Canadians have gotten used to food choices that would have boggled the minds of an earlier generation and much of the rest of the world even today..Young people have not experienced supermarket stores where apples, oranges and bananas were all the fruit there was, and a chicken for Sunday dinner was a big deal..That however was life in the ’50s..Not so today. It’s great. Whatever you can afford, whenever you want it from wherever it comes from, year-round, and if chicken’s your treat, it’s cheaper than Alberta beef. .Thing is, it all depends on cheap oil. And whether cheap oil lasts depends in part on the policies Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government is pursuing..To be fair, it also depends on OPEC, war in Ukraine and other things. However, everything the Liberals are doing points to costlier groceries..But first, try this. Don't take my word for it. Check your own fridge. See where what you’re eating and drinking is coming from..When Judy and I did this, we found the only continent unrepresented on our shelves was Antarctica. So, fruit from Chile and South Africa. Weekday wine from Australia and for Sunday, something a bit more pretentious from France. Lettuce from California and thawing for later, salmon caught off Alaska. In the larder, noodles from China. The flowers on the table, Holland. And so on..We get our butter, meat and potatoes locally but a kitchen tour shows that like everybody else in Canada, we shop the world. And it's not that we try to do this for the sake of gastronomic oneupmanship. It’s just that when you do your grocery shopping anywhere between Cape Race and Nootka Sound, this is what’s there for everybody..Lucky us. It’s not like this everywhere in the world..So back to the matter of whether this can last..What makes it possible to have the fruit of six continents on your table, is cheap oil. That is, you can only buy tulips from Amsterdam, where the flower market is right next to the Schiphol airport, if the cost of jet fuel makes it possible to deliver fresh-cut stems at a price people can afford..Same with fresh produce. Everything depends on cheap shipping, including that piece of salmon that will probably be processed in China before it hits the seafood counter in Alberta..Yes, they really do that. China’s cheap labour makes it worthwhile. But it won’t matter if the saving is eaten up by transportation..My bet is that these good times won’t survive Trudeau's climate-change policies. To the degree that they do, there will be a more limited selection for those who can afford outrageous prices..So, why?.It’s because the overarching priority of Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government is not ‘good government,’ in the sense of sound financial management..It is his self-appointed mission to have Canada ‘show leadership’ on climate-change, by trying to cut carbon emissions by making fuel more expensive..Hence four lifestyle-killing policies of carbon tax, the insane instruction to make electrical generation carbon net-neutral by 2035, mandating reduced fertilizer use (thereby raising the cost of agricultural products) and caps on Alberta oil production. All of this raises the price of energy and therefore, of food..Why this dominates Mr. Trudeau's thinking is not public knowledge. He's not leading anybody, he's just going for a walk and if he thinks he’s saving the world, the rest of the world reckons there's a business case for letting him do so..Meanwhile, they continue to build coal-fired generators all over Asia and Iraq, while Brazil, Iran and Norway are set to exceed Canada as an oil producer..This of course, in addition to the amateur-hour economics that has caused an inflationary spike in food prices, one that much to the surprise of the Governor of the Bank of Canada, persisted..No wonder the TD Bank reports that our standard of living is falling. They cite low productivity, and that is true. However, rising energy prices will make it lower yet. This all goes back to the same thing, the Trudeau government's belief that only one thing really matters — carbon net zero. .The rest of the world doesn't share that belief..Neither do I; our emissions are too small to make a difference. (And cutting emissions doesn't affect sun-spot activity.).Naturally, the Liberal government doesn’t talk about it, but the inevitable consequence of Trudeau's climate change policies is more expensive everything, and when prices rise too much, very less choice..We won't starve. But if you're a foodie, enjoy it while it lasts.
