Juno News - Are politicians to blame for the cost of living increasing？

00:00:00.000 cost of living in Canada is really becoming an issue right now inflation is happening and it

00:00:10.560 is a problem now you don't need me to tell you that you don't need a statistics Canada report

00:00:15.420 to tell you that although there are those reports and more on those in just a moment

00:00:18.920 people don't need to be told that because they're seeing it they're feeling it they're feeling the

00:00:23.680 squeeze they see it on their grocery bills pretty much every day people say you know it used to cost

00:00:28.560 me this much to fill up the cart once a week in the grocery store now it's costing me so much more

00:00:33.520 10 percent 20 percent 30 percent more depending on what they're buying so they see what's going on

00:00:38.480 they know what's going on just drive down the street and you see the price of gas literally there

00:00:43.180 on those prices they're increasing people going wow price of gas really going up there back to those

00:00:49.840 statistics Canada reports latest one saying year-over-year inflation 4.4 percent but that's

00:00:56.040 of course an average across all sorts of different goods a lot of staples of daily life though they

00:01:01.160 are greatly exceeding that average pork going up by about 10 percent canola oil which people use for

00:01:07.560 all sorts of cooking of course that's gone up way more than that and of course this disproportionately

00:01:12.680 affects low-income people these price increases rich people have to pay for them too but obviously

00:01:17.720 they're in a way better position to absorb them if you're just getting by this makes it even more

00:01:22.760 difficult middle-class families who are putting food on the table for multiple kids they're dealing

00:01:27.400 with all of these realities as well a lot of people really frustrated to see all of this happen

00:01:32.920 because there's a lot of macroeconomics at play but there's also things that politicians have done that

00:01:38.760 have created distortionary effects that a lot of economists are saying this is what is at least

00:01:44.360 worsened this current situation for instance flooding flooding all this money into the economy that some of it

00:01:50.600 wasn't needed we appreciate that a lot of the pandemic relief was needed early on in lockdowns but

00:01:55.640 a lot of the stuff the federal liberal government did some of it people calculating going i don't know

00:02:00.680 if this money actually needed to go out the door and that has distortionary effects inflationary effects

00:02:05.880 on the economy likewise all the push for the green agenda if you believe that a a green revolution

00:02:11.800 is coming soon uh regardless in terms of all the r d businesses are doing community-led initiatives

00:02:17.640 personal choice consumer choice and i believe there's going to be a lot of that in the decades

00:02:21.560 ahead okay well let the chips fall as they may but when government says we're going to

00:02:26.520 try and top down micromanage redistribute the economy consistent with a green agenda picking

00:02:32.760 winners picking losers that also has distortionary effects on the economy in terms of the reallocation

00:02:38.440 of resources this is the stuff we're seeing at play basically government interference causing

00:02:44.120 a lot of challenges in the economy and making things more difficult for people's lives so cost of

00:02:50.200 living big problem in canada right now and when all these politicians talk about build back better and

00:02:55.880 so forth look we don't need you creating all these new programs out of thin air throwing money left right

00:03:02.040 and center at the pet projects and special interest groups really you've got regular canadians saying no

00:03:07.240 this is the issue cost of living and us feeling the squeeze day to day in our wallets

Juno News - October 20, 2021