Grocery store legislation triggered by Brandon store

BRANDON — The Manitoba government’s grocery store legislation aimed at combating high prices was triggered by the business practices of a Brandon store.

Brandon East MLA Glen Simard proposed the legislation, which removes property controls for grocery stores, in response to a local Sobeys renewing its lease on a long-shuttered property.

“Anything we can do to drive prices down, I think it’s a good thing. We’re standing in front of an empty grocery store that could be servicing Brandon,” Simard said in an interview Thursday outside the vacant building on 18th Street.

Sobeys renewed a five-year lease at the former location at 1645 18th St. in 2023, after the store closed in 2017. The company’s aim was to avoid a competing grocery store from opening in the building, a Shindico representative told the Brandon Sun at the time.

The company opened a new Sobeys South location across the street at the Shoppers Mall the same year the former location closed.

The Property Controls for Grocery Stores and Supermarkets Act bans controls that restrict the use of land for a grocery store or supermarket. It took effect this month to enable stores to apply for an exemption.

Simard said news reports on the Sobeys lease gave him the idea to propose the legislation.

“There’s no reason why maybe a discount grocer can’t be in here. No reason why a direct competitor can’t be here,” Simard said.

“Brandon’s a big place, and people are clamouring for more choice, more competition.”

Sobeys didn’t provide a comment by press time.

Currently, 23 grocery stores that had property controls in Manitoba have told the government they can remove those controls, said Caedmon Malowany, a spokesperson for Public Service Delivery Minister Mintu Sandhu, on Thursday.

An additional 44 stores have asked for a review by the minister. A “majority” of those are Sobeys stores or Sobeys subsidiaries, Malowany said.

Premier Wab Kinew said last week that big grocery chains are “looking out for their bottom line.” More competition would hopefully lead to better grocery prices, he said.

Kinew said the former Sobeys store in Brandon is “just sitting there because of these contractual barriers.”

“I don’t think one grocery store should be able to prevent another one from opening up shop like this,” he said. “This is the fundamentals of living in a free society and having a market economy.”

Kinew said he doesn’t know whether the legislation is a “silver bullet,” but that the industry is “ripe for more competition.”

Simard said discount grocers should be able to set up shop at the old Sobeys and sell products at lower prices.

“City planners didn’t develop a commercial space for it to sit up empty,” he said.

He said Sandhu is going to challenge Sobeys on why it thinks having an empty building until 2028 is a good idea.

Malowany said the provincial government doesn’t know which specific stores have applied for exceptions, as the process was done through a third party.

The Sun reached out to Shindico — the company that owns the building leased by the Sobeys — but didn’t hear back before press time.

— Brandon Sun