Don Tai (Canada) Blog

My local grocery store Chung Hing at Kennedy Road and Finch Avenue in Scarborough/Toronto, Canada was held up by gunpoint yesterday, Saturday February 20, 2011 at around 16:10 in the afternoon. Five black guys, faces hidden behind bandanas and guns drawn, marched into the store and demanded cash. The cash registers were locked. While these thieves would rather steal for a living, they also risk the lives of those that shop and work at this store. For me, my wife and two kids had just checked out. They were petrified. A single police car with one officer arrived just as my wife left the store. An hour later a neighbour reported that there were 12 police cars at the store, now long closed for the day.

As a long time Canadian I consider it a tradition to shop at Canadian Tire. Unlike Walfart, Crappy Tire is, after all, Canadian. When I need a tool or something for the house I think of Canadian Tire first. This year, I am finding that the products I need are no longer advertised in the CT weekly flyer, and all the stuff I don’t need has taken its place. This has the result of me not visiting the local Crappy Tire as much as I used to, and therefore I am not spending the family’s cash in their stores. Going to the epitome of insanity, CT’s weekly food specials now gets attached to the weekly flyer. As my daughter often says, this is an EPIC FAIL.

We are, thankfully, not very close to a Walmart Super Centre, but on the rare occasion, we do visit. The Supercentre is 9 km away. Yesterday, Wednesday midday, was such a day. . In summary, the Super Centre is larger with very slightly more variety, their food section is quite good, but their checkout process tortuous. Store location: Walmart Supercentre, Eglington/Warden, Toronto, Canada.

While the large big box grocery stores (Loblaws/No Frills, Price Chopper, Food for Less, Metro) duke it out with themselves, a large contingent ethnic Canadians continue to shop locally, shunning the local big boys. Why is this? There are many advantages to our local Chinese stores: Produce, of course, is specialized to Asian tastes, fruits and vegetables are so much fresher, grocers speak Chinese, checkout is usually extremely fast though a bit rough, and costs of goods is usually cheaper.