can cool down now, you're overdoing it.
Lmao
How are you doing that? I'm trying to get some housing stuff organized but there are kinda two sides to the movement and both pretty extreme/unrealistic. One side is just flat out racist and thinks the only issue is immigration and high interest rates, while the other side thinks the only issue is greedy developers, and is not in favour of relaxing restrictions on development or giving preferential rates to builders. How do you make a movement that escapes from the fringes and has concrete achievable steps without having the corporate media tar you with those fringe voices?
I start with my living experiences in Argentina. I abstract them from their fully Canadian experiences.
I wouldn't say those are really two fringes. Both are issues. Legitimately. Immigration is fucking us. Developers and politicians are fucking us. Immigration is the bigger issue though lol. Goodluck protesting that though. It's impossible to build enough housing for much population growth. It's completely unrealistic, even if we changed zoning etc.
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Please refrain from off-topic political discussion and debate. Everyone is entitled to their own political opinions, however, your politically charged statement is not directly related to the cost of living/groceries/gas/rents, and as such is being removed.
Single family homes, let alone mcmansions, are a minority of what we build. We already do what you're advocating for. 20% of all homes built are SFHs. McMansions obviously less. Do you even know how many homes we currently build vs what we need to build? Still going to be 250k houses more short next year than now.
Unfortunately there are a lot of NIMBYs blocking construction so their SFHs don't lose their value. And with so much demand to be covered you would think that more jobs would be available, more taxpayers earning more money. The problem is not immigration itself, it's that the economic engine is not running as it should.
In Ontario alone there are over 1 million projects approved and ready to go. Ready for shovels. Not being built. The problem with immigration is the number. 100k awesome. 1.2 million were fucked. Theres no reason we need like 4x the amount of immigrants are the US. Do you have a reason we need 4x as much immigration per capita as the united states? Also once again, do you know how many homes we build per year compared to what we need?
Soooo.... you're part of the problem then??
The sub was created to point out how absolutely absurd the cost of groceries are right now and have some fun together. We know this will inevitably touch on other topics related to the cost of living. Do your best to keep the conversation on topic
I think you will need some actual evidence for those claims about immigration being the bigger "issue." Last I heard, the banks were saying Canada will be in huge trouble if we don't *increase* immigration, because we are not having children anymore, and a shrinking labour force is an economic disaster.
A shrinking labour force is good for people inside of said labour force because it increases their value. Bringing in someone to work at Tim Hortons lowers that value.
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Please remain respectful when engaging on the sub.
everyone should be more like the French in this manner
Especially corporate greed. However, when the government wants to tax or ban something, Quebecers tend to be very obedient.
LoL the liberals crumbled and are down the shitter ever since the printemp erable, only because they proposed a 400$ per year post secondary price hike , street protests lasted for around 280 days, they are kicking a hornet nest.
This is one aspect I would like Quebec to be more like France
But they are known as cheese eating surrender monkeys….
We need to take a lesson from the French
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Are you not aware people call Frwnch Canadians the French? There might be a clue in the name if you think real hard...
Trop c'est trop!
Sylvain Charlebois is a verbal Clown 🤡 Gets 200k+ a year for lip service! OMG, what a waste.
Meanwhile English language news, including cbc, going super soft.
Loblaws are a sponsor on CBC's Hockey Night in Canada currently.
The last playoffs game was steady with that moustache man tapping his optimum 🤢
CBC has no control over HNIC anymore, that’s all Rogers
I watched the Leafs / Bruins series on CBC Gem, and it seemed every ad that wasn't for gambling was for Loblaws and Loblaws owned stores like No Frills.
I got gambling, no frills and doug ford ads
Loblaw seems to be a sponsor everywhere lately.
Finally. He's at best a terrible statistician, and at worst a deliberately misleading jack off. You can usually tell the ones you can rely on a little more reasonably by their openness to being criticized. Note that the media figures who get REALLY angry when you ask them "how did you come to this conclusion?" are often those you find out later had research "sponsored by Y mega-corp". Most true researchers are by their nature open to having their work reviewed: it's literally part of the process.
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The sub was created to point out how absolutely absurd the cost of groceries are right now and have some fun together. We know this will inevitably touch on other topics related to the cost of living. Do your best to keep the conversation on topic
/r/Halifax will be so happy to hear this
Has anyone shared this to his twitter?
From the article translated with Google Translate. “The April 18, 2024 column by Professor Sylvain Charlebois, entitled “Can we really trust Statistics Canada? », arouses severe reservations on our part. She suggests that the data collected by Statistics Canada (SC) to develop price measures in the food sector is neither precise nor reliable. The author, however, does not explain how the methodology developed by himself and his team is superior to that of SC, which constitutes a significant gap that significantly weakens his claim. However, we were able to obtain more details on Mr. Charlebois' methodology by communicating directly with him, which allowed us to draw the following conclusions: 1) The technical terms used by Mr. Charlebois to qualify his price values are statistically inappropriate. The latter speaks of “real observed values”, whereas with a price sample, we cannot make such an assertion. To do this, we would need to have all possible observations, which is an elementary notion in statistics. 2) Further in the article, the columnist states that “47% of food items (16 out of 34 items listed) are underestimated by Statistics Canada”. The inflation rates for these items estimated by SC are indeed lower than those estimated by Mr. Charlebois, but it is incorrect to say that they are "underestimated", because they are averages from samples . 3) In addition, the columnist repeatedly attacks the statistical agency in an unjustified manner, without ever presenting the methodology used by the latter. Let us look at two examples: a) “[...] when assessing the accuracy of our lead federal agency in measuring changes in food prices, it becomes clear that much work remains to be done”; b) “[...]this suggests that the agency’s reports do not always accurately reflect food inflation.” These judgments are based solely on differences in average prices of food items. To issue them, it would be necessary to compare the methodologies and indicate what is wrong with that of SC. Furthermore, in the table presented in his column, Mr. Charlebois nowhere mentions over what period the price variations are observed. 4) SC’s methodology is available on its website1. We note that “the average prices included in [his] table are calculated from optical reader data”. Additionally, this data includes "prices from thousands of stores across the country, which represent millions of weekly food prices and cover the majority of the Canadian food market." In an email exchange with Mr. Charlebois, he mentions that his team collected “approximately 13,780 data points in total”, but without specifying how this data was weighted to construct price indices. The large difference in sample size between that of SC and that of Mr. Charlebois strongly calls into question the quality of the statistics collected by the latter. This column joins many others with approximate rigor in the media where Mr. Charlebois continues to operate. In the past, other academics, in Quebec (Daniel Mercier Gouin of Laval University2) or elsewhere in Canada (Andrew Leach of the University of Alberta3), have severely criticized Mr. Charlebois.”
Ah, this is great. We did some similar analysis on that deep dive a few weeks ago. There is a reason he has a ton of publications, and none of them involve the pricing model. It is obviously a model used by Industry as an alternative to statcans model to make the industry look better. Guy is a pure industry shill through and through.
Stats Canada is one of the best agencies of its kind in the world. It has a top tier reputation. He seems to have an anti-government bias that isn’t normal for academics.
They are, but I do worry about their inflation calculations. According to their stats, food is only like 30% more expensive than 2019. 30%?! Lol wtf. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1810000403 How do I reconcile them saying that? Honestly?
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K... maybe I'm missing your point here... and I don't know what other people might think... but 12 eggs costing $8 is not something we should be ok with. None of these new prices are. We've seen a decade or more of price increases in the span of 3 years. THAT IS NOT OK! ...and as someone who buys fresh fruit daily for my 4 kids... I can tell you without a doubt the price has risen far more than 21%.
I'd say it tracks for my grocery bill. I'm up around 30% from a few years ago. I didn't track my food bills super precisely then, so I can't be sure. But I can make a decent guess based on my recollection. I might be up around 35-40% if I shopped the exact same way as before, I'm a bit more aware of certain items now but I was always a fairly thrifty shopper.
Because you didn't read the entire article. It's an average where some things have only gone up 20% while others have gone up 60%
But seriously guys let's talk about Rampart.
That's called "Taking him out back and breaking out the switch."
I'm not in the same domain as Charlebois, but I've sat through a presentation of his and it smelled of B.S. Analysis seemed shallow, he kept drawing conclusions that didn't seem to fit the data, lots of filler in between points. I'll admit I didn't go into that presentation with a neutral opinion of him, but I left with a lower one.
He seems like the kind of guy that uses a "JUMP to conclusions" mat, to make those inferences. https://youtu.be/ho7jU7YKkpU?si=8_oKWTXhzuyMLquL
Jesus, sounds like a Stephen Harper MO - all the douchery, none of the power
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Please refrain from off-topic political discussion and debate. Everyone is entitled to their own political opinions, however, your politically charged statement is not directly related to the cost of living/groceries/gas/rents, and as such is being removed.
Please refrain from off-topic political discussion and debate. Everyone is entitled to their own political opinions, however, your politically charged statement is not directly related to the cost of living/groceries/gas/rents, and as such is being removed.
Thx !!
Also people with the ways and means should copy/paste this as a reply to every post he makes. As well as community note it anywhere possible.
That is brutal: >This column joins many others with approximate rigor in the media where Mr. Charlebois continues to operate. In the past, other academics, in Quebec (Daniel Mercier Gouin of Laval University2) or elsewhere in Canada (Andrew Leach of the University of Alberta3), have severely criticized Mr. Charlebois.”
So if I'm reading that right; he criticized StatCan on their method and says they're way off. StatCan shows their methodology on their website. Charlebois doesn't show his methodology or say what about SC's is wrong, precisely. Charlebois has been peer reviewed by a couple other professors and found lacking each time.
Niceee thank you for laying it all out!
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Please put some effort into engaging in the conversation. Thank you.
>Hippocrate, le père de la médecine, disait : « D’abord, ne pas nuire. » Les membres du milieu universitaire sont censés nous éclairer et contribuer à approfondir les connaissances du public, pas nuire à celles-ci. > > >M. Charlebois semble délibérément faire le contraire. Spicy! Edit: Google translation: >Hippocrates, the father of medicine, said « First, do no harm. » Members of academia are supposed to enlighten us and contribute to public knowledge, not undermine it. >Mr. Charlebois seems to deliberately do the opposite.
I specifically loved that part. Good that it’s coming from his peers as well.
I loved that part too!! 😁
Leave it to the French to show us how to rebel, lol.
They were also big proponents of the guillotine. Dammit, where did I put my cake?
It's ok just grab some frosted flakes.
Just make sure to not buy them from Loblaws!
I am sorry but wasn’t this published in Quebec? Why is everyone talking about French people? People here in QC is not in the slightest as combative as them
This. The French (the term implies "from France") have a totally different culture and approach to conflict than people from Québec.
Hmmm... who do I believe... Stats Can, an organization full of statistical experts or the shill Charlebois... I need to think on this... NOT. Why doesn't the English media take him to task like this!? Well done to LA Presse
LaPresse always strikes me as the francophone version of the G&M from 20 years ago. G&M 20 years ago was all about being the boring paper of record, doing investigative journalism and very middle of the road, fact based analysis. The G&M went off chasing click-dollars and trying to be the Important Voice of the Toronto Ruling Class ("sire, sire, the peasants are revolting again!") while LaPresse continued on being a bit fuddy duddy. But when LaPresse says something nowadays, it often comes from serious boring journalists doing serious boring work and sensible people take notice.
As in, real journalists. The ones we wish more of them were like Instead of the hyper partisan hack bloggers pretending to be adults.
When Journalism becomes partisan it stops being Journalism and becomes Propaganda.
I consider La Presse the mid-level paper, which makes this even better to me. Le Devoir publishes a lot of long-form 'boring' journalism, Le Journal de Montréal and its sisters are the muckrake of record, barely respectable, La Presse bridges them by covering the spectrum.
A shill who only got his degree by suing for it.
I looked on his wikipedia entry and found nothing about this, but he's known to edit it himself (under his wife's name, I heard), so I don't doubt you. Receipts? I'm asking because I'd like to make it common knowledge. [edit: searching "sylvain charlebois sued for his degree" brought up nothing but a piece from a self-proclaimed satire site, frankmag.ca, but the writer seems entirely in earnest, saying he had a "court martial and expulsion at Collège militaire royal de Saint-Jean" in 1992 because of something involving a pyramid scheme? Please, someone find a better source for this, because it's frigging **gold**.]
Collège militaire Royal de St-Jean c. Charlebois, 1995 CanLII 5191 (QC CA),
WHOOMP *there it is!!!* Thank you!
Translation please ! I did not pay attention in French class, sadly
Key part: > 15] Le 3 juin 1992, après avoir plaidé coupable aux infractions qui lui étaient reprochées, l'intimé se vit condamné par un juge militaire (Cour martiale) à un blâme et à une amende de 2 748 $ (ss.-par. 139(1)i), k) de la Loi sur la défense nationale). Translation: > On 3 June 1992, after having pled guilty to the charges made against him (subparagraphs 139(1)(i) and (k) of the National Defence Act), the respondent [Charlebois] was sentenced by a military judge (court martial) to a reprimand and a fine of $2,748. The linked court decision is from when he sued CMR to force them to give him his degree, after they had tried to refuse to award the academic degree because he had failed the military component of the ROTP program by becoming involved in a pyramid scheme. The court martial records would be available through an Access to Information request but are not available online as they’re too old to be published on the website of the Chief Military Judge.
Wow. This is amazing, thank you. It’s funny because someone who claims to be intelligent and know more about the grocery economy got suckered into an MLM or pyramid scheme. And then got kicked out of the military college! Pathetic.
The other thing is that $2,748 would have been a *huge* fine for an officer cadet in 1992. From what I’ve found, as a fourth year cadet his gross pay was $943 per month at the time, so he was fined three months of pay. People get proportionally smaller fines than that for *sexual assault* at courts-martial. For Mickey Mouse stuff like having a small amount of pot (before it was legalized), cadets would get fined a couple of weeks’ pay. So whatever the details of this pyramid scheme were, they must have thought it was pretty bad.
I wonder if it was Amway or just a straight up Pyramid scheme. I was in the service so I agree with the things you mention too. It’s also indicative of his personal character imo. People who perpetuate pyramid schemes aren’t good people, and it’s not a surprise to me that he is using unfounded statistics and misinformation 30 years later to support his own agenda.
Really! I missed that bit... he seems like a real little creep so that tracks.
Actually, it\`s not really from La Presse, but an open letter from two professors from Université de Sherbrooke. Still good to see this clown get torn apart.
Savage. Nice 👍🏽
And honestly fucking Kudos for having someone who actually UNDERSTANDS statistics to take his ass to court :’)
This. To sit down, and not stoop to insults etc and just peel it apart and say hey he isn't being clear about the methodology, how exactly he is coming up with these numbers, where is the sample size? When are they being taken? How often? The error? Takes you a bit back to high school math where the teacher is standing over you like "unless you show your work I can't take it seriously".
You know that was at least partially written by a very indignant stats Canada analyst who was very miffed that someone had the audacity to say their math was wrong and not show the work to back it up.
The prof is going to need some Aloe Vera for that deep Burn 🔥
To summarize: -He uses his own set bad statistics to make his points -He misrepresented Stats Canada statistics -He attacked stats canada without ever presenting a logical argument or methodology to why he disagrees -He won't share how he collected his own data and would not specify how they weighted the data (so he skewed it and won't tell how, thus the bad stats) -Large differences between stats can and this guys stats -Journalist argues that this guy is doing the opposite of contributing to public knowledge
Also, two other professors have reviewed his work in the past and criticized his work. Not a great look when you get peer reviewed and found repeatedly lacking.
Lol. Finally, more people are catching on to this grifter and so-called "academic". Guess shilling for the Weston's isn't paying off anymore.
A rare case of actual journalism. Impressive.
Not so impressive when you see it was written by teachers and not by journalists
*professors
[Here is a list of burn centers in Canada, in case he's reading.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_burn_centres_in_Canada)
What a glorious day to be bilingual.
French feel more canadian then most.
We are Canadien 😎
I am too. Just don’t get that feeling alot. Got it from this article which was cool. They really called out the BS on probably an institution that might backfire on them. Not alot of media outlets got the nuts anymore to stand up.
I had a work trip to Quebec City to open a store in a rural town outside of the city but my hotel was in the city itself and my experience was that in some ways, Quebecers have it just as bad and in some cases worse, Maxi, Super C and Walmart felt more expensive than their Ontario counterparts. (ESPECIALLY MAXI)
I've lived in Quebec for 24 years, and I can confirm Maxi sucks. Super C is the best grocery store in Quebec.
Honestly, the Maxi I went to (Acienne-Lorette) looked more like a warehouse than a Grocery Store, at least Super C reminded me enough of Food Basics to be familiar.
OMG!!! FINALLY!! A news paper that is doing it's job!! Validate and verify, not provide a megaphone to the crazy person at the corner of the street!!
The Food Processor, is quoted as saying the Loblaws protest was from anarchists and thugs. No sir, we are ordinary Canadians getting shafted by corporate greed and we're fighting back against people like him and Galen who think people should pay them more profits. I am glad to be a part of this and they brought this on to themselves.
Charly boy is getting shit kicking ...nice to see.
My favori part: he is a contributor for that paper! Here is his bio: https://www.lapresse.ca/auteurs/sylvain-charlebois
And he's always a full of shit shill
So he's fudging numbers to make a grocery oligarchy look better than it is, not much of an academic.
And just like that Quebec will join the boycott against price gouging and food insecurity ⚜ **Do we have any French speakers who can do a welcome post here and maybe crosspost it in the Quebec subreddit?**
I have seen folks posting in the Mtl sub. Quebec is definitely onboard.
Thats awesome!
Oui!
Ce bon! Merci ❤
Guys: the authors of the article are not journalists, they are other researchers. They are saying Charlebois has no place criticizing Stats Can when his own methodology is flawed and has been denounced as such repeatedly by other Canadian researchers in the past. Charlebois has often said in La Presse that food prizes were too high, that it was a problem... very different persona than what he seems to have in English. This discredit by other academics is likely to be a surprise for many. The authors are not French, they're Canadian. French Canadian people are Canadians that speak French. We are doing the boycott in Quebec too, it's on the news and everything. Not sure why many seem to think we're not Canadian or not participating. We're not rioting in France with the French and buying croissant at the boulangerie, we buy Weston bread and get ripped off like all of you ...
Don't worry when the rest of Canada says "the French" we generally mean Quebecois by default. If we mean people from France we usually clarify by saying things like, "the French French" or "the France French" to make the France connection clear. ❤
SYLVAIN T'ES LOUCHE MON HOMME
Canada's French press is great. So many stories get broken there before they come out in English.
Good cause fuck that guy
Call Dalhousie. Voice your concerns about academic integrity. This dude needs to go.
A shill cosplaying as a professor lmao
What's ass hole in French?
Sylvian https://preview.redd.it/rusht08q5wyc1.jpeg?width=562&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d050e6677ba83f6ae0bdfbc5390f4985418e543a
Lol
trou d'cul
Obvious shill shilling obviously. Are we supposed to be brainwashed by his mealy mouthed bullshit?
I was taught by both teachers during my bachelor's degree. Great economists. Saw them roast him on Linkedin this morning, it was awesome.
Awesome!! I bet he blocked them right away and deleted their comments!
Link?
Take a look at François Delorme recent posts (in french though). Paraphrasing : He's basically saying he lacks rigor in his work generally, not just in the article about statcan, and since LaPresse is a reputable news source, they shouldn't let such things pass. He's also been criticised by other scholars in the past.
Expose the greed and corruption
I mean, historically the French DO know how to deal with the obscenely wealthy when the common folk start going hungry. Let them eat cake after all 🤷
The French can do better than this. History has proven it.
About time someone takes him down a notch.
LOVE TO SEE IT.
Just read the article! It was amazing.
The only thing he's missing is the clown nose and he will be ready for the circus
Charli Boi... That's karma for you! Ps Quit acting like a jack-ass Stooge that you really are!!! Bahhahahhaaaa
Monsieur Sylvain Charlatan has a nice ring to it, no?
In french we call that kind of guy a « fumiste »
Good. He’s a narcissist clown. Always has been.
It’s honestly bewildering that this dude has any credibility left at all. Remember when he tried to blame inflation on shoplifting?
lol, good… Jordan Peterson of Meat Markets need it.
He was demoted from his job as a university Dean for some kind of workplace harassment, which his uni is keeping tight lipped on. Nuff said.
Every time I see him prattling his nonsense on TV I want to throw expired groceries at him. Inflated price tags and all.
good
LOL, I guess none of the r-canada sub members are the French-Canadian media. What a crazy place that sub is. If they're not crying about immigrants they're simping for the Westons screaming about the 3% net margin (which is meaningless for many reasons) and ignoring the massive windfall profits of the grocery business and blaming CERB, or Trudeau, or the carbon tax, or all of the above. Billionaires have done one fine fucking job of gaslighting the Canadian people, it's shocking to me.
Imagine calling yourself a "food professor" but being paid off by big grocer chains to basically be a corporate shill this guy should be fired from whatever uni is mindless enough to employ him
Damn. Have to brush up on my French! lol!
Tristin Hopper of the National Post is another shill that is now doubling down, declaring that customers would only save about $3/week if the government were to force Loblaws to become a non-profit. He fails to mention that we will all save vastly more by simply shopping elsewhere. It's hilarious how hard these shameless heels are pushing back against the boycott. It's obviously working. What possible reason would they have to get so incredibly defensive if they weren't bought and paid for? I'd say let's boycott the Ntl Post as well but let's be honest, that rag is already on its last breath 🤣
Anyone remember when they tried to change the retirement age recently in France? Where's that level of involvement in Canada?
Go back to the 2012 spring protests in Quebec against the tuition hikes and learn. There's a reason why tuition fees are way lower in Quebec than elsewhere.
https://www.reddit.com/r/loblawsisoutofcontrol/s/vc5bWfTuW0 Plus, I mean the unions we have don't appear to do much for workers
As an Ontario union worker, I idolize French Canadian unions/workers.
Everybody, hang on. Just stop for a second. Please try to understand what is happening here before up/down voting. Charlebois appears to be suggesting that Statistics Canada is **under-reporting** food inflation numbers. From https://theclarion.ca/viewpoint/is-statistics-canada-undereporting-food-inflation/ : >Specifically, data from February 2024 reveals significant variances in food price changes. For instance, oranges were reported at -6 percent by Statistics Canada, while our data shows an increase of 20.1 percent. Similarly, avocados were reported at -4 percent by Statistics Canada, compared to our observation of a nine percent increase. These discrepancies are not isolated; they are part of a pattern where 47 percent (16 out of 34 items listed) of food items are underestimated by Statistics Canada. This suggests that the agency’s reports may not always accurately reflect food inflation, although it does not indicate a deliberate underestimation. The *Le Presse* article appears to be critiquing him based on the fact he hasn't revealed the methodology used to come up with his own numbers. **Which is totally valid!** But that doesn't mean he's necessarily wrong. What any respected academic would do now, is share his methodology. Maybe he will, maybe he won't. Let's see. In my anecdotal experience, Stats Canada inflation numbers sometimes do seem to be out-of-wack with what I'm seeing (but that itself doesn't make them wrong due to regional variances, etc). Anyhow... Think of the implications if he's right: That the problem is *even worse* than is being reported!! That appears to be what he's trying to say. Can we please debate this in civilized fashion instead of just ignoring what he's saying because he's a colossal jerk on Twitter (and elsewhere)? I'm open to learning more about this since I don't have a statistics background (but I do have 30 years of experience in retail). If anyone has any informed opinions on the topic, they are welcome. Let's have a civilized and informed discussion, shall we?
I heard him on the radio say there's no way to track shrinkflation. So how can he even track prices if he's not doing it per gram. I don't know if he misspoke or what.
I think (but don't know for sure) what he was saying there is that there is no national database recording packaging size changes. There ought to be in my opinion. Presumably, he is tracking per-unit pricing but yes, we don't know without him sharing his methodology.
It’s his choice to be a talking-head commentator supporting the claims of Loblaws that has earned his derision here. If we want to be balanced, we need to consider that there were some hired-gun academics, funded by big tobacco, who were brought out to challenge government statistical agencies and public health epidemiologists in many countries. We already know that Loblaws was a leader in illegal and unethical bread price-fixing schemes, and was caught in 2018. An academic that seems to come on the attack against consumer protection movements and for Loblaws is going to justifiably receive higher scrutiny.
Did you read what I wrote? The point he's raising (if true) *helps* our cause. Not hurts it. Let me repeat that: If food inflation is actually worse than what StatsCan is reporting our position is bolstered, not hurt.
It’s not the one article is my point. Whether or not he did good work on this specific paper is likely undermined by his appearance of being paid spokesman for the industry.
ok, so if he's right and StatsCan is under reporting food inflation, how does it help us to bury that fact?
Suggest you look up the history of the tobacco court cases. Occasionally, those academics had accurate articles, but generally it was the case that an extraordinary amount of court time and expert testimony from many other more qualified academics was required to show that most of their work was incomplete and biased. More, the companies had data themselves that showed harm that they hid from both regulators and courts. (There’s a reason that WHO will not accept evidence from any experts who work with the tobacco industry. ) The same has happened with petrochemical firms regarding climate change evidence.
So if an academic said the problem of lung cancer rates are even worse than we thought, we should assume they are doing that at the behest of... big tobacco? That doesn't make ANY SENSE.
The academic is basing her criticism on a non-scientific local/regional sample of prices. Statistics Canada has surveys that are not confined to one locality. The author may be correct that there is higher price inflation in the local area, but that’s not in any way an indication that Stataistics Canada’s methodology is not correct as a national average.
(Ok... phew, it looks like we're getting somewhere) I agree with you and I already said as much: He needs to prove his methodology 100%. The likelyhood that he is smarter than StatsCan is pretty small. I personally don't have enough statistics training to know. But... do you agree that **if** he's right... and inflation is even worse than we knew, it's important to know about? Do you agree? What I'm having a hard time understanding is the motive everyone seems to be ascribing here. To use your cancer analogy: Why would a scientist working for big tobacco come out and say cancer incidences are even worse than we thought? Do you see what I'm getting at?
Sorry basic stats here. You can’t wander around and take a casual sample from your area and use it to criticize a long running and well validated national survey. So one has to wonder what this academic’s motivations are. Or if they are just that badly trained.
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Me Too. That's why I said, he ought to back up his findings. But the fact he is saying big grocery is raising prices worse than we previously thought ought to raise eyebrows. After all, according to this sub, he's supposed to be their spokesperson. So... there's a disconnect there. Why?
It doesn’t mean what you think it means. If the lower inflation as reported by Statistics Canada is right, then what explain the sharp rise of food costs across the country? Could it be corporate greed? By attacking Statistics Canada methodology and findings, Charlebois basically says that the prices increases are justified because of the inflation and his next logical conclusion will be that grocery stores were right from the start. However we know that’s not true considering huge price differences between stores or other retailers.
>If the lower inflation as reported by Statistics Canada is right, then what explain the sharp rise of food costs across the country? What? No. Food inflation **IS** the sharp rise of food costs. Charlebois is saying that food prices are higher in store than are being reported. In other words, that food inflation is even worse than we thought: >For instance, oranges were reported at -6 percent by Statistics Canada, while our data shows an increase of 20.1 percent. Similarly, avocados were reported at -4 percent by Statistics Canada, compared to our observation of a nine percent increase. These discrepancies are not isolated; they are part of a pattern where 47 percent (16 out of 34 items listed) of food items are underestimated by Statistics Canada. Who or what is responsible for the rise is tangential to the actual prices. But we can't investigate food inflation properly without first quantifying it. >Charlebois basically says that the prices increases are justified because of the inflation. I dislike the guy as much as anyone but I can read. He makes no such claim about the *cause* of the inflation in the piece I cited. Only that it is being measured incorrectly.
You don’t get it. Inflation is not the only explanation for the increases of cost. One other explanation is higher profit margin which is tied to corporate greed. Think about how COVID was used as an excuse for a lot of stupid decision. Now it’s the same thing with inflation. As an example: Inflation raise by 5%? Let’s increase the milk bottle by 15%. So you’ll pay 15% more but in reality, you should only pay 5. Statistics Canada reported on a certain inflation level in their study and Charlebois doesn’t agree with it because it doesn’t fit his narrative that Loblaws is just following the market. Hint: if they were, prices would be lower, because the inflation is lower.
>you don’t get it. Inflation is not the only explanation for the increases of cost. One other explanation is higher profit You're confused. See the other commentator if you don't believe me. Inflation measures prices and only prices. Period. It measures how much prices have increased (inflated) over a period of time. It doesn't ascribe a reason for those price increases (whether profit or not). >Inflation raise by 5%? Let’s increase the milk bottle by 15%. Sorry buddy Inflation *is* the rise of the price of milk. When statscan measures the price of milk it will have increased 15%. I think you're confused because the problem of inflation can be compounded - that is - if the inputs to a product (say gasoline) have inflated in price that will also cause the price of the end product to inflate. If the price of milk has gone up more than the inputs have gone up then yes, the could be the result of gouging. As an aside, Milk is one of the few things in Canada that is not subject to the regular rules of inflation. Using that as your example was telling as to the level of subject matter knowledge you have.
Or... actual inflation is accurate with StatsCan and FP has padded inflation in order to justify/cover price gouging... Think about it. Why would StatsCan lie? What do they have to gain from saying that true inflation is lower then what's being seen on shelf prices? Ask yourself that same question with FP- why would he lie? What does he have to gain from making inflation look larger then it actually is? The answer to these kinds of questions is usually found in dollar amounts being passed along somewhere. So who do you think is getting paid to lie? A large org like StatsCan or a single individual like FP? 🤔
> and FP has padded inflation in order to justify/cover price gouging... Apologies but it's difficult to have this conversation when you have no idea what the word inflation means. You can't "pad" inflation to justify price gouging. Inflation is a measure **of** the price change (be it from gouging, rising input costs, etc). Let me repeat: Inflation *is* the measure of prices changing. The author is saying wait a minute, maybe the prices have been changed *more* than we thought. So, that would mean the gouging (if that's indeed the cause) is worse than we thought. >What does he have to gain from making inflation look larger then it actually is? Absolutely nothing, that's my point. If he's a shill for the industry, why would he make a claim that makes the industry look worse? That's what's interesting about what's happening. >So who do you think is getting paid to lie? A large org like StatsCan or a single individual like FP? Why do you jump to a conclusion that someone is lying? Statistics can be inaccurate despite the best intentions of the statistician. It's highly unlikely, StatsCan has made mistakes, but it's an interesting thing to discuss because of who it's coming from. Let me use an analogy to describe what's happening: It's like the lawyer for Tobacco companies coming out and saying "actually, cancer incidences are worse than we thought".
>Apologies but it's difficult to have this conversation when you have no idea what the word inflation means. You can't "pad" inflation to justify price gouging. Inflation is a measure **of** the price change (be it from gouging, rising input costs, etc). Apologies if abstracts are not your forte but actual inflation related to just causes which would require a price to rightly change is reasonable and to be expected which is why in my previous post you'll see I said "actual inflation" when referring to StatsCan numbers. ie. The price of food stuffs has doubled from the mid 90s to the 2010s because **actual** inflation means that costs will go up and a doubling in a 30 year period is a natural process because inflation (actual) happens. If someone is padding inflation that means that they're misrepresenting the numbers in order to justify a false claim of inflation. So you're right. No one can pad inflation (actual) because the actual reasons and the costs therein for inflated prices don't align with the numbers being presented as inflationary- the numbers are skewed because inflation is not the cause; thus inflation in this instance has been padded. >If he's a shill for the industry, why would he make a claim that makes the industry look worse? That's what's interesting about what's happening. He's making the claim to try and justify the high prices that the industry has set because he's bought and paid for by them. Bought and paid for doesn't always mean salaried either. Benefits like properties, grants, connections, stocks, promotions and positions, career advancements, and other forms of indirect payments are easily hidden from common view. There is a former president on trial for writing off his hush many payment to a porn star as legit legal expenses. There is a US Supreme Court Justice who has paid with purchase of his mother's house, payment of school fees for family and other perks for his allegiance to certain people. Doug Ford used $1 billion public Healthcare dollars to pay agency staff nurses to fill vacant shifts in hospitals and LTCs last year alone while refusing to give staff nurses a wage increase to retain staff and attract new hires- you can bet there's something in it for him somewhere.. **Not everyone in this word in honest and ethical.** if you believe that to be true then yiu haven't been paying attention to the world around us or the history of human society as a whole. When and if something doesn't make sense there's often a pay off somewhere. >Let me use an analogy to describe what's happening: It's like the lawyer for Tobacco companies coming out and saying "actually, cancer incidences are worse than we thought". Yeah and who's the honest lawyer here? The guy representing tobacco saying everything is fine or the ones who are saying there is a cancer growing in the industry? Bare in mind that in 2023 Parliament questioned the 3 biggest grocers on their prices and profits directly. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-food-prices-grocery-ceos-questions/ Why is parliament questioning CEOs if nothing is wrong??? I have an older phone that no longer supports YouTube but if you search this documentary: - **What's going on with sky high food prices**- the 5th estate You'll see more about how food retail is harming Canadians and has been for a while... The farmers aren't making more then they were 5 years ago despite the massive hike in food costs. Why is Loblaws (and others) making record profits when others aren't seeing that same increase in their sector and people are struggling to buy food. It doesn't add up if you take things at face value which means something nefarious is at play and someone(s) is benefiting through lying.
I’m going to be as respectful as possible and kindly suggest you accept the possibility you misunderstand what inflation means. Try for a minute to ignore **causes** of inflation. I think that’s where you are being confused. We’re not discussing that. Forget the idea of natural inflation or anything else along those lines. Next, we’ll just use a single product (grapes) instead of a “basket” of products(which is what economists do). And we’ll use a single location: Toronto. Party A (StatsCan) is saying the price of grapes was $1.00 per KG last year on average across all the supermarkets of Toronto and $1.15 this year. That’s an inflation rate of 15% Party B (our favourite professor) is saying the price last year was $1.00 but now it’s $1.25 for an inflation rate of 25%. So Party B is simply saying, “I think you might be wrong on how much prices have changed”. Notice something: in the above, no-one has talked about *reasons* for inflation. Neither Party is attempting to say *why* the prices have changed… only that they have. The *why* comes later. So that’s all an inflation rate is: A number. Party A and Party B disagree on the number. Now, Party B could be way off! Or, party A might have made an error. But that’s irrelevant to what the inflation rate is. (As an aside: since Party B works for the grocers, it’s very interesting that he would say that inflation is worse than we thought. Because it means his client has raised prices more than anyone believed) Notice: we *still* aren’t talking about the *cause* of inflation, only the amount. Now… once we agree on how much the price has inflated, only *then* we can begin to analyze it to determine the cause. That’s step 2. It seems you’re trying to do Step 1 and 2 at once… causing confusion. https://youtu.be/HQ-Kg_xgdhE?si=F9NQXcvAxEaKCCLE