I don’t know about you, but in my circle of friends and family, hardly anyone complains about food prices anymore.

It’s almost like we’ve just accepted the monthly increases as normal.

Most media aren’t reporting on grocery bills as they once did either. Some are now reporting that inflation is slowing as opposed to framing it as they once did: in the reality we’re all still paying more.

Our grocery bills are still going up. We still have less in our pockets at the end of each month. But people seem … resigned. What gives?

It’s true that as Canadians, we’re a complacent bunch.

French citizens by the thousands are taking to streets to protest increasing the retirement from 62 to 64. In Canada, it went from 65 to 67 without most people blinking. I think it could go up to 69 and most of us would agree that the lack of workers justifies it.

Here, many homeowners are paying hundreds more per month for their mortgage. More for gas. More for groceries. More for everything. And barely a peep. Certainly, no one is taking to the streets.

Have folks simply found a way to pay for everything? (If so, please share with the rest of us!)

Or maybe we’re all too busy working 2 or 3 jobs to find time to protest?

Quoting The Canadian Press article I linked above:

“…the deceleration hasn’t brought much relief to homeowners with new mortgages or renewing their mortgages at high interest rates. Mortgage interest costs rose at the fastest pace on record last month, up 26.4 per cent from a year ago.

Grocery prices are also still rising rapidly, but at a slower pace. Grocery prices were up 9.7 per cent on a year-over-year basis in March, down from 10.6 per cent in February. Statistics Canada said the deceleration was driven by lower prices for fruits and vegetables.

Economists have long been expecting slower price increases up the food supply chain to filter down to slower prices increases at grocery stores. 

“I don’t think we’re gonna get a lot of relief from from high prices, they just won’t be rising as quickly as what we’ve seen over the past year,” Porter said.” 

So, the inflation rate is going down, but grocery prices are still rising at a rate double overall inflation. And we’re okay with it because even the current food inflation rate is a bit lower than it was a couple of months back?

All this economic verbiage we’ve been hearing day in, and day out for several months has got us to a point where we are too tired to protest but more stressed about our future.

The Opposition parties in Ottawa criticize the government. But could or would they do better? Does different mean better in a world where we’re all slaves to global geopolitics and other market forces?

The post-pandemic economic crises have me questioning the power national governments have on their economies actually. It now takes a global effort to contain economic crises. National governments appear to simply be treading water to keep their citizens’ heads afloat.

I guess we are getting used to the economic crises. Used to the fact that there are a global issue at play and little Canada alone can do about it alone.

We appear to simply accept that food prices are rising and won’t be going down anytime soon.

I almost wish the French would lead the world’s protests for affordable food and hope people around the world would follow. Because, right now, going numb and getting used to never ending food-flation is the worst thing we can do.

Yet polite Canadians seem unwilling to start the protest here at home. And our governments seem to be banking on that.