Going into a grocery store today is not the pleasure I used to feel when going into a well-run store. Each visit becomes a brutal series of price shocks. It is the few cents on a smaller can of peas. It is the three dollars more for a pound of butter. And nothing infuriates a senior more than the multiple deals where you get a few cents off if you buy two or three of something or the value-pack in the meat department that can fill your freezer for months. You are not saving it for your old age. How much more old age do you think we still have to endure?
What really annoys me though is the thoughtless promotion of Loblaws over their ‘No Name’ products that they have finally stopped raising the prices on products that they contracted for two years ago. All I know is that Loblaws’ various branded stores are making unconscionable profits to the reported tune of a million dollars a day. This is the conglomerate that was hauled into court in 2018 as part of the infamous bread price-fixing scandal. Remember the $25 gift card that all Canadian homes were supposed to get from the Weston empire. They owed Canadians a hell of a lot more.
If the triumvirate of grocery giants in Canada—Loblaws, Empire and Metro—is anything like the triumvirate of—Bell, Rogers and Telus—good luck to us. We already pay 20 per cent more for cell phone service in most of Canada. Are we about half-way there in heading for a 20 per cent rise in food costs?
I listened to finance minister Cynthia Freeland the other day. She stood there in the House of Commons and told us that we were getting a boost in the GST refund rate for the next five months.
At least she did not spout that garbage from Pee-Pee Poilievre that some other social benefit would have to be cancelled to pay for this federal largess. I am assuming that some of her cabinet colleagues had given her a heads up on spouting conservative dogma.
But I remain adamant that the communications companies, the gas companies and the bastards in the food chain who are making unconscionable profits off Canadians be taxed out of their profits on our suffering.
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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry
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