Federal NDP leader Jagmeet Singh has issued a public rebuke of the wealthy grocery oligarchs driving up the cost of food in Canada, referring to industry titans as “greedy CEOs” and calling rampant grocery inflation “wrong and unjust.”
Singh tweeted the harsh words to his over 588,000 followers on Tuesday, blaming but not naming CEOs like Galen Weston Jr., and alleging that the federal Liberal and Conservative parties have allowed runaway grocery inflation to go unchecked.
Your prices continue to sky-rocket.
$42 for a caesar salad at Sobeys
$37 for chicken at Loblaws.
Why? Because greedy CEOs are taking advantage of inflation to line their pockets.
And the Liberals and Conservatives are allowing them to do so.
It’s wrong and unjust.
— Jagmeet Singh (@theJagmeetSingh) January 17, 2023
In a follow-up tweet, Singh told supporters that he “won’t stop fighting back.”
“In December, our investigation into your food prices began,” said the NDP leader, adding that “this year, New Democrats will [be] carrying on that fight.”
The tweet comes amid continued public outrage from sticker-shocked shoppers who feel like they have to take out a second mortgage just to put food on the table.
Earlier on Tuesday, Statistics Canada reported that the national annual inflation rate slowed to a still worrying 6.3% in December, yet food prices increased by 11% year-over-year that same month, underscoring how grocery bills are rising at a much faster rate than monetary inflation.
And it looks like nobody has told Singh about the $15 maple syrup yet, just the latest outrageous price comparison to generate clicks on social media.
This week, a shopper reported a 114% price increase on the sticky stuff in just seven months, rising in price from $6.99 for a 500 ml bottle in May 2022 to $14.99 in January 2023.
Why are you paying more and getting less?
Why are corporate profits up and wages down?
Why are you working harder but falling behind?Because Liberals/Conservatives have rigged the system
When I’m Prime Minister that changes
You’ll get respect and CEOs will pay what they owe pic.twitter.com/jskhxBmMTk
— Jagmeet Singh (@theJagmeetSingh) January 15, 2023
Singh’s attempt to tap into the zeitgeist by appealing to the growing down-with-big-grocery camp missed the mark with some. A few commenters are trying to refute that his quoted prices are genuine, despite well-documented accounts proving such.
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Others suggest Singh bears some responsibility in the ongoing grocery inflation crisis, including one commenter that alleges the NDP leader is an “enabler” to the federal Liberal administration that the rise in grocery prices has occurred under.
Another Twitter critic suggests that Singh “call a no confidence vote! Or at least threaten and make meaningful movements towards one” as a means of applying pressure to the feds.
The issue feels like it’s on the verge of a boilover, fostering an almost revolutionary culture of brazenly shoplifting from grocery stores as shoppers pushed to their financial breaking points adopt a Robin Hood-like mentality of taking from the rich to feed the struggling social classes below.
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