Canada Has Been Consumed by Greed

Ever go to the store and wonder if you are getting the value for your dollar? Today, you will learn that you aren’t only being gauged, but that you are also being gaged, and robbed of your precious earnings. In a recent impulse of curiosity – checking out Bing’s new shopping feature, I learned that we are paying as much as 81% more money for the exact same goods as our American counterparts… It’s not like I didn’t know that we paid more and wished that I had the means to bring my wallet down south, but 81% is a hefty difference. It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words and this one can pretty much sum up the picture that I saw - not a pretty sight.





Funny enough, the Canadian dollar sits today (January 15, 2011)  at $1.01 US, pinning our dollar as more valuable. In this instance, our retailers should be cutting prices. However, in the past 5 years, our prices have increased by upwards of 9% – not to mention that American retailers haven’t been as greedy as ours.

“The year of 2010 alone had a price hike of 2%”

Statistics Canada

Greed is what caused the recession that we have to endure and clean up today. Along with the sudden realization that most of the money that we lent didn’t exist in the first place. With this combination of woes, people are closing their wallets and fearing the collector and in the end of the day, Canadian retailers wonder why they are losing business… To be frank, Canadians won’t be conned into bad deals - and those that read this article will soon learn that the painful trip to the border is all the while worth it.

It just goes to show that when you let a greedy, irresponsible government such as that of Stephen Harper’s Conservatives take power that we get worse off and we don’t get the value of our dollar… Michael Ignatieff has a point when he asks if we are better off after 5 years and uses the data from Statistics Canada to back himself up. Wait, didn’t Stephen Harper want to scrap that? Oh yeah… The yearly census… Who knew a piece of paper was that important? But the question now remains, will Michael Ignatieff be the right man to bring in the solutions? That is something to watch – especially with the keen attitude for a spring election on his part.

For now though, let us send a message to our greedy retail friends – not the poor cashiers, but their bosses. A clear message that states that we won’t be spending at their stores until they can compete with their American counterparts which can and offer deals that are at least 60% better than ours – in some cases, a difference of over $1000. Did Stephen Harper’s 2% cut to the GST fix that? Not at all.