Columnists
Burden
The pressure keeps mounting. At the pumps, despite the continued drop in the price of oil, gasoline has returned to its three-digit cents-per-litre figures.
Visits to the grocery store are increasingly stressful. Food costs more every year. According to Statistics Canada, produce costs increased by an average of 15.9 per cent over last year. For meat, the hike was an average of 13.3 per cent.
Hydro bills are rising, too. Ontario’s power-hungry power company has adjusted time-of-use bills to reflect its losses—more conservative usage means less money, so the solution is to charge users more for less, despite desperate attempts to limit usage to save money.
In the County, water bills are at a steep incline. A small tax base means the cost of expensive systems that have been or need to be updated are divided among fewer users, so every user pays more.
And as property values go up, so do property taxes, new mortgages and rental prices. At the same time, those rental properties are more and more difficult to pin down.
For most, these mounting bills are stressful. The majority of Canadians rely on gasoline, grocery store food, electricity, water and a place to live. The costs are simply part of the average Canadian budget.
For those who are contending with a depressed job market, dependants, illness and other financially draining situations, these mounting prices are more than just stressful. They can send even the most careful, frugal person into despair, to take measures they never dreamed of taking.
More than 42 per cent of all foodbank users in Canada come from Ontario. Six per cent of Ontario residents visited a foodbank in one month last year.
The folks who run the County’s foodbanks are feeling the pressure. They see people who arrive with tears in their eyes, not knowing what to do, never thinking it would ever come to using a foodbank to survive. And while there is some food to offer, there are few solutions available to people who find themselves unable to afford being in this community anymore.
Except to leave.
People are leaving. They can’t find work that pays enough to support them, or the people who depend on them. People are leaving the County because they cannot bear the burden of those mounting costs. They’re leaving, and they leave behind fewer people to pay for the County’s infrastructure, fewer people who can take on those jobs that support a seasonal tourist industry.
Maybe, for a little while, their absence can be ignored, especially by a new demographic that can afford to ignore it. But ask the foodbank organizers about what they’re witnessing and they’ll tell you those people are a bellwether, signalling an escape from mounting pressure.
And something’s got to give.
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