Canadian politics thread

[mikemhg]

Originally Posted by Harvey Specter

Lets face it, Canada’s justice system is a mess. Judges are nearly untouchable, and even when one tries to do the right thing, the Supreme Court steps in and reverses it on ‘human rights’ grounds.

Aren't a lot of these problems distilled down to common law in Canada?

There's been so many precedents set in rulings in the past that it almost seems judges are handicapped in attributing proper punishment as a result.

[EvoFire]

So this is just an informational post - people might find it helpful in understanding what we are seeing in the warehouses these days…
I noticed the other day (we all have) how much beef has gone up in price since even this past winter. I use brisket as a test case - it seemed to me that the average brisket in Costco Canada was $90-130 back in February.
But the other day, all of them were $140-190! Wow… head math - that’s up about 45% in just 5 months. So before I start blaming anyone I wanted to speak with an expert - so Imcalled Costco’s regional office and said “may I speak with a beef buyer please?” Amd explained what I was trying to find out.
They put me in touch with their main beef buyer for Canada back east! And here is what he told me:
Right now Canada is “suffering” a surge in beef prices due to low inventory of cattle. He explained that the normal life cycle from birth to market-ready for beef cattle is about 3 years - and what we are seeing right now are shortages in supply that are resultant from the heart of the Covid lockdowns.
He explained that Canada, in particular, has some of, if not the lowest beef cattle inventories per capita of any country - and this is the reason for the spike in prices.
So it’s not taxes, government edict, tariffs or any other government imposed reason - and it’s certainly not price “gouging” by retailers/Costco.
He was awesome to speak with and instantly explained exactly what is going on in the Canadian market.
He also asked if I had tried the “new item”, beef tri-tip - which I have - but the price of that too has gone up. He seemed to be really hopeful about this product - which while tricky to cut - is a great cut when you’re used to it.
I will include a photo of my prior tri-tip purchase for you all.
Hope you find this helpful.
As usual - better service than expected from Costco - which is probably why most of us are here in this group.
Cheers everyone - next BbQ season should be a little cheaper I expect!

Anecdotal. But would help explain some of the price surging we are seeing of beef. It's not tariffs or taxes or the gov't is out to get you, or the farmers are out to get you. We are still dealing with the fallout of covid

[Great68]

I still remember that during the pandemic I picked up a prime brisket from Costco for like $60. I guess because all the restaurants were shut down.

I've never seen prime briskets at my Costco again before or ever since after. Always just AAA.

[westopher]

I’ve heard the same thing every year for the last 10 years with whatever reason they choose. We are somehow always short on cattle, but somehow prices go up 10 fold but somehow it’s not profitable to raise beef anymore.
It’s 5 things.
A lack of skilled meat cutters. They bring in cheap labour via TFWs, who can’t cut worth a fuck and turn 90% of a cow into ground beef.
Price of feed. Cows gotta eat too. Food is expensive, even for hay and slop.
Land is expensive, and somehow developing farmland at an alarming rate isn’t treated like it’s going to create food shortages.
Supply chain.
How many warehouses are needed to supply places. We basically pay 10 people to touch the beef instead of 1. So many middlemen profiting off of providing no value whatsoever.
Grocery stores making record profits. The buyer can say whatever he wants, but one look at what they made last year shows their part of it.

[Traum]

The food professor at Dalhousie -- Sylvain Charlebois -- has mentioned more than a few times that Canadian and American cattle inventory is at some historic low point. US inventory, in particular, is the same as they were back in the 50's (or something along those lines), but our population has obviously increased significantly compared to the 50's. So the lack of inventory is certainly one of the main reasons for high beef prices.

[Manic!]

Originally Posted by Traum

The food professor at Dalhousie -- Sylvain Charlebois -- has mentioned more than a few times that Canadian and American cattle inventory is at some historic low point. US inventory, in particular, is the same as they were back in the 50's (or something along those lines), but our population has obviously increased significantly compared to the 50's. So the lack of inventory is certainly one of the main reasons for high beef prices.

That dudes the loblaws/superstore dick rider.

https://www.reddit.com/r/loblawsisou...aws_professor/

[Traum]

The guy could be on the Weston's payroll, but I don't suppose the cattle inventory figures are something he (or anybody else) can make up. At the end of the day, supply and demand is a very simple economic constant that will always prevail.

[westopher]

Demand for beef in the same period per person has gone down substantially, and the ease of getting international products has also gone up substantially.
I’m definitely not claiming to know more than a professor that teaches about these things, but if he does have an angle like manic says, he’s probably doing a pretty good job of leaving out whole numbers.
Although Jordan Peterson is also a professor, so knowing anything at all is optional I suppose.