I actually think the boycotts and sustained bad press about Loblaws might be helping more than this grocery code of conduct, whatever it’s supposedly doing.
But good news, everyone!
Amendments were made in December to the Competition Act that should help, eventually.
Here are some details you never asked for but I’ll post anyway.
I read a good blog post about it on Lemmy somewhere, but I can’t find it now unfortunately.
The gist is, from memory:
the act was originally written to protect the Canadian economy from being overtaken by foreign competition (I.e. US especially).
it would favour Canadian companies provided that it would benefit the country economically overall, regardless of the harms to Canadians in terms of the lack of competition (artificially high prices, lack of coverage, access, etc).
these companies were protected from civil suits for those harms.
the result was the best possible conditions for the consolidation of market share to the very few Canadian companies and too much cost or difficulty for foreign companies to bother competing with. Very often, these became family dynasties (The Westons, Rogerses, Sobeys’ owners - Irving?, etc).
But some of the changes in December basically alter those considerations about harms and these companies are legally exposed to civil suits if the harms are realized. This could help.
In some ways, I suppose we should be grateful for Loblaws’ exceptional greed of late because maybe nothing would change if we weren’t angry and focused enough on these problems.
I see this as a very long long overdue reaction to the telecom and grocery chain debacles. It’s hard to know for certain because these commercial dynasties are very tight with the political dynasties. It seems like they don’t really want anything to change. Just posturing for the cameras and then let things go back to “normal”.
Take the Internet, since its inception in Canada. One of the highest prices in the world. Same with wireless. Lately, the CRTC has helped kill almost all independent ISPs through long drawn out reviews and delay tactics on wholesale fiber rates, even after the lobbyist as Head was replaced with someone less duplicitous; someone who started with the mandate to focus policy on consumer benefits and protections as opposed to the industry. Still going on.
And of course, allowing Rogers to buy Shaw and Freedom Mobile. Selling off to videotron doesn’t help as much as a viable fourth player would have.
And now it feels like they’re sabre rattling about grocery regulations, encouraging Loblaws to drop prices until we forget about it but leave the door open for these problems to happen again. Then run around again trying to woo a foreign company/investment to come to
Canada just like Wind Mobile, fail due to favouritism of Canadian incumbent companies and get bought and sold in 10-20 years. I don’t blame these foreign companies for avoiding Canada. Too risky.
The government is very conflicted right now it seems. But I’m hoping the changes to the act will turn this around for future industry decisions.
Edit 2: to everyone suggesting an SDD: i know. Look, if this guy had enough $$$ for an SSD, he could buy a used lappy less than half the age of this one that has an ssd and 2-3x the memory....
I cannot stand google news any more, too much spam, clickbait and advertisement. So I decided to try to selfhost an RSS aggregator to make myself a news feed that I would be comfortable with. Being RSS such an "ancient" thing I thought there will be many mature systems, but I'm not sure that's the case.....
You can self-host Feedbin or you can get a paid account for $30 USD.
Lots of great functionality built-in. I use Unread app for iOS as the front-end instead of Feedbin’s web app. A paid Unread account would also give you RSS feed hosting, but less feature rich.
I’m guessing it’s from dry air god me but even with humidifier I always have to blow my nose a bunch of times in the morning. Sometimes my lungs feel tight for a while after waking up. This happen to anybody else? Why does it happen for you?
I have nasal congestion due to allergies every morning so here’s some advice that might help you.
You can try a Neti pot morning and night. The NeilMed ones at Costco pharmacies are good.
Use distilled water or boil your own for 1-3 minutes depending on the elevation in the area.
Once the packets run out you can measure 1/8 tsp baking soda, 1/8 to 1/4 tsp non-iodized salt (e.g. sea salt).
For prescriptions, Omnaris might work for you too. Gets things moving and doesn’t have the congestive rebound effect that over-the-counter nasal decongestants do.
All the other advice about controlling allergens is on point too. You can try an anti-histamine (e.g. Aerius) for a week to see if your congestion goes away but allergy meds dry you out a bit by design and gum you up so maybe this won’t have the effect you’re seeking.
You can get a sleep study for apnea but I’d say only if you’ve had actual fatigue related symptoms, not just what you’ve described here.
You could get a breath test for your lungs. Maybe there’s mold at your place. That tightness should be enough reason to get checked out, tbh.
I used to use tap water too. I have to highlight why distilled or boiled water is important though. Tap water isn’t sterile and there have been cases of microbes creating infections when used with Neti pots.
Naegleria fowleri is a brain-eating amoeba that has been linked to tap water usage in Neti pots, among other scenarios.
These cases are rare, to be fair, but still worth avoiding with distilled or boiled water. There could be other less fatal microbes junking things up, after all.
I gotta clarify, boiled but then cooled water for use in your Neti pots!
Why Canadians are angry with their biggest supermarket ( www.bbc.com )
Late last year, Emily Johnson took to Reddit to share her frustration with how expensive food in Canada has become....
Amongst all this AI hype of the past few years, nobody talks about that it's finally feasible to create an MS Clippy that works.
I just finished setting up Linux Mint for an old buddy of mine on his old dog of a laptop, rendering it useful once again! ( i.imgur.com )
Edit 2: to everyone suggesting an SDD: i know. Look, if this guy had enough $$$ for an SSD, he could buy a used lappy less than half the age of this one that has an ssd and 2-3x the memory....
Which RSS aggregator do you use? I cannot seem to find one that works for me.
I cannot stand google news any more, too much spam, clickbait and advertisement. So I decided to try to selfhost an RSS aggregator to make myself a news feed that I would be comfortable with. Being RSS such an "ancient" thing I thought there will be many mature systems, but I'm not sure that's the case.....
Who else wakes up and has to blow their nose or clear their airways every morning and why?
I’m guessing it’s from dry air god me but even with humidifier I always have to blow my nose a bunch of times in the morning. Sometimes my lungs feel tight for a while after waking up. This happen to anybody else? Why does it happen for you?