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MP Salaries vs. Grocery Mark-ups: Who’s Minding the Store?

Tue, March 14, 2023   |   Author: Rod Taylor   |   Volume 30    Issue 11 | Share: Gab | Facebook | Twitter   

NDP leader, Jagmeet Singh, likes to tell Canadians that the rising costs at the grocery store are all due to corporate greed. No mention of the carbon taxes that he’s helped push on Canadians . . . carbon taxes that have automatically raised the cost of everything.

No mention of the billions that he and Justin Trudeau shovelled out to the Canadian workers they forced off the job due to misguided covid protocols and ineffective and harmful unscientific mandates. Billions we’ll never get back (PDF).

And no mention of the pay raises that Jagmeet, Justin and their colleagues pocketed every year during the pandemic, while ordinary Canadians were losing their jobs and struggling to get by. The PM will be taking in an additional $10,200 this year, on top of his current salary of $379,000. The lowest-paid NDP backbencher, already making $189,000 per annum, will get a pay increase of $5,100. I don’t hear any apologies or recriminations coming from Mr. Singh in that regard.

Greed has always been a problem; it’s one of the flaws of sinful human nature. CEOs of many companies—not only grocery store chains—may succumb to the temptation to raise prices to unreasonable levels during times of uncertainty. How much is too much? When does the natural desire to please shareholders become sinful? When does it become criminal? Is profitability a sin or is it a necessary motivation for risk-taking and entrepreneurship? How about politicians? Don’t they have a responsibility to lead by example?

These are questions all of us need to ask. We also need to ask why the leaders of the NDP and the Liberals are so selective in their condemnation of the profit motive. As revealed in the much-touted grilling of Loblaw President, Galen Weston, Jr., the corporation he heads makes about $1 profit on $25 worth of groceries. The other costs that go into the price of lettuce, cheese and beef—transportation, storage, wages, land, taxes, insurance and the increased costs of growing food—are not always in the control of the grocery chains. Fuel costs (carbon taxes, crippled energy sector, etc.) play a huge part, along with market volatility. But he pointed out that his company made the bulk of its record profits in non-grocery items, including pharmaceuticals.

That’s another area that Mr. Singh has not complained about. While he and Mr. Trudeau have shamelessly promoted, pushed and purchased (with taxpayer money) Pfizer and Moderna’s experimental gene therapies (deceitfully marketed as “vaccines”), those companies have made record profits. The secretive mishandling of experimental data by Pfizer, and the cover-up of vaccine injuries have never been questioned or challenged by the leader of the NDP, who—ironically—likes to be seen as “the peoples’ advocate” and the enemy of corporate profiteers. Pfizer had revenues of over $100 billion in 2022, of which $31.4 billion was pure profit. They’ve been given sweetheart deals by the Canadian government, been given a captive market, have their advertising paid for by government agencies, and have been guaranteed immunity from vaccine injury lawsuits. Mr. Singh and Mr. Trudeau have pushed and pulled them to unbelievable levels of financial success . . . yet Mr. Singh turns a blind eye to their government-sponsored profiteering at the expense of the health and prosperity of millions of Canadians. He talks derisively about “corporate welfare,” yet he and Mr. Trudeau have protected this Big Pharma cabal from the scrutiny it deserves.

The Christian Heritage Party of Canada opposes all forms of corporate welfare, government handouts to businesses and excessive salaries and benefits for politicians and bureaucrats. Politicians like to be called “public servants;” well and good. Let them try to do more serving the public and less self-serving at public expense. Learn more about us and join us at www.chp.ca.



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