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York-Simcoe riding residents like me probably received the constituents’ check-up flyer from our Member of Parliament Scot Davidson.
Our beaming MP, stands arms crossed beside the CPC election campaign motto, Axe the Tax. Unfold the paper and behold a crazy quilt of images; everything from beef and potatoes to oranges and baby food. Groceries with price mark-ups to frighten most folks’ already wrung out wallets.
On the next page is a survey where I chose to rate Scot’s performance: “wrong track”. Scot, CPC leader Pierre Poilievre, and team Tory promote the false claim (straw man) that carbon pricing is the main driver spiking food costs.
The Bank of Canada though, estimates that greenhouse gas pollution pricing contributes less than one percent (.15 per cent) to inflation. If food prices are important to you and you’d like to know the real causes behind the exorbitant price rises and the culprits doing the price gouging, it's easy to find. A computer search for “Canada’s Food Price Report 2024” will give you what you need to know.
Might make you wonder how reliable people are who try to fool you with fake reasons for the rising cost of your breakfast, lunch and supper; and if you can trust them to handle the climate chaos we’re all watching unfold.
The legerdemain of the axe wielders deserves poetic memorializing I'd say.
Axe the Lax
Pity the poor parliamentarian
Seduced by his master’s succubus.
Excuse me for being contrarian, sir
But you’re in Ottawa for the rest of us
You send us your grocery store flyer
Declaiming price rises in sustenance
Perhaps you should try harder, eh?
To grasp inflation’s persistence
The causes are several, some very small
Though you choose to bedevil the facts.
Climate change is the reason leading them all
Too truculent to banish by swinging the axe
You aim your ire at inflation’s trifling seed
Though it’s a measure to reduce climate chaos
A straw man fallacy, you choose to plead:
“Cut carbon pricing,” yet shrug off climate damage & loss
Pity the paucity-of-ideas men
Wanting to renew our favour
Tax-axers demanding rural rebates then
Look hypocritical by their very labour
David Hawkins
Bradford West Gwillimbury