A Brief Commentary by Niagara At Large reporter/publisher Doug Draper
Posted January 13th, 2025 on Niagara At Large
Let me ask you a few questions.
If you are lucky enough to have a job, when was the last time you got a 25 per cent pay raise?
If you are a senior, when was the last time your pension was hiked 25 per cent?
And if you happen to own a small business, when was the last time you say a 25 per cent increase in revenue?
Yet on the other side of the ‘looking glass’, in that ‘wonderland’ where far too many of our federal, provincial and municipal politicians have taken to calling shots that are completely out of touch with reality, raising costs well above the rate of inflation for everything from municipal taxes, water rates, police services and post-secondary education to posting a parcel or letter has become the norm.
As the cost of living soars, so do the lineups at food banks, and it isn’t just the unemployed and the homeless needing to use them.
All that on top of the gouging prices the barons in the big-box grocery, landlord and real-estate industries are charging for food and housing – making the cost of living for so many among us even more unaffordable.
Then we face the insulting spectacle of these these same decision-makers in the government and the corporate world faking wonderment over why line-ups at food banks keep growing and why there are ever more people living in the streets, even as they deliberate over stripping homeless people of their constitutional rights and sending police out to rip down their encampments.
Paying 25 per cent more for a postage stamp or for mailing a parcel – as of this January 13th – may not seem that much in and of itself. But added together with the soaring costs of so many other services, it is pushing ever more of us to a bad place.
A 25 percent hike in the price of a domestic stamp or of mailing a parcel, as of this January 13th, 2025, may not seem like much, in and of itself. But in the broader scheme of things, it is one more cost above the going rate of inflation that brings more people closer to lining up at food banks and living in the streets.
We can fight back by staying informed in the what those holding elected office at the municipal, provincial and federal levels of government are up to, by contacting them and speaking out at public forums to express our concerns, and last but not least, by throwing those who are failing to fight for us out at election time.
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Doug Draper, Niagara At Large
- You can visit a CBC Radio news report on the 25 per cent hike in postal services by clicking on – Canada Post is hiking its postage prices today. What does that mean for its future? | Radio-Canada.ca
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