“I have never seen this intensity of anger.” – Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada
A Commentary by Niagara At Large reporter/publisher Doug Draper
Posted December 1st, 2024 on Niagara At Large
“There sure are a lot of angry people out there,” I’ve heard and read a good number of our political representatives, at all levels of government, say in recent years.
So much so that at the darkest end of the spectrum, some politicians have been the recipients of nasty and sometimes even threatening messages, and some have had their cars and homes vandalized and in the case of provincial and federal representatives, have had glass doors and windows at their constituency offices smashed.
The past few years have also seen more than the usual number of outbursts from members of the public attending municipal council meetings in Niagara and elsewhere.
Aside from the verbal outbursts, which are relatively harmless and, as much as many politicians may not like them, fall within the lines of free expression, I abhor any and all acts of or threats of vandalism and violence.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he knows the public anger toward governments in the country is ‘intense’. But what is he and other government leaders going to do about it other than response with trinkets and lip-service?
There is no excuse for acts of vandalism and violence and yet I fully concur with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau – who, himself, has been the target of all of those F**K Trudeau flags and who at least once had someone throw gravel at him – when he said not all that long ago; “I understand the anger that’s out there.”
Okay, but what is he or anyone else in political leadership really doing about it other than offering temporary sales tax breaks and, along with Ontario’s Premier Doug Ford, circulating cheques for a couple hundred of bucks of our money as if it’s a gift from Santa Claus.
Meanwhile, all we get from too many of our political leaders is lip service when it comes to doing something more significant and long-lasting to control the soaring costs of such essentials as keeping a roof over our heads and groceries.
I picked up the latest copy of Canada’s Maclean’s magazine this past week and the cover story was titled “The Rich List – The Definitive Ranking Of The Wealthiest Canadians.”
The Loblaws grocery empire’s billion dollar man has seen his fortunes soar as the cost of groceries go up so high that many people are struggling to put food on their table.
Right up there at Number Three and boasting a worth of $18.05 billion according to the magazine, was grocery store baron Glen Weston Jr. of Loblaws and No Frills fame.
“The stock price of Loblaws – whose chains include No Frills, Valu-Mart and Provigo – tripled over the last three years (all while food prices have become increasingly unaffordable),” the magazine reported.
All of this while Weston and his family live on palatial estates and, according to some media reports information circulated by the not-for-profit citizen organization Canadians for Fair Taxation, allegedly fly at least some of their gains off to out-of-country tax havens.
During the pandemic, the Westons and other big grocery chain operators saw their profits hit record or near record highs.
You might remember that some of Canada’s big grocery chains, including those members of the Weston family had their stakes in, made like imperial leaders in Ancient Rome tossing bread to the masses by granting their underpaid employees who were risking their health on the frontlines with a $2 dollar an hour bonus.
This bonus, which as also dubbed as “hero pay,” disappeared as soon as the grocery barons thought they could cancel it and long before the worst of the COVID plague was over.
This miserly act left Jerry Dias, the national president of Unifor, one of Canada’s largest unions, saying; “The pandemic is not over. The danger has not passed. These workers are no less at risk and are no less essential today than they were yesterday. There is no justification for ending pandemic pay now, or ever.”
There was no justification indeed. But what could these frontline grocery workers do other than speak out and risk losing their jobs and what pay they were earning to support themselves and their families.
But it’s not just the continually rising cost of groceries that is causing so many people to feel so angry, even while the overall rate of inflation is going down.
It is, among other things, the growing unaffordability of buying a home or paying rent on an apartment, and for young people, in particular, the outrageous cost of post-secondary school tuition fees that leave them with more debt than it would cost to make a down payment on a home.
Then we have municipal councils like the one running Niagara’s regional government which is now on the verge of passing a budget for the third year in a row that is well above the rate of inflation.
If this keeps up, we will likely see even more people losing the struggle to keep a roof over their heads – contributing to a host of reasons why we are seeing growing numbers of homeless people in this region and others huddles in encampments.
A few of our municipal leaders in Niagara leaders, including the mayors of St. Catharines, Niagara Falls and Welland, have joined about nine other mayors of cities across Ontario in asking in asking senior levels of government to use a draconian measure in Canada’s Constitution called the “notwithstanding clause” to suspend the rights of these homeless people to move or break up these encampments.
Now isn’t that a nice way of addressing what has arguably turned into a humanitarian crisis.
So is there anger out there?
There sure in hell is and if our political representatives don’t care enough to address the root causes of it in a thoughtful, effective and humane way, they will deserve to have the walls they have built between them and the rest of us come tumbling down next election day.
For related news, click on the following links –
Loblaw ending $2 per hour pandemic pay for workers despite soaring profits | CTV News
Scrapping $2 hourly bonus for grocery store workers ‘a slap in the face’: Loblaw baker | CBC Radio
Loblaws in $400M tax fight with CRA over claims it set up bogus offshore bank | CBC News
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