It’s absolutely heart-breaking to drive by Renfrew’s food bank and see a line of people that starts at the front door and snakes around the building to fill the sidewalks on both Lochiel and Monroe. I would estimate somewhere in the area of sixty to seventy people, maybe more, and that’s just as I happen to drive by. I would hate to think that this situation continues throughout the day.
The Royal Bank of Canada has just released a report indicating that higher food prices are here to stay, and will never return to pre-pandemic levels. They estimate that on the whole, food prices have risen some 18% since the pandemic, and that while the rate of increase may slow somewhat, the cost of food will never go down.
The report lists all number of reasons for this: labour shortages, transportation costs, processing costs, climate change, a deteriorating world political environment, and others. It does not, however, mention price gouging, profiteering, and corporate greed. We wouldn’t want to offend the Galen Westons of this world.
So here we are, in a situation where people can’t afford their escalating mortgage costs, can’t afford gas for their cars, and now can’t afford to eat.
In Canada.
Somebody out there has to wear some shame for this. Somebody out there needs to be held accountable for these near-criminal machinations that suddenly led to the elimination of the middle class, the backbone of any society. Politicians, and not just government ones, bear some of the blame. So do food, oil, gas, and bank executives, who will do anything to increase dividends for their shareholders with no regard for the people they put on the street. With their multi-million dollar incomes, they can’t see the damage they do from their corner offices of their corporate headquarters. What’s more, if they could see the results of their actions, they likely wouldn’t care. These types believe that it’s all our fault for being in the condition that we’re in, that we did something to deserve it, that we lived beyond our means and are now paying the price for it. Since when was eating and having a roof over our heads living beyond our means?
If you were poor before all this bullshit, you’re desperately poor now. If you were modestly successful financially before, now you live in legitimate poverty. And where once you might have had a semblance of dignity, now you live out of your car. And you get to watch all the BMW’s, Teslas, $100,000 pickup trucks, and huge SUV’s drive by and wonder, how is it that these guys made it to the top and you didn’t.
COVID was a funny little thing in not a very funny way. It killed 52,754 Canadians at last count, more than our losses in World War II. It came, it killed, it sickened many more (over 4 million), and while the worst of it is over, it’s still going to hang around just because. Slowly and painstakingly, we emerged from the other side. And magically, all the higher prices that developed during the pandemic remain with us today. Many people increased their wealth on the backs of the rest of us, and that’s simply not right.
Money money money money money. They can’t get enough of the goddamned stuff, and they don’t care who they hurt to get it. They reap the windfall of increased COVID-induced profits, but fail to restore things to their rightful balance. In my mind, that’s morally criminal. But then again, when have morality and money ever shared a love seat?
The federal government is looking into implementing a profit tax for the grocery industry in an attempt to pry some cash out of their greedy little hands. Just like they did with the banking industry to a degree. While they’re at it, they should implement a similar tax on the oil and gas concerns as well. No doubt politically the Conservatives will howl in indignation, and I can just see Pierre Poilievre spitting indignantly in outrage. From a guy who never had a job in his life other than being a politician and sucking at the public teet, that’s pretty rich. Too bad there’s no such thing as an asshole tax.
We’re living in the next gilded age, just like in the late 19th century, where a handful of dreadfully wealthy families and enterprises controlled virtually all of the money while the vast majority of the population was told to go stuff socks. And here we are again, just over a hundred years later, with robber barons coming into fashion again.
That’s right. Robber barons. Those would be grocers, banks, oil and gas companies, insurance companies, financial services, even real estate folks making bloated incomes fat off the red hot housing market. And the assholes who prey upon seniors by offering to buy their homes at below-market prices while allowing them to live there until they die or are removed to a care facility. Then, in a piece of business brilliance, these carpet baggers sell the home at market value or above, making themselves a handsome profit in the bargain. Cheating people must make these types absolutely brim with self-satisfaction.
The thing I hate most about these types is the impact they’ve had upon me, leading me to the point where I sound like a goddamned communist, which I’m not.
I’m just a guy who believed in hard work, paying bills on time, donating money to worthy causes, and a contributor to the food bank. I mistakenly assumed that life would take care of me if I did all the right things. Nobody told me about all the sharks in the water.
But I can afford to eat and pay the rent and put gas in the car. I still maintain some vestige of my former middle class existence. But there are people in my community who can’t afford to feed themselves or their families, more than there used to be. And fewer and fewer people who are in a position to contribute to food banks themselves.
I have seen no sadder societal circumstances in my life.
The French had the term “noblesse oblige,” which roughly translates as an obligation on the part of the wealthy nobility to do something to alleviate the suffering of those under them. The idea that great wealth comes with a responsibility to give back to those who are less fortunate than yourself. To our modern titans of the corporate world, this is the stuff of knee-slapping laughter. They prefer instead to go with those famous words of another French person, the queen herself, Marie Antoinette, who said “Let them eat cake.” Historical note: she wasn’t French at all and, well, they chopped her head off.
As to the profit tax? If large wealthy corporations can’t find the wherewithal to even make an attempt at the concept of noblesse oblige, then maybe it’s fit and proper that the government step in and force them to. The government, after all, represents all Canadians, not just those at the top of the money pyramid. By making these corporate clowns pay their fair share, maybe we can get back to the days where the food bank didn’t look like an Apple Store after a new product launch.
NEWSMAGRENFREW 