Hot on the heels of videos showing Justin Trudeau “dad dancing” at a Taylor Swift concert, the prime minister is now posting selfies on social media of himself at a pub, beer in hand, with a big smile and friendship bracelets featured prominently on his wrist. It looks as if the prime minister hasn’t a care in the world.
Meanwhile, a northern Saskatchewan town has seen an outbreak of scurvy, a disease more often associated with the Middle Ages, or with unfortunate sailors enduring the hardship of sea voyages between the 15th and 19th centuries.
The reason scurvy has arisen in modern-day Canada is because after nine years of Trudeau’s disastrous economic policies, people can’t afford to eat proper food. And if U.S. president-elect Donald Trump follows through on his threat to impose 25 per cent tariffs on all Canadian goods, then every person in this country can expect to feel the pinch.
Trudeau’s answer to these economic and food issues is for all Canadians to enjoy a GST/HST tax break on items such as beer, wine and snacks, which will hardly help the scurvy sufferers in Saskatchewan.
To ram the beer message home, the prime minister posted a selfie on Twitter of himself and a friend at a pub in Prince Edward Island. “Starting December 14, bills at pubs and restaurants — like P.E.I’s Lone Oak Brewing Co. — will be tax-free for two months. Cheers to that,” wrote Trudeau.
To be very, very clear: nobody should object to the prime minister having a pint in a pub or resent that he went to a Taylor Swift concert with his family. What is objectionable is the prime minister posting these “Look how cool I am” pictures when so many people are suffering right now.
Is it too much to ask the prime minister to act prime ministerial? Trudeau didn’t have to pose, beer in hand, for the selfie. He could have gone to a local grocery store and held up a pack of diapers, which are also eligible for the tax break.
He doesn’t have to act dour and dowdy, but he could at least act in a more professional manner. He’s paid to be a politician, not a poseur.
“Sunny ways” quickly tired as a slogan, but the prime minister is still acting out the “sunny ways” philosophy: be bright, be cheerful, be cool, be progressive and make sure you’re smiling in every photograph.
But for those suffering from scurvy, it must be hard to be upbeat and sunny. Food insecurity is a real problem in Canada. Too many people don’t have enough to eat or aren’t eating the right foods.
For the second year in a row, Food Banks Canada has put out an alarming report highlighting the crisis that is affecting so many Canadians. In March, there were more than two-million visits to food banks in Canada, the highest number in history, according to the organization.
“This record level of usage is consistent with record high rates of food insecurity and reflects findings from other recent studies showing greater numbers of people experiencing economic hardship,” wrote Food Banks Canada.
“This year’s food bank usage represents a 90 per cent increase compared to March 2019, and there are signs that the food banking system is reaching its absolute limit.”
So, under the last five years of Trudeau’s economic policies, food bank use has almost doubled. That is damning. That a third of people accessing food banks are children is equally damning.
In October, the Canadian Medical Association Journal reported on a 65-year-old patient in Toronto who had scurvy. It advised clinicians to be on the lookout for hypovitaminosis C (scurvy) if they see abnormal bleeding in future patients.
“Particular attention should also be paid to assessing for food insecurity, which is an equally important and ubiquitous risk factor for hypovitaminosis C, affecting about one in five Canadian households,” noted the authors.
In La Ronge, Sask., doctors believe the scurvy outbreak is because people aren’t getting the food they need and believe the cases they are seeing are but the tip of the iceberg. Dr. Nnamdi Ndubuka, a medical officer with the Northern Inter-Tribal Health Authority, told CTV News, “We have reason to believe that the scope of the problem might be larger than we think at this point.”
Cutting sales taxes on beer, wine, cider, carbonated drinks, snacks, candy, as well as such things as Christmas trees, diapers and shoes, isn’t going to cure Canada’s food-affordability crisis. It certainly won’t help those with scurvy.
And cutting a cheque for $250 to Canadians who earned up to $150,000 in 2023 is an insult not just to those with scurvy, but to everyone who has been forced to use a food bank, or miss a meal, or are hungry, or live in poverty.
For the record, a family of four in Calgary, earning between $43,110 and $55,771 — depending on the metric used — would be considered to be living in poverty, according to Enough for All, an organization that advocates for the elimination of poverty.
Food insecurity is a long-term problem that has exploded under the Trudeau government. It won’t be fixed with quick Christmas gimmicks. But hey, if you can’t afford food, at least beer will be cheaper. As the prime minister so cheerily wrote: cheers!
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