This just reminds me of Tanille Johnston’s remark during the NDP debate, where she was talking about the removal of interprovincial trade barriers, and how she was waiting for agriculture to be mentioned.
Part of the reason food prices are so expensive isn’t just because of inflation, but also because of lack of consumer knowledge paired with a lack of proper domestic production and transportation of food.
For example, many recipes online will call for olive oil as a healthy food option, but the cost of olive oil is insane. Consumers need to be informed by the government that Canadian-produced sunflower seed and canola oil are just as effective in these recipes.
Another example is sugar. If people want to remove political tensions between urban and rural areas and help loosen the Conservative grip on rural communities, you need to appeal to and support farmers. Alberta has the only sugar production plant that works with domestic sugar in Taber. All other sugar production plants import sugar cane from abroad, which costs money in shipping, uses more resources, is environmentally damaging in the harvest process, and has a lower sugar yield per kilogram than domestic sugar beets. A Domestic Sugar Policy would benefit farmers, and lower the end cost of a pantry staple to Canadian shelves. It could also help us produce our own pantry essentials that we don’t currently produce domestically, such as molasses which is often imported from Guatemala, a country currently in a political crisis with María Consuelo Porras.
Why are we making and buying peanut butter when we hardly grow peanuts, importing most of them from a country actively tariffing us, when we grow sunflower seeds and can make sunflower seed butter a pantry staple with ease? It’d support domestic farmers, dropping production costs we see with peanut butter. Why is it that when I go to Dollarama, they sell beans imported from China and Turkey when we’re the world’s largest producer of pulses?
Inflation is an issue, but this is also a failure of domestic policy when it comes to feeding ourselves and keeping money in our own economy. By investing in domestic food production and getting domestically-produced food on grocery shelves, we keep money in the Canadian economy, lessen political divides, reduce the cost of groceries at the till, and create a food landscape that further distinguishes ourselves as different from our American counterparts.
Wonder why they’re closing. Have lab-grown diamonds become that viable of a replacement?
Or is it because the new generation of consumers have changed their shopping habits, either because they can’t afford something as expensive as a diamond, or are bucking the idea that love is something that needs to be shown with extravagance?