Last week marked the beginning of the sign-up period for free money – but what has it cost you?
Loblaws has started issuing the gift cards in response to the bread price-fixing scheme. As of Jan. 8, people have been able to sign up at www.loblawcard.ca in order to receive their $25 compensation for the ridiculously greedy act.
But make no mistake, this isn’t some great goodwill gesture that should let the company off with a pat on the back and no hard feelings. The fact that this was done in the first place is just plain greed and the gift card is purely a smart public relations move.
Bread is a staple of our diets and the fact that our large grocery corporations, not just Loblaws, have taken advantage of this is cruel.

Try to imagine how many loaves of bread you’ve purchased over the course of one year.
Is it an average of a loaf per week? If the answer to that question is yes, then Maclean’s did the math with a food market analyst in Ontario and said that you may have lost out on $52 in 2015 alone.
Adjusting for inflation, Kevin Grier, the Ontario analyst, followed the trend and said that bread in 2015 saw a $1 difference between what it cost on the shelves and what it should have cost in relation to everything else’s rise. But the gap didn’t just occur in 2015, that’s only when rumours and investigations from the competition bureau began.
Grier estimates that between 2001 and 2015, Canadians may have paid an extra $371.80. This is why you shouldn’t be satisfied to blindly accept a return of 6.7 per cent in the form of a gift card.
So, what are your options? Well, a number of class-action lawsuits have sprung up in retaliation to this discovery, but it’s hard to tell what exactly the outcome of these will be, or how long they would take.
Also, the period to sign up for the gift card from Loblaws does only run until May 8, 2018.
One solution that I am very fond of, and has been circulating as a real goodwill gesture of Canadians across the country, is to take the $25 and donate it to your local food bank. For Bouffe Pontiac, it’s sure to make a great start to their year’s fundraising.
By accepting this gift card you’re also not ruled out of any class action suits, but the fine print on the page says that $25 will be subtracted from the final settlement. Who knows, it may be worth it to just take the gift card and wait to see what happens next.
In the meantime, it’s been reported that bread prices are back down to what they should’ve been around 2011, a nice feeling as we continue our weekly groceries.
And as a quick reminder, don’t be storming down to your local Loblaws-affiliated store upset with the money lost over the years – this act was all thanks to the greedy guys at the top.

Donald Teuma-Castelletti