They have been doing this ever since I can remember. I recall that they allegedly tried to convince the shopper that it is ‘50%’ or ‘80%’ off. A few times I think it was ‘90% off’. Kudos to Quebec for having the courage to investigate and prosecute. I don’t think it will change much, however. Once, I had a clerk tell me ‘Don’t buy it now, tomorrow it will be 50% off’. He showed me the schedule of ‘price reductions’ for it for the next 12 months. If I waited eight weeks, it would be 75% off.
My point was, why does that matter? They profited from false advertising; fine their total profits.
Sure, that’s an easier way of doing it. I don’t really have a problem with that except that it can easily kill a business to fine their total profits if the period is long enough.
Why should I care that a business which was breaking the law gets fined into nonexistence? Like, of course I feel for the workers, it’s not most of their faults, but if we believe in the free market then another will fill that gap.
Imo fining all profits made by using misleading practices is just as disincentivising without introducing the instability that immediate business death brings. I’m gonna stop trying to convince you of this though, I think we just differ on some fundamentals.