this post was submitted on 29 Jul 2024
67 points (95.9% liked)

Canada

7185 readers
277 users here now

What's going on Canada?



Communities


🍁 Meta


πŸ—ΊοΈ Provinces / Territories


πŸ™οΈ Cities / Local Communities


πŸ’ SportsHockey

Football (NFL)

  • List of All Teams: unknown

Football (CFL)

  • List of All Teams: unknown

Baseball

Basketball

Soccer


πŸ’» Universities


πŸ’΅ Finance / Shopping


πŸ—£οΈ Politics


🍁 Social and Culture


Rules

Reminder that the rules for lemmy.ca also apply here. See the sidebar on the homepage:

https://lemmy.ca


founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 51 points 3 months ago (4 children)

A 2012 report from David Campanella, then the public policy research manager for the Parkland Institute, and Greg Flanagan, a public finance economist, concluded that privatization has led to Albertans paying more compared to public stores.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

There's way more to it than that.

He said consumer prices in Alberta are influenced by supplier-set wholesale prices, store and government markups and the timing of limited-time offers. All the factors at play means it's challenging to track retail price changes over time.

"What I concluded in the data that I looked at in my own study, is that there was some increase in retail prices as a result of privatization, but it was not large," West said.

"But it depends on product category, and the time period."

In addition, when Alberta privatized, it changed the tax system from a percentage of the price to a unit tax.

"It doesn't matter what it costs. The tax is flat," Enoch said. "Which dings lower-cost alcohol, right? Because everything is charged at the same tax rate."

There's other positive things mentioned in this article, too, so what you're doing is almost cherry picking.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (2 children)

None of this refutes what was said above.

Privatization resulted in alcohol prices increasing.

I've also not seen any numbers that suggest that the Alberta government makes more revenue from the private system than they would have a public system.

Every back-of-the-napkin calculation I've done suggests that the move to a private system increases access to alcohol for citizens while reducing the government revenue related to alcohol sales.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

Yeah, I don't see why tax collection would increase.

The article mentions more selection, which is unambiguously good, and more locations which is good from a buyers perspective (although less so from a public health perspective). To be fair, it also mentions a lot of the jobs being minimum wage, but that seems like it has less to do with liquor and more to do with trends in the whole economy.

I don't know, it just doesn't seem like something the private sector couldn't do for any reason, so I'm unsurprised the sky didn't fall, and the situation even improved in some respects.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Much of Europe is privatized and their prices are much less than here. The main reason our prices are so high is the special alcohol tax the government puts on to discourage drinking.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

To clarify your point. The privatization in Europe has nothing to do with the lower prices, it's the lower tax rate.

In places like Ontario we "double dip" on revenue where the LCBO marks up alcohol as any retailer would and makes revenue for Ontario, but at the same time, alcohol tax is also collected.

When people talk about privatization of the LCBO, it's a portion of that retail markup revenue which we would be unnecessary giving away.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 3 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 months ago (1 children)

But hey! I have this GREAT idea for faster medical services!

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 months ago (1 children)

And transport!

And internet!!!

And schools!!!!!!!

And utilities!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

You keep that up and I'm going to mail you a brick.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

That will be $25 in postage, $30 in shipping and handling, $35 for insurance, and $15 cause we can fucking charge whatever you we want.

Thank you for mailing with us with your prized possessions.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

Don't forget the $10 "convenience fee" because you didn't talk to an actual human employee, thus saving the company money, so you have to pay more for that convenience

[–] [email protected] 24 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Who would have thought, adding a private profit incentive would mean overall prices go up?

You're supposed to be smarter than us Canada!

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 months ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago

I more often hear "Canada's Texas".

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago

Yes, but it really wants to be like texas

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

Lol! What gave you that idea? We signed NAFTA after all.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

It's so infuriating, and we keep electing politicians who suck corporate dicks and promote privatization.

Say it with me now:

Critical services must be government owned to promote service integrity.

While people might argue against this, if your existence of as a government hinges on the quality of the services you provide, and the only metric is votes, then you're going to do your damnedest to make sure you get the most votes and that means providing the best services.

Conversely, private industry has money as the metric and the best way to get more money is to get people to pay the same for less. It's the easiest way. Who wants to invest in better products/services when we can do less and cut shit and make more money.

Now that's not to say there aren't exceptions, but this is the general theme