🚀 SRE pro keeping systems humming! ☁️ Azure, Kubernetes & Elasticsearch whiz. 🤓 Love building resilient solutions & happy users.

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Cake day: July 7th, 2023

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  • I agree completely, but please don’t shoot the messenger when I say what comes next: I want to just be completely clear with you I only know this because my mother has actually been facing this issue for a good chunk of my life so for once I can actually give some useful context on why this happens and the vast majority of the time it’s not malicious or meant to deceive.

    to start lets set the context for how they even get the info for the signs. every week your grocery store department manager gets an order sheet with items with items they can choose to buy and some items with preset quantities sent to them that they can not refuse or reduce quantities of. these may be sale items, basics or seasonal items corporate says they must sell or you will have to throw them out and count as waste on your departments sales sheet. some of these items have info already on them about country of origin some do not. This is because corporate may have ordered 10 tons of watermelons 3 tons from the USA, 7 tons from Mexico. these end up stacked all together in the warehouses and depending on how much is ordered by each store or to be honest dumb luck you may end up with partial loads of mixed quantities because to the folks in the warehouse watermelons are watermelons. these get loaded on trucks that get sent out to multiple stores where adriver has a spreadsheet that simply says 1 watermelon pallet for each store except store in bigCityCanada which ordered an extra. the truck driver doesn’t even look at the pallets they unload the first pallet they get to to the first store they were assigned to drive to that day. that means that no one has a clue what they actually have till it gets to the store. the grocery clerks get the load and say “ok this pallet is watermelons that are from Mexico” because that’s what the box says on top and no one is digging through a pallet of watermelons. the grocery store manager runs around like a chicken with there head cut off writing down country of origins so they can rush back to there office to update all there price signs with country of origin info and print them because it’s 6AM and they open at 6:30AM and having product on the floor without a sign is a CFIA violation as well and depending on the grocer a Scanner Price Accuracy Code violation which means at minimum you get the product for next to nothing or free. If you take products onto the floor with people there you can get angry or even worse you can possibly hurt customers(as you can imagine corporate hates this a lot). now understand that this is happening to multiple departments all at once with usually just one tired out computer and printer in a cramped back office barely big enough for a chair and one other person to stand next to you. now customer walks onto the floor after the first couple boxes are sold and now only the other countries watermelons are left. no one is paying attention because all the workers are doing now is dealing with customers being borderline demons rooting though produce dmaging products and moving stuff around they must reorganize and spot fill to make the shelves look pretty and full so products sell. that’s why I say just ask the produce manager first 9 times out of 10 they don’t know or haven’t noticed because they are focused on selling as much as possible and keeping customers happy. you saying I’m not happy the signs don’t match should be enough to make them go(internally) “FU*K the coo is wrong corporate will write me up for that and I can get fined!” and send them scrambling to reprint the price sheet.

    is this an excuse? not really this is just piss poor organization and control in the warehouse and ordering practices to get the best deal that just bubbles down to screw over local grocery stores and mislead consumers. but please be kind to the grocery store workers they are doing there best and dealing in a very low margin market with people that look down on them even though they help put the food on your plate every day. at least give them a chance to do right if there is a mistake(My mom’s really trying, she doesn’t want to buy American either but corporate makes that decision not her).


  • Yep mom works in a grocery store. Can confirm. It runs afoul of Food and Drugs Act (FDA) and Safe Food for Canadians Act (SFCA) which govern handling/sale of food in Canada. They prohibit the “labelling, packaging, treating, processing, selling, or advertising of any food in a manner that is false, misleading, or deceptive, or is likely to create an erroneous impression regarding its character, value, quantity, composition, or merit”. Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) can do a ton of things about it but honestly just ask for the produce manager to change the sign. If they give you flak take a picture and copy corporate with your location. Ask corporate if this needs to go to CFIA? It’ll get fixed fast. You can’t fuck about with food.


  • I see you are not being honest or have somehow lost the context for this whole comment chain. Statscan indicates that in a portion of cases, the firearm used was originally legally owned, that doesn’t automatically mean the person committing the crime was the legal owner. It also does not make any claim about the origin of the gun used in these crimes, and cannot as that data is not collected. The report itself notes, “Information on the origin of the firearm was only known in a small proportion of cases” and also that “there was limited information on the characteristics of the firearms used in the commission of a crime.” These are important distinctions as we do not know how many of these legally owned firearms were stolen and then used in a crime, the person who stole it would not be the legal owner.

    Furthermore, the report details how firearms used in homicides are down from 15 years ago. “In the 10 years prior to 2023, the proportion of firearm-related homicides committed with a handgun varied from 53% to 64%. The rate of handgun-related homicide has been relatively stable since 2019 after increasing from 2013 to 2019. Meanwhile, the rate of homicides committed with a rifle or shotgun has remained relatively stable since 2013 after having generally declined since 1975.” This demonstrates that gun violence is on a downward trend.

    The data available from StatCan is also very limited. It is based on only 56% of police-reported incidents. Meaning that nearly half of the data is missing, and that which is available does not contain information about the origin of the gun in question.

    My original point was about the significant role of illegally smuggled firearms in fueling gun violence in Canada, especially in the context of gang-related crime. While the StatCan report doesn’t provide a complete picture, law enforcement agencies and research by organizations like the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, have consistently highlighted the prevalence of smuggled guns, particularly from the US, in serious violent crimes.



  • I understand where you’re coming from with your concerns about gun violence and the environment. These are issues we all care about. However, I think your statement paints an incomplete and inaccurate picture of responsible firearm ownership in Canada, especially when it comes to sport shooters and hunters.

    Let’s break it down. You seem to be suggesting that legal gun owners are the problem, that their recreational use isn’t worth the risk. But the data just doesn’t support that. In Canada, the vast majority of gun crimes involve illegally obtained firearms, often smuggled in from the US. That’s the real issue we need to tackle. Our licensed firearm owners go through extensive background checks, mandatory safety training, and strict rules about storing and transporting their firearms. They’re actually statistically less likely to commit crimes than the general population.

    The idea that cracking down harder on them will solve the problem is a misconception. The real problem is the flow of illegal guns across the border. That’s where we need stronger border security and international cooperation, not more restrictions on people who are already following the rules.

    On the environmental side, I agree that we need to be mindful. But modern shooting ranges in Canada have pretty strict environmental rules, including reclaiming lead and managing the soil. Hunters are also using lead-free ammo more and more. And while noise can be a concern, ranges are usually built away from residential areas and designed to contain the sound.

    Here’s something that often gets overlooked: hunters play a huge role in conservation in Canada. Their license fees and the taxes on firearms and ammunition fund a lot of wildlife management and habitat preservation. Organizations like Ducks Unlimited Canada and the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters rely heavily on hunters, and they’ve done incredible work protecting our ecosystems. Plus, in many rural and Indigenous communities, hunting isn’t just a hobby; it’s a vital source of food and a core part of their culture. If you’ve been to a grocery store lately, the cost of food is incredibly high if it is even available at all, and many people rely on hunting to feed their families.

    So, while it’s absolutely crucial that we address gun violence and protect the environment, we need to do it based on facts, not fear. A blanket ban on legal gun ownership wouldn’t just be ineffective against crime, it would actually hurt conservation efforts, damage our economy, take away a source of food from many communities, and take away the rights of law-abiding Canadians. I really encourage you to look into the statistics on firearm ownership and crime in Canada. You’ll see that responsible gun owners and hunters are not the enemy. We need to work together on solutions that actually target the root of the problem – illegal firearms – while respecting the rights and important contributions of those who follow the law.