Some families are struggling due to sticker shock at the grocery store
Thanksgiving is this weekend. With the price of food these days, we’re all wondering how most of us will cope. In partnership with Angus Reid, Dalhousie University’s Agri-Food Analytics Lab investigated what Canadian consumers plan to do with their menu over the weekend. In total, 1,503 Canadians were consulted on September 30, 2022, for this…
The total payroll tax bill for each middle-class worker increased by $818 this year alone
Political pundits are twisting themselves into pretzels arguing mandatory Canada Pension Plan and Employment Insurance payments are not a tax. They’re missing the point: the government is taking too much money from Canadians. If you make $65,000 this year, then the federal government is taking nearly $4,500 directly from your pay through CPP and EI…
Hardworking Ontario families need all the help they can get
If Ontario Premier Doug Ford doesn’t want to be the grinch who stole Christmas, he’ll start working on a plan to make Ontario’s temporary gas tax cut permanent. Ontario drivers are now at the midpoint of the Ford government’s temporary gas tax relief period. Beginning on July 1, the province reduced its gas excise tax…
Hard-working, struggling Canadians need meaningful tax relief
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s approach to making life more affordable is like giving somebody a bike after totalling their car and then waiting for a big thank you. Instead of reversing his recent tax hikes, Trudeau’s latest crack at making life more affordable includes GST rebates and borrowing another $2 billion to cover some rent…
A labour shortage will reduce income inequality. But inflation will trend higher
Written by economists Charles Goodhart and Manoj Pradhan, The Great Demographic Reversal is a provocative read. And with 81 diagrams and 23 tables, it’s chockful of data in support of its thesis. That thesis is simple: “Of one thing we are sure, the future will be nothing like the past.” Or at least nothing like…
It is time for tax reductions to help consumers weather food inflation
Did you know that there is a global food security index? The well-known magazine The Economist has just published its 11th edition. The Global Food Security Index comprises a set of indices from more than 120 different countries. Since 2012, the index has been based on four main pillars: food access, safety, sustainable development, and…
Almost 24 per cent now cutting back on food purchases, almost 70 per cent of whom are women
While inflation is showing signs of dissipating, food inflation appears to be on a totally different path. Food inflation has outpaced our general inflation rate for over 12 months now. Statistics Canada just announced that the food inflation rate for retail was 10.8 per cent and 7.4 per cent in food service. Canada ranks third…
Both sectors face inflationary pressures but are being dealt with very differently
As anyone who has ever spent time in the kitchen knows, when a pot is boiling over, you do not put a lid on it. You lower the heat. Adding a cover does nothing to reduce the cause of all the excess bubbles and steam. In fact, increasing the pressure within the vessel generates an…
The West won’t dig itself out of the crisis unless it decisively responds to Putin’s strategic aim
The cost of living crisis is being misrepresented and mishandled by the political class. Misrepresented because only occasionally do politicians link the crisis to the Russia-Ukraine War and Putin’s use of hybrid warfare to destabilize the West; mishandled because, fundamentally, the solution lies not in economic measures but in ensuring first that Russia is defeated…
The method StatsCan uses to measure inflation bears no relationship to the reality Canadians face
By Nathalie Elgrably-Lévy and Valentin Petkantchin For several months now, rising prices have dominated public consciousness and raised anxiety in most households. Not for decades has Statistics Canada’s monthly inflation rate indicator been awaited with such rapt attention. This indicator is much like a thermometer monitoring a patient’s fever while under observation. Related Stories Food…