This might come as a surprise to prime minister Trudeau. The Keep It Simple Stupid (Kiss) principal works. I can tell you of those times when the liberal party used the Kiss principal to win elections. That might be hard for an elitist like the prime minister to understand but not all Canadians are elitists. Some of us are quite basic in our outlook.
Justin Trudeau told us in a cheery Christmas interview that the idea of a windfall tax on grocery chains and oil companies was a simplistic solution to inflation. He is not about to tax our millionaire grocery store executives who have made unconscionable profits from inflation in 2022.
Obviously, Mr. Trudeau does not take his lovely wife shopping. Somebody probably shops for his family in the same stores as the rest of us.
Well, I take my wife shopping quite often. I have seen first-hand what is happening in the grocery stores. It isn’t pretty. I like exploring the stores for the occasional good deal in the meat department. The wife likes it because I can quickly tell her the real price of those multi-price deals where you can buy two or three at a lower cost. And I know from the past year that we were being screwed. I see that Loblaws made an extra $682 million more in profits than in 2019. Empire made an extra $199 million and Metro made just an extra $40 million. The wife and I shop in all three of those companies’ stores to take advantage of their specials.
And I am not an armchair quarterback as Mr. Medline of Empire insists. I was trained in supermarket management as a young man. I understand the different profit margins between the various departments in the stores. A late friend of mine was once the president of Heinz in Canada and I always paid close attention to Tom Smyth’s good ideas on food management for Canada. The business has changed over the years. I have watched those changes.
I know that today, in-store thefts are up. I see it happening. I know today that the customers are grumpier. It is not the staff’s fault. I only wish the chains would treat them with more compassion. And I only wish Justin Trudeau would grow a pair and stop telling people they are simplistic. Sometimes the simplistic solutions are the best political solutions.
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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry
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