The price of bananas

by BRIAN LOCKHART

I went to the gas station a few days ago and was shocked to see the price had risen to $1.67 per litre.

Are we outraged? We were, at one time, for a short period. Not anymore.

Now everyone just sucks it up and pays the price.

The technique of forcing Canadians to accept something simply by ignoring them and continuing with business as usual has worked once again.

Canadian are notorious for this. If you ignore something, apparently it will go away. Except it never does. People just finally accept it.

Several years ago, I was working in a large building for a large company. The cafeteria in the building had a full-service type of operation where you could order food.

It was nothing fancy, but at least you could get something to eat or drink on your break.

The company decided to build a brand-new building. I was looking at the plans for the new building because I was responsible for designing the layout in my department, and noticed the cafeteria was simply a room with tables. There was no food service at all – just a couple of vending machines.

I questioned the management team on this, and asked why the new cafeteria was simply a room.

I was told, they didn't want to spend the money to build any kind of commercial kitchen.

“We believe if we don't give employees food service to begin with, they will just forget about it and think that it's normal,” one manager told me.

That sort of worked, but it backfired – big time.

When we started at the new building, employees started bringing in their lunch. They had no choice if they wanted to eat.

However, one day I went into the cafeteria, and saw a group of managers sitting at a table. There was nothing on the table – no sandwiches, no coffee, no cold drinks – because there was nowhere to get them.

I couldn't resist. I walked over to the table, took a look at them and said, “good thing you guys didn't build this place with a food service. Otherwise, you would have to clear that table when you leave.”

Yes, I got a few angry stares, from this group who routinely made the fashion faux pas of wearing a tie without a jacket, and made the decision not to build a real cafeteria.

Not long after, the GM announced they were going to bring in a food service, “in appreciation of our employees.”

What he meant was, “it was stupid of us to build a cafeteria with no food, because now I can't even get a coffee.”

How many times has government announced an unpopular decision that makes the news, then the outrage just goes away after things are put into place?

Canadians have a tendency to just accept what is happening whether they like it or not.

The plan to raise the price of gas was to put us in line with what Europeans are paying – that was a comment made by the P.M.

Who cares what Europe pays for gas? 

It is also a precursor to the apparent coming of the electric automobile, whether we want electric vehicles or not.

If they raise the gas to a level that is not affordable, people will be forced to buy electric cars.  

Just take a look at the website of any of the major automobile producers. They aren't promoting their electric vehicles. They are promoting their gas-powered vehicles.

The automakers don't want to make the switch. They know what their customers want, and they don't want to produce and promote a product people won't buy.

The increase in the price of fuel is also directly responsible for inflation – there's no doubt about that.

Everyone is complaining about the cost of food, but no one does anything about it.

You can't double the price of fuel and think the people who transport goods are just going absorb that cost. They charge more to bring those bananas to the supermarket, and you pay that additional cost the next time you need to buy groceries.

That increase in fuel affects everything from trucking companies, to the farmers who have to fuel their tractors to plow the fields, to aircraft, and the railways that transport goods.

But Canadians just accept it and move on – but whine about it later.

We have MPPs and MPs responsible for what is happening.

It's up to constituents to make their voices heard by contacting those representatives and letting them know we will not accept unpopular decisions.