This article originally appeared in the Financial Post. Below is an excerpt from the article, which can be read in full here.
By Jack Mintz, January 23, 2023
During the pandemic, a trip to the grocery store was pretty much our social life. I marvelled at how well supplied the shelves were (except, in the early days, with toilet paper) and how prices remained reasonable despite so many of us having to stay at home.
After 2020, grocery shopping became a drudgery. Shelves were emptier due to supply shortages although that improved this past year. After escalating for two years, food prices are high today for many products. An English cucumber that sold for about a dollar in 2020 now costs $2.99. A chicken is almost a third more. At one of our neighbourhood stores, sad to say, I saw senior citizens fumbling through their cash to pay $80 for just a handful of food items.
We had to buy gas before our grocery outing — $1.48 per litre, 40 cents more than two years ago despite falling gas prices since last spring. Of course, gas prices now include two carbon tax hikes since 2020.
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