‘Rip off’: Mayor Chow wants to ban ‘surveillance pricing’ at Toronto grocery stores
Posted July 21, 2026 9:51 am.
Last Updated July 22, 2026 4:23 pm.
Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow is looking to ban “surveillance pricing” at grocery stores across the city in an effort to curb what she describes as “unfair price gouging” that uses customer’s personal data to charge more for groceries.
Chow, along with Coun. Alejandra Bravo plan to introduce a motion to ban the practice at an Executive Committee meeting on Tuesday.
“Torontonians are struggling with rising costs and making difficult choices at the grocery store,” Chow said in a press release. “The last thing we need is big retailers using your personal information to charge you more for groceries.”
“As the level of government closest to people’s day-to-day lives, we need to help reduce people’s costs,” she added. “We’re doing that already by freezing TTC fares and our school food program. But we need to go further and protect people from this emerging grocery rip off, before it’s too late.”
The initiative follows provinces like Manitoba, which introduced legislation in March to ban what it described as “predatory pricing.”
“Big corporations shouldn’t be allowed to use your internet search history and other data to raise the price of essentials,” Coun. Bravo said in a statement. “We’re looking at using every tool we have to make the economy more fair for working Torontonians.”
At Tuesday’s meeting, the Executive Committee asked city staff to come back with a report in the first quarter of 2027 with options for the city to regulate or ban the practice of surveillance pricing. It says, at a minimum, consumers should be told in plain language that their personal data is being used for algorithmic personalized pricing practices.
The committee is also requesting that City Council request that the Ford government ban the practice of surveillance pricing while strengthening the Consumer Protection Act from predatory pricing technologies.
Ford has previously nixed the idea of a ban on surveillance pricing.
At a press conference in April, Ford said that a ban would run contrary to a free market.
“There’s no better way of letting people get lower costs on no matter if it’s cars or homes or groceries, than competition,” he said.
“That is what we believe in. That’s a capitalist society, a market. The other one is socialism. Socialism does not work. You go around and dictating and overseeing every single price, no. If there’s collusion on pricing, I’ll go after them and tear them to shreds, but nothing beats a free market,” he added.
With files from The Canadian Press.
