{"id":639529,"date":"2026-04-30T22:49:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T22:49:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/639529\/"},"modified":"2026-04-30T22:49:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T22:49:14","slug":"manitoba-squares-up-against-sobeys-in-its-1st-challenge-against-grocery-property-restrictions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/639529\/","title":{"rendered":"Manitoba squares up against Sobeys in its 1st challenge against grocery property restrictions"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Manitoba is taking on Sobeys and its anti-competition contracts that prevent other grocery stores from opening nearby.<\/p>\n

The provincial government announced Thursday it’s challenging the contracts Sobeys has on real estate deals at two stores in Winnipeg, one in Steinbach and one in Brandon. It’s the first such case under legislation passed last year to tackle so-called restrictive covenants.<\/p>\n

Premier Wab Kinew took particular aim at the restrictions in Steinbach, which extend well beyond the property where the grocer is located. They cover a swath of land across the street and portions of a nearby farmer’s field, he said.<\/p>\n

That is “a long ways away from where this grocer is actually doing business,” Kinew said. <\/p>\n

“We don’t think that that’s in the public interest. I think we all understand that when there’s more competition, there are better prices.”<\/p>\n

Some of the contracts between Sobeys and the property owners don’t expire until the 2040s or 2060s, the premier said.<\/p>\n

Manitoba adopted the Property Controls for Grocery Stores and Supermarkets Act<\/a> in June, preventing grocery stores from creating new restrictive covenants or exclusivity clauses.<\/p>\n

The intent is to open the market\u00a0for more choices for consumers, leading to better deals.<\/p>\n

“We are not willing to wait for years \u2026 for these anti-competition contracts to expire while big chains make record profit and your grocery [bill] will keep going up,” Public Service Delivery Minister Mintu Sandhu said at a news conference Thursday.<\/p>\n

Existing covenants were allowed to be grandfathered in if the companies registered them with the province within 180 days of the amendments taking effect.<\/p>\n

The law allows\u00a0the province to challenge any of the registered agreements and refer the matter to the Manitoba Municipal Board for a hearing to determine whether the restrictions are contrary to the public interest.<\/p>\n

All of the big grocery chains dropped their property controls when the law was passed, except Sobeys, Kinew said.<\/p>\n

Sobeys retained 43 controls that had existed before the legislation. They have been registered with the province, and the government has said it intends to bring a case against each one.<\/p>\n

Sandhu is confident the board will strike them down.<\/p>\n

“Let me be clear: each and every one of these predatory property controls is against the public interest. When we let companies like Sobeys block competition, it makes it easier for them to raise prices,” he said.<\/p>\n

“We gave Sobeys the chance to do the right thing. They refused. That’s why today, we are bringing our first case against this company’s property controls.”<\/p>\n

There are seven anti-competition deals connected to the first four targeted stores:<\/p>\n

915 Leila Ave., Winnipeg.50 Sage Creek Blvd., Winnipeg.178 Highway 12, Steinbach.1645 18th St., Brandon.<\/p>\n

Kinew said it will take six to eight weeks for the municipal board to make a decision. While it won’t bring down grocery prices immediately, it will allow for more competition in the future, he said. <\/p>\n

CBC News has reached out to Sobeys for comment but did not receive an immediate response.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 3 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":639530,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[45,49,48],"class_list":["post-639529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=639529"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639529\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/639530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=639529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=639529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=639529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}