Mediaboss Marketing

Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland would like you to know that she will be grocery shopping in Toronto this weekend.

Im going to cook on Saturday, Freeland told reporters at a news conference this week. I go to the grocery store whenever Im home.

Freeland offered this little advance peek at her personal itinerary to prove that she is aware of the price of milk and bacon, bread and chicken.

How much are Canadians paying for chicken these days? Conservative MP Michelle Rempel asked in the Commons on Wednesday.

Her colleague, Conservative Deputy Leader Candice Bergen, was curious about whether Justin Trudeau does his own shopping.

When was the last time he went and filled up his tank with gas? she asked. When has he gone to a grocery store or a hardware store? Does he know what a loaf of bread costs now, or maybe a can of beans or a package of bacon?

Just in time for Black Friday, the political debate in Ottawa has become seized with all matters to do with shopping. It is the product pardon the pun of rising inflation, which is a relatively new and unwelcome development in Canada. The politics of grocery prices, however, are old and familiar.

Its so familiar, in fact, that price of milk question has its own Wikipedia entry, defined as: a tactic for gauging political candidates familiarity with the lives of ordinary voters.

Famous politicians who have been tripped up by this question, Wikipedia goes on to say, include U.S. president George H.W. Bush and British prime minister David Cameron. Long before he became Donald Trumps lawyer, Rudy Giuliani stumbled over the price of milk when he was running for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination, saying a gallon cost about $1.50 when the actual price was closer to three times that. But wily Margaret Thatcher, the daughter of a grocer, reportedly kept a list of prices of common shopping-list items among her briefing papers when she was prime minister of the U.K.

That rich history explains why all those questions were flying around Parliament this week about the price of bacon, milk and chicken.

Inflation is not a great thing for Canadian consumers, but it is a good issue for the Conservatives as Parliament resumes this week for the first time since the election. The focus on rising prices keeps the party focused on matters in which it traditionally has some credibility with the voters: budget management and consumer-friendly policies.

As a bonus, it also gives the Conservatives another way to cast Trudeau as a member of the privileged, out-of-touch elite, another now-familiar trope in Canadian politics. Justinflation is the term that finance critic Pierre Poilievre introduced to the Commons this week, with his trademark dramatic pause, and a few hours later, the made-up word had its own hashtag on Twitter.

The Liberals reply, at least so far, is that inflation is a global phenomenon, created by the pandemic and worldwide problems in supply chains. Freeland stood in the Commons on Thursday and rattled off a list of all the countries where inflation is rocketing up faster than it is in Canada.

Yes, everyday affordability is a growing concern, the government acknowledges, but this is why the Liberals are barrelling ahead with $10-a-day child care and initiatives to make home ownership more attainable.

All of this may be true, but inflation may be shaping up to be a bigger political problem for the Liberals than the pandemic was. Those are abstract answers to very real, tangible problems in Canadian households as 2021 draws to a close.

The government had an array of fixes immediate ones for the economic damage of COVID-19. Despite some Conservative attempts to lay blame for the pandemic at the feet of the Liberals, most Canadians were aware that the Trudeau government didnt actually bring the coronavirus to this country.

That case may be harder to make with this global phenomenon, especially if Conservatives keep insisting as Poilievre repeated on Thursday that inflation here is a homegrown result of too much spending during the pandemic.

Inflation, in short, is the very definition of a populist, pocketbook issue, which is why the Conservatives have rushed to make it their own. People are being priced out of their own lives, Conservative Leader Erin OToole told reporters on Thursday.

An Ipsos poll for Global News this week reported that four out of five Canadians are now worried or very worried about inflation, their anxiety rising along with prices. Expect Freeland and other members of the Trudeau government to be talking a lot more about the shopping theyre doing.

Correction Nov. 26, 2021: This article was edited to correct that Candice Bergen is the Conservative Deputy Leader, not House Leader.

JOIN THE CONVERSATION

Anyone can read Conversations, but to contribute, you should be registered Torstar account holder. If you do not yet have a Torstar account, you can create one now (it is free)

Sign In

Register

Follow this link:
Whether its inflation or Justinflation, Liberals are keeping a careful eye on grocery prices - Toronto Star