September 2023
Re: “Trudeau’s had his fill of volatile food prices” (Canadian Press, 15 September): As Chandler Bing might say, “Could Justin Trudeau be any more annoyingly dumb about economics?!” Reading both this column and the column “Axe the tax on farms and food,” by Franco Terrazzano, highlights why Trudeau is the problem here.
It’s debatable as to whether the major grocery chains are, as Jagmeet Singh claims, gouging consumers or not, but what’s not debatable is that the useless, money-sucking carbon tax is adding to the costs faced by everyone in the supply chain, from the farmers and other food producers to the grocery retailers, which are then passed onto the consumer. While corporate greed is sadly a reality in a free-market economy, businesses are entitled to make as much profit as is ethically reasonable, businesses that also include farms, by the way.
Trudeau should stop threatening grocery retailers with penalties that could include tax penalties, that will then be passed on to the consumer (surprise, surprise), and instead scrap the carbon tax in its entirety, or at the very least, cut it for farmers and grocery products. A 65′ flat-screen TV is a luxury; healthy food and home-heating fuels aren’t.
