Canadians Panic As Food Prices Soar On Collapsing Currency
It was just yesterday when we documented the continuing slide in the loonie, which is suffering mightily in the face of oil’s inexorable decline.
As regular readers are no doubt acutely aware, Canada is struggling through a dramatic economic adjustment, especially in Alberta, the heart of the country’s oil patch. Amid the ongoing crude carnage the province has seen soaring property crime, rising food bank usage and, sadly, elevated suicide rates, as Albertans struggle to comprehend how things up north could have gone south (so to speak) so quickly.
The plunging loonie “can only serve to worsen the death of the 'Canadian Dream'" we said on Tuesday.
As it turns out, we were right.
The currency's decline is having a pronounced effect on Canadians' grocery bills.
As Bloomberg reminds us, Canada imports around 80% of its fresh fruits and vegetables. When the loonie slides, prices for those goods soar. "With lower-income households tending to spend a larger portion of income on food, this side effect of a soft currency brings them the most acute stress" Bloomberg continues.
Of course with the layoffs piling up, you can expect more households to fall into the "lower-income" category where they will have to fight to afford things like $3 cucumbers, $8 cauliflower, and $15 Frosted Flakes.
As Bloomberg notes, James Price, director of Capital Markets Products at Richardson GMP, recently joked during an interview on BloombergTV Canada that "we're going to be paying a buck a banana pretty soon."
Have a look at the following tweets which underscore just how bad it is in Canada's grocery aisles. And no, its not just Nunavut: it from coast to coast:
Three bucks. For a cucumber. pic.twitter.com/xGkygxkxqB
— Steve Ladurantaye (@sladurantaye) January 12, 2016
If the CAD $ gets any weaker we might be able to buy groceries with shiny rocks #Canada
— Josh Landine (@joshlandine) January 12, 2016
@sladurantaye Heh. Had a similar reaction when I saw the price of cauliflower. Welcome to the future… pic.twitter.com/fxloxyePY3
— Craig Saila (@saila) January 12, 2016
The cost of Tide detergent in Nunavut: pic.twitter.com/2t2xA1EmYk
— themsteri (@teririch) December 31, 2015
And while some Canadians might think this is a regional phenomenon ...
... folks in the northern parts of the Great White North do have the most cause to cry foul:
No "Jack Nasty" it's not The Great Depression, but as we highlighted three weeks ago, it is Canada's depression and it's likely to get worse before it gets better. "Last year, fruits and veggies jumped in price between 9.1 and 10.1 per cent, according to an annual report by the Food Institute at the University of Guelph," CBC said on Tuesday. "The study predicts these foods will continue to increase above inflation this year, by up to 4.5 per cent for some items."
If you thought we were being hyperbolic when we suggested that if oil prices don't rise soon, Canadians may well eat themselves to death, consider the following from Diana Bronson, the executive director of Food Secure Canada:
"Lower- and middle-class people — many who can't find a job that will pay them enough to ensure that they can afford a healthy diet for their families" — also feel the pinch of rising food prices"
"The wrong kind of food is cheap, and the right kind of food is still expensive."
In other words, some now fear that the hardest hit parts of the country may experience a spike in obesity rates as Canadians resort to cheap, unhealthy foods. As we put it, "in Alberta it's 'feast or famine' in the most literal sense of the phrase as those who can still afford to buy food will drown their sorrows in cheap lunch meat and off-brand ice cream while the most hard hit members of society are forced to tap increasingly overwhelmed food banks."
And the rub is that there's really nothing anyone can do about it.
Were the Bank of Canada to adopt pro-cyclical measures to shore up the loonie, they would risk choking off economic growth just as the crude downturn takes a giant bite out of the economy - no food pun intended.
(59 votes)
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Who would waste $5 on a cauliflower?
Cauliflower is Satan's favorite vegetable. Seriously. They taste even worse than they look.
Even The Chinese, who eat anything, won't touch cauliflower. Ever seen Gen. Cho's chicken made with cauliflower?
Wow. $3 for a cucumber.
Hey wait a minute. That's 3 Canadian dollars.
You had me going there for a minute.
I was confused also. Who'd a thunk they would be using Canadian dollars in Canada.
Love the old " none of it" line
Take off, ya hoseur.
Please tell the folks killing themselves to slow down. No need to rush things.
How does the Loonie crash affect Uncle Warren's tax inversion of Burger King to Tim Horton's Canada?
i know, can you believe it, the price of poutine down at the tim horton's is through the roof, eh?
good effort but tim horton's doesn't have poutine.
"i know, can you believe it, the price of poutine down at the tim horton's is through the roof, eh?"
True story.
I was with a guy from Alabama outside of Montreal about 15 years ago. Stopped at a Kentucky Fried Chicken. Or as it's called in French Quebec....."Poulet Frit A La Kentucky"
So he orders his meal and he notices that they don't have mashed potatoes but what looks like Fries with gravy on them. So he asks the waitress....."Whut iz that?" And she answers back in a thick French accent....."Uh...eet is Poutine?"
And this guy slaps me on the back and yells....."Gawd Damn son! They got POO TANG on the menu !! Well, Miss I want me some of that POO TANG !"
I laugh my ass off about it now......but back then I wanted to crawl under a rock. LOL !!
Would´ve been "amusant" if she had come back and served him a nice big glass of Tang with an ice cubed sized piece of shit floating in it.
Thought you said poontang there for a minute. That should be getting cheaper.
LOL.....that's what he WAS trying to say. Alabama hick couldn't even get poontang right.
$32 for soap? $15 for flakes of corn?
WTF?
Time to move.
Most of these people's families are Inuit (Eskimo) and have lived there for 10,000 years. Where they gonna go?
How much for a kilo of whale blubber?
1 sealskin acourse!
Inuit used to migrate to SEASONAL hunting grounds. They call it 'country food'. Beaver, rabbit, ptarmigan, goose, caribou, the occasional seal or whale, fish... The point is you had to follow your food around, though.
Of course, you need 'permanent settlements' to qualify as 'civilized', so we went along and settled those folks. This is the result.
Not sure but I'd like to get my hands on some. It's obviously potent stuff, I wrestled this little Eskimo once... man he was small but those guys are tough!
Please elaborate on your Eskimo wrestling story. I'm intrigued.
I was young, "doin' dumb shit" in a bad place in northern Canada.
There are hardly any whales left thanks to Norway and Japan. A year or so ago some hunters in Iqualuit managed to bag one and it was the first time ever may people in the community had eaten whale. Which is a shame really. They have evolved genetically over thousands of years to be specialized in being able to eat huge quantities of fats without getting heart disease. It's the southern diets that are killing them through diabetes and cancers.
We are all specialized in eating huge amounts of fats without getting heart disease. We just eat 450 grams of easy carbs, and unnatural industrialized fats that are sold as "good for us" when they are actually horrible for you (ie - margarine), every day instead...
They don't need to go anywhere. They've did just fine for 9970 years with out a grocery store or tide. We could all learn a thing or twelve from them.
But they did wash their clothes with the tide.
THat's in the high north where all food and groceries are flown in by robber baron bush pilots on contract to the government.
I remember a Nunavut government official refer to Nutrition North as little more than a subsidy to the airlines servicing the region.
Nothing like a bunch of white people from the south running the show and decide to solve the Inuit diabetes problem is to provide them with food that makes it worse. White middle-class dogooders in Ottawa still scratching their heads when not buried deep in the sand.
Damn Canadians.
before NAFTA you could ship things in and out of Canada like shipping to North Dakota. Yesterday, it cost me $55 to Fedx less than an ounce to Calgary. Some rule maker has made getting things in/out of Canada painfully expensive.
There ya go...free trade working at it's finest.
Out of over 700 ebay purchases exactly TWO have been from Canada thanks to the outlandish shipping costs.
Used to be a rabid Rush Limpbaugh listener many years ago until I heard him promoting NAFTA and GATT. That's when I knew he had sold out to the globalist interests and began waking up. Some days I wish I were still asleep. dreaming the "'Murikan Dream"...
Seriously, Nuvant? I can't believes the prices are so low! That place is the ass-end of Canada with a population of 20 Eskimos and a polar bear. I can't believe they even have stores there, let alone semi-reasonable prices. These aren't the prices in Ottowa or Calgary here people, it's a convenience store near Ice Station Zebra. The CAD may be taking a beating, but this article is flat-out propaganda.
NUNAVUT. Creton.
CRETIN, cretin.
GODDAMN IT !! IT'S CROUTONS FOR FUCK'S SAKE !!!
AND THEY'RE $19.99 A BAG. Aisle 4.
Use Google much? Really helpful in helping folks like you avoid showing ignorance...
Yeah, and I hate paying for $2.50 a piece for avocados in the off-season as well, but sometimes you gotta cough up those tokens, bucko.
It's the $5 for an organic carrot at whole paycheck then irritates me.
They have a few items I can't find anywhere else, but otherwise, I like going to 99 Ranch. The fish is reasonable, and I buy the sliced pork bellies to skip all the salt that usually goes with bacon.
http://www.99ranch.com/
I'm not sure which one you go to, but it seems like most of the 99 Ranch outlets aren't bad. At least they keep them relatively clean most of the time. A lot of the other Asian markets are pretty grungy. Do you go for the live fish or the ones already on ice?
For a few short years there used to be a small business in Cupertino, CA, the Monta Vista Market. They had the best produce from local farmers, at the most reasonable prices imaginable. Was sad to hear it went out of business - I used to be a frequent patron. Now it's like a salon or restaurant or something stupid.
The Whole Foods down the streets draws the whole town. Even me, sometimes - just last night, it shook $70 out of me.
why not plant your own avocado trees? they grow well in the bay area
mine are just starting to produce, 7 avocados from one tree, 1 humongous avocado from the second tree
Totally, hombre - it's been the plans to upgrade the garden for a while. I'm gonna build some raised beds this month to get the big garden going, and get trees planted as well. It's been on my mind to get some orange, peach, and avocado trees going. We already get some great plums and cherries, and grapes when the the ants don't eat them first.
Better get straight with the permitting and inspection agency, USDA, Health Dept., and homeowner association before planting.
By the way, those trees don't need water, do they?
And don't try and be slick with a rain barrel. Not your water, it's the Emperors'.
Those are not "carbon" based plants, are they?
You're axing for trouble, pal.
Pretty much every water agency in California is offering rebates that cover virtually the entire cost of a rain barrel.
None of this is true in Cali believe it or not. California is on the path to force property owners doing new construction to keep all stormwater on site and turn it into drinking water. The stupid thing is how much recycled water pipe infrastructure is already built and its a big secret. New construction is already putting in connections for this when it goes live.
To go back onto topic does gold and silver work out better or worse in the pictures above?
Worse. People haven't bought food with gold..... ever. Even if they did during some massive disaster, you can be damn sure there was a massive discount to the point you would have been better off having any other basic staple to trade with. Long toilet paper and sugar!
LOL!
"Eco terrizz", planting carbon time bombs. Run!!!
Try some diatomaceous earth for insect control.
https://www.diatomaceousearth.com/natural-ant-hill-remedy/
Works on ass crabs too!
(This slogan was borrowed from the U.S. Army's Dept. of Marketing for depleted uranium ammunition)
You get one of my few up arrows. I love that stuff! It's like laying down piles of tiny razor blades for insects. I put it down around my door seals in the spring/summer to keep ants out. I even tried putting it around the crevesases around my porch that insects live in. It made them all dissapear for about 3 months till the wind/rain got rid of it.
How about fire ants? They probably eat the D-earth and piss Black Flag ant killer. They are bad asses.