Joe Fiorito of the Toronto Star writes an excellent piece regarding the alleged theft of $3,500 worth of groceries from Loblaws by the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty.

OCAP leaders say they just walked into an upscale downtown Loblaws - they will not say which one - and loaded up some shopping baskets and walked out without paying, and nobody stopped them from doing so.

I had a few words with John Clarke, OCAP's chief theoretician. I asked why he was picking on Loblaws. He said, "I won't say we were hung up on Loblaws, but Galen Weston is one of the wealthiest men in the world, and it seemed appropriate from our point of view." Hmm. I see.

Nice. How very Robin Hood. But although the charming archer was made a hero of fairy tales (the rich and powerful are always evil in fairy tales - it's generally because the writers of these tales are poor and pissed off), he was really nothing but a thief. He stole from the coffers of the rich land owners in order to shell out to the peasants. Sounds like a Liberal to me. If I work hard, accrue property, and get rich, I want to keep it. I worked for that. And if I want to give it to the poor, I will do it of my own free will.

I pointed out to Clarke that Loblaws donates an estimated 50,000 pounds of food a month to Second Harvest, all of which is redistributed to the poor. This did not concern him in the least.

"It's fairly standard in the corporate world to engage in some sort of philanthropy and write off the cost." Now there's a non sequitur if I ever heard one.