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  "description": "Avi Lewis’s phantom price tags and the NDP’s addiction to solving problems that don’t exist\n\n",
  "path": "/editorial-avi-lewis-and-the-imaginary-war-on-spying-celery-stalks/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-04-16T22:37:46.000Z",
  "site": "https://provincialtimes.ca",
  "tags": [
    "Don Davies, Bluesky",
    "Canadian Cycling Magazine",
    "Manitoba's NDP government passed Bill 49",
    "admitted candidly",
    "found that Instacart",
    "experts attribute those price variations to delivery zone differences,",
    "New Democratic Party, Facebook",
    "small donation.",
    "Read our Content Policy here."
  ],
  "textContent": "If you happened to be wandering through the produce aisle of your local grocery store this week and noticed the celery was still $1.70—the same $1.70 the person in front of you paid, and the same $1.70 the person behind you will pay—congratulations. You have just witnessed the _crushing mundanity of reality_.\n\nAnd reality, it turns out, is the one thing the New Democrats cannot abide.\n\nDuring his debut press conference disaster—a masterclass in muzzling his own MPs and looking hopelessly out of his depth—NDP leader Avi Lewis has chosen as his signature cause a villain so elusive it may not actually exist: **the grocery store price tag that spies on you**.\n\n0:00\n\n/0:23\n\n1×\n\nNDP House Leader Don Davies brings forward a motion to ban surveillance pricing in stores and online. The motion is then shown being rejected. Video credit: Don Davies, Bluesky\n\nThis week, NDP House Leader Don Davies introduced a motion in Parliament demanding a ban on surveillance pricing. The dystopian pitch goes like this: digital price tags on store shelves are secretly talking to your cell phone, scanning your search history, noticing you Googled \"baby fever\" at 3 a.m., and— _sinister music cue_ —jacking up the price of infant Tylenol, just for you.\n\n## Subscribe for issues and perspectives that mainstream outlets often ignore\n\nWe bring insights, analysis, and news that challenge the status quo.\n\nSubscribe\n\nEmail sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup.\n\nNo spam. Unsubscribe anytime.\n\nA brightly lit grocery store display features wicker baskets overflowing with neatly organized rows of colorful produce, including vibrant peppers, dark eggplants, green zucchinis, and white fennel bulbs. Photo credit: Canadian Cycling Magazine\n\nIt is a terrifying scenario. It is also one for which Lewis and the NDP have provided _precisely zero evidence_ of occurring anywhere in Canada. Not a single documented case. Not one aggrieved shopper. Not even a suspiciously timed receipt.\n\nThe Liberals and Conservatives, in a rare moment of bipartisan clarity, voted the motion down. **Good.**\n\nManitoba's NDP government passed Bill 49, which bans personalized algorithmic pricing in both online retail and in-store electronic shelf labelling systems. It is a pre-emptive law, and Manitoba's own Finance Minister, Adrien Sala, admitted candidly that they have no evidence this practice is happening in their province. **None.** They are building a fence before the wolf shows up. Fine. Prudent, even.\n\nBut notice the difference: Manitoba did not push to ban surveillance pricing _in grocery stores_. They banned it where the evidence says it might actually be happening—**online**.\n\nAnd that is where the NDP's federal theatre collapses under the weight of its own dishonesty.\n\nThe real, documented issue of algorithmic price gouging exists in your browser, **not in the meat aisle at Loblaws**. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC)—which Lewis cited breathlessly—found that Instacart was charging different customers different prices for the same items from the same store. But here is the part Lewis conveniently left out: experts attribute those price variations to delivery zone differences, not personalized AI profiling of individual shoppers.\n\nManitoba understood this distinction. Their law was made to target the online checkout cart, where the data actually flows, and the algorithms actually adjust. The federal NDP, by contrast, chose to wage war on the self-checkout screen at Sobeys—a screen that displays the same price for celery whether you are a billionaire or an Oshawa House Café barista.\n\nAvi Lewis himself admitted that this practice is not yet happening in Canada. His defence? _“We can't wait until we inhabit a dystopian retail landscape.”_ This is the political equivalent of **banning cars because they might rain next Thursday**. It is governing by vibes. And it is a pattern.\n\nThe federal NDP is hemorrhaging support, watching progressive votes flee to a Liberal Party that suddenly remembers how to talk about affordability. They are polling in the low double digits. They have six MPs. Their new leader just spent his first press conference physically blocking his own foreign affairs critic from answering a question about Iran because he could not bear to share a microphone.\n\nFive people celebrate on stage at the Winnipeg NDP convention after Avi Lewis's selection, including leadership candidates Heather McPherson, Tony McQuail, Tanille Johnston, and Rob Ashton. Photo credit: New Democratic Party, Facebook\n\nNew Democrats are desperate for relevance, so they invented a crisis. They warn of spying price tags in grocery stores—something no Canadian has experienced, no regulator has found evidence of, and no shopper can verify—then they draft a motion they know will fail, hold a vote they know they will lose, and send out a fundraising email about how the corporate-owned Liberals and Conservatives refused to protect you from a problem that _does not exist_.\n\nIt is cynical. It is lazy. And it insults the intelligence of every Canadian who has ever looked at a shelf price and seen it match the sticker.\n\nIf the NDP wants to ban surveillance pricing, they should follow Manitoba’s lead and ban it where it is actually happening: online, in the algorithmic shadows of your Instacart order, where geography—not your browser history—might quietly inflate your bill. _That_ would be evidence-based policy.\n\nCanadians facing actual cost-of-living pressures deserve better than a party solving imaginary problems while real ones fester. The NDP may have traded Jagmeet Singh's designer suits for Avi Lewis's lecture-hall scolding, but the result is the same: **a party more interested in how it looks fighting than what it is actually fighting for.**\n\nThe price of celery at Walmart is the same. For everyone. Always has been.\n\n**The only thing being gouged here is our patience.**\n\n## Tired of seeing important stories swept under the rug by the right-wing establishment media?\n\nSubscribe and get the full picture. Stay updated, stay informed, and join a community that values truth and transparency. Subscribe to The Provincial Times for free to receive new stories and support our work!\n\nSubscribe\n\nEmail sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup.\n\nDid you like this article? Consider a small donation.\n\n* * *\n\n_This piece was written and published by The Provincial Times Editorial Board and reflects the editorial position of The Provincial Times._ Read our Content Policy here.",
  "title": "EDITORIAL: Avi Lewis and the imaginary war on spying celery stalks",
  "updatedAt": "2026-04-16T23:01:43.660Z"
}