Canada Bread owner sues Maple Leaf over alleged bread price-fixing

Canada Bread owner sues Maple Leaf over alleged bread price-fixing

Canada Bread owner Grupo Bimbo is suing Maple Leaf Foods for more than $2 billion, saying it lied about the company's involvement in an alleged bread price-fixing conspiracy.

The filing comes a week after a lawsuit against the Mexico-based Grupo Bimbo from Maple Leaf, which was Canada Bread's controlling shareholder until 2014.

Canada Bread has claimed Maple Leaf used it as a "shield" to avoid liability in the alleged scheme.

The alleged price-fixing conspiracy is also the subject of two class-action lawsuits and an ongoing Competition Bureau investigation.

A day on the campaign trail: Winnipeg's mayor, seeking a second term, does double duty

In the weeks leading up to the civic election, Scott Gillingham has been performing a juggling act: he’s running to be Winnipeg’s 45th mayor, while still serving as its 44th.

“If someone asks me about the campaign, I’m going to answer them. But I think for most people, I’m the mayor of Winnipeg, even if I’m showing up as a candidate,” Gillingham, 58, says. “I try to do all I can to maintain that distinction.”

The Free Press joined Gillingham on a recent rainy September Saturday on the campaign trail, where he served in both roles during an event-laden day. City council’s final meeting before the Oct. 28 election was days earlier.

In Winnipeg, it’s rare for an incumbent to be defeated. But Gillingham knows his win in 2022 wasn’t exactly a landslide — he won with 27.5 per cent of the vote — and he’s been thinking about his second term ever since.

Broadening prediction-market gambling a bad idea

Let’s make a prediction: sooner or later, when Canadian governments find a way to take their own cut of the action, prediction-contract gambling on everything from sports to entertainment to political decisions is going to come to Canada.

And that’s a horrible, dangerous, pernicious idea.

Unless you have particular access to information — either inside information or strategic information based on skills or education — you’re not likely to make money at it. In fact, structurally, you’re likely to lose. In prediction markets, you basically pay an amount, plus fees from the company involved, to bet on whether something will or will not happen within a certain time frame. The amount you pay for your contract depends on how other people are also betting.

As Wealthsimple describes it, “You buy whichever side you think is right. Prices move with demand, so if the market leans towards one outcome, the more that side costs. If a lot of people are backing the TSX to finish above 38,000, yes gets more expensive and no gets cheaper.”

Gordon Bell rings in a century

Mischka Valencia had gotten used to the hum of heavy machinery at Gordon Bell High School.

“Ever since I’ve been here, it’s all been under construction,” the Grade 12 student said, standing on the sidelines of the brightly painted revamped outdoor basketball court. “I had no idea this was a court.”

The Filipina teenager landed in Winnipeg several months after the inner-city campus had transformed into a construction site.

It was the fall of 2023 and Mischka’s priorities were fitting in, befriending classmates and learning a third language via first-period French.

Mayoral candidate Vogiatzakis criticized for living outside Winnipeg

A mayoral hopeful took heat from other candidates Friday for living outside Winnipeg while running in the civic election.

Mike Vogiatzakis’s primary residence is in the Rural Municipality of St. Andrews, about 25 kilometres north of Winnipeg — a community with its own mayor and councillors.

But the funeral director said he owns a home in Winnipeg where he divides his time, and he would move to the city full-time if elected mayor.

“It doesn’t matter where a person lives. Why are we dividing St. Andrews and Manitoba and Winnipeg? I’ve met the criteria to run for mayor,” Vogiatzakis said Friday morning.

Retired guidance counsellor defends explicit 2025 sex-ed presentation to high school football team in disciplinary hearing

Gus Watanabe, a former employee of Oak Park High School in Winnipeg, was the subject of a public disciplinary hearing on Thursday.