Editorials - Dec. 9, 2022
The rise continues
Inflation is taking a big bite out of our household budgets, but the biggest hit was not to housing or transportation, as one might expect. It was to our food prices. According to Statistics Canada, the average Canadian household spent $10,265 on food in 2019. Fast-forward to 2022 and the average Canadian household now spends $14,767, making for a whopping 44 per cent increase in just a few short years. Now, the Canada Food Price Report is predicting that our grocery bill is not ready to level out quite yet with a five to seven per cent increase in 2023.
Housing costs have skyrocketed with rentals scarce, marginalizing many who were once considered middle class. With another round of food cost increases on the way, more families than ever are going to find themselves forced to rely on food banks, food shares and other non-profits to help stretch their budget to the end of some tough months. And to top it all off, the latest Angus Reid polls suggest that Canadians are scaling back their charitable giving now, which will leave those organizations facing some lean months themselves in 2023.
Samantha Taylor, a senior instructor of accountancy at Dalhousie University and one of the researchers behind the report, says “We are hoping that we will see a peak and, hopefully, a tapering off of food inflation toward the end of 2023.”
Each year since the pandemic began, we’ve been waiting for times to get better. It looks like we may want to hibernate until 2024. – DS
Playing by the rules
Since ascending to power as Premier of Alberta, Danielle Smith has skipped from one pot of hot water to the other. She claimed that those unvaccinated against COVID-19 were the most discriminated group of people in her lifetime (absurd) and walked back advice for Ukraine in its conflict with Russia to stay neutral (ignorant). Now, like a snotty, entitled child mad at her parents, she’s pushing the Alberta Sovereignty Act, picking a fight with the federal government.
She has since walked back (sensing a theme here) some more severe aspects of the act, but the foundation of this dangerous bit of legislation remains. Smith wants her province to do what it wants, when it wants.
We all know what’s going on in Alberta - the jewel in the crown of Canada’s conservative middle - where Prime Minister Justin Trudeau can hardly buy a vote (or buy back a gun) and Smith is a panderer to that sentiment of the first order. She has likely found plenty of support for her confrontational approach to provincial-federal relations, while many have seen the act as an attempt to circumvent democracy.
While no one can make the case that all of the federal government’s policies are making their lives better, what Smith is proposing is petty at best and undemocratic at worst. All Canadian provinces need to play by the rules and, in a democracy, those are established by democratic elections. Looking for a way out of that arrangement is circumventing the country’s democratic process, plain and simple.
Smith and the Albertans supporting her are looking for a fight - one that has been brewing between Alberta and the federal Liberal government for years. She might get it, but is unlikely to win it. – SL
A step in the right direction
The first BrightDrop Zevo 600 came off the line at the CAMI General Motors plant in Ingersoll on Monday, giving further evidence of the shift to electric vehicles in North America. The new vehicles are electric delivery vans and mark an investment for the company and for the country in Canadian-made electric vehicles. They are also a proof of concept as, just six months ago, the factory was shut down to retool it for these vehicles. While other electric vehicles have been made in Canada, the scale of the project is what makes it impressive, with it being a full-time producer of the vehicles. The vehicles are set to be used by commercial customers like FedEx, Walmart and DHL, according to reports, and marks an important step for GM in having its fleet free of tailpipe emissions by 2035, which, alongside being a goal for the company, is a limit set in place by the Government of Canada.
While that timeline may have seemed ambitious at first, a six-month turnaround for a factory to begin making full-time electric vehicles certainly makes it appear a little more reasonable. The factory will produce thousands of vehicles annually, with reports indicating that, by 2025, that will increase significantly, to as many as 50,000 units per year.
The announcement and the realization of the factory being back in production is good news all around as it shows Canada can be home to electric vehicle production, workers can continue to benefit from the auto sector and the environment can be considered while pushing industrial development and retooling in the province.
Hopefully this is the first of many electric vehicle plants in Canada with an eye for widespread production that can help drive industry and economics and get Canadians into reasonably-priced electric vehicles. Regardless, it’s a good first step. – JDS