Perhaps I am not as up-to-date on local news as I should be, but I haven't heard about the bread scandal before today. It's shocking to me how easy it was for this price manipulation within large corporations - and that it lasted for 15 years!

I believe that Loblaw's response was quite favorable, considering their actions and not just their words. Reassuring the public that the employees responsible for the conspiring are no longer working with the respective companies and the fact a new office for competition compliance was implemented by Loblaw's shows accountability and responsibility. Also, the $150 million worth of gift cards given out to their customers shows that their consumer loyalty and trust is one of their values, and the sum of money was impartial to the forgiveness of their customers.

I believe Loblaw's has taken appropriate action considering they exposed the wrongdoing to the investigation bureau, publicly apologized and implemented internal changes in order to prevent something like this happening again.

2- DO YOU AGREE WITH THIS?

Ethics is something that differs for everyone, what I considered unethical someone might think is ethical. They are each person's morals and beliefs that guide them in determining right from wrong in their behaviors or activities (Lamb et al., 2019).

I believe that price fixing for necessities that have few substitutes like gas or bread is unethical. These are essential items that people cannot live without and it seems unfair for companies to benefit financially from taking advantage of them. For example, I live in rural Ontario. This means there is no public transport at all, and everything is too far to walk or bike. If you want to live and survive you need a vehicle or access to one. You cannot get groceries or go to work without driving for at least 20 minutes (20 km +). Whenever the fuel prices increase that increases my costs of getting to work so when my expense to work is higher that means I pocket less money end of the month. It is an inelastic product, I cannot live without it (there are also not enough electric chargers around so an electric vehicle is not an option).

 

However, for elastic products that are not a necessity, I think it is okay to price-fix those items. They are not essentials, people can live without them, so I think it is okay to fix the price because if someone doesn't like it they do not have to buy it (non-essential). For example, I am in my early 20s and I like to go out on the weekends and have some drinks with my friends. If the price of alcohol increased significantly, I would likely stop drinking it because it was out of my price range.