Columnists
Hell in a handbasket?
We have problems. Not a problem, but many problems. I can’t solve these problems, nor can you. My job is to point them out, and hope that smarter people can find the necessary fixes. Some of these are local, and some are wider spread.
Let’s start with some specific points:
1) BUSINESS WAS DOWN THIS YEAR
Way down. Local businesses are hurting from a slow summer, while heading into winter and that painful period in which sales go from poor to zero.
Even accommodation was down, as reported by council, which collects the MAT tax on visitor stays. Thousands of dollars gone in tax alone!
[It occurs to me that this report from the County bemoans the lack of tax dollars, without considering the loss of revenue to our local accommodation suppliers. Seems their hearts are pointed in the wrong direction.]
Make no mistake, this will change the shape of the County, and the businesses we count on. Oddly enough, the upscale businesses seem to be doing well, and can probably weather the icy January to May lull. Others can only hang on tight until the sun comes out, if they can.
Also, not remotely oddly, the Second Time Around Shop is doing quite well, and the number of foodbank clients is booming. Let’s put these two things together.
2) HOW DO YOU SPEND?
Sure, Amazon allows me to never leave my home. I admit I have used it, but only if I couldn’t source my item locally.
Here’s something that puzzles me. My mother used to worry that the price tag on County Magazine went up to $5.75 per issue. I told her paper and printing costs had doubled in the previous five years.
Yet I see people spending $5 on specialty coffees, and $125 on one bottle of wine in a restaurant. Coffee is made in minutes. Our magazine takes three months of work by three people. I don’t get the cost comparison here.
Coffee? Gone in five minutes. Magazine? Hours of reading. We’ve held the line on our cover price for more than 10 years, while the price of a hamburger has gone from $5 to $25.
Take a look at value for your money. Not everyone can throw away 25 bucks for a burger (presumably with fries on the side, and perhaps a cherry tomato flourish and a sprig of parsley), but some do. The rest of us are in the drive-thru at McDonald’s, Wendy’s or Tim’s. Which brings me to:
3) WHO GETS TO EAT?
Reports tell me that visitors to the foodbanks have doubled in the last couple of years. This is certainly a red flag on our County community. Easy to figure out. Wages are stagnant, going back to pre-Covid days. Costs of all the essentials—food and gas for example—went spiralling up during the last two years.
Yet there’s money out there—those who have money to spend, and have the ability to treat themselves, because they have the money to do it. Then there’s us. I’m not poor, but I have a sense of value. And blowing my entire grocery budget on one meal is not my thing. Ordering a bottle of wine for $150? I can’t possibly squeak any enjoyment out of that. Every sip is ten bucks? No. Some can afford it. Some pay the price to impress their companions. To me, a waste of money on something that can be purchased at the LCBO for $20.95, serve four, and will end up in a latrine.
Sorry, got a bit carried away there. But the County is changing, and the rift between the ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’ seems to be increasing every year.
WHERE ARE WE?
I’ve been writing columns for 20 years. Back then, I felt the heartbeat of all the people I grew up with; all of the communities I came to know and love, despite our differences.
I watched the County’s demographic change, as new people arrived, and embraced what we had. Many of them fight now to hold on to what us oldtimers tried to hang on to when the tsunami hit.
At that time, we attracted new people: Artists, professionals who could work to the city from a beautiful country home, retirees who gave up city life for a perfect future in the country.
The Good Old Days is not when we had a grocery shop and a meat market in Bloomfield. It was when having a grocery store and meat market in Bloomfield was important to us. Really important to us.
Then they weren’t. Then supermarkets were important. Then they weren’t. Then small shops were replaced with Big Box Stores, and the small shops died. Then the Big Box stores went ‘online’ and it was no longer worth going to Staples to shop, because they had no stock on the shelves. “But you can order it on-line,” I was told.
WHY TRY TO EVEN PHYSICALLY SHOP?
New day, new game. But the game continues to change. Amazon walked in, and a whole new game was afoot. Now dozens of sites offer you pretty much anything you need. They are Staples plus Wal-mart plus Canadian Tire plus every damn company you traditionally used to buy stuff. But wait! There’s more!
According to my TV, you can now buy food, delivered to your door. No, I’m not talking about pizza and Chinese, because that’s a centuries-old tradition They make it. They deliver it. Works great.
But this new thing, in which they package everything you need to make a meal, and you make it? I don’t get it. Ads show father and son unboxing stuff, and enjoying the making of it. This is a good thing. A better thing would be to take your son to a grocery store, and show him how you pick out a proper cantaloupe, and avoid celery, oranges and bananas that are about to go bad. That might help them in their future lives.
This is ridiculous to me. Making meals is not like buying a wall unit at Ikea. “Here’s your food. Assembly instructions supplied. Knife and spatula available on our website.” This whole thing seems weird to me. “Hey! My box of uncooked meal items has arrived from God knows where, with easy cooking instructions: Chop all this up and cook it. And throw in this spice bag, and the powdered cheese bag!”
Sure, we’re not trained chefs, but really? Call me Old School, but when I was a university student, buying a 24-pack of Kraft Dinner (when it was 15¢ a box) even I said, “Isn’t this just macaroni and orange powder made from Real Cheez?” Later in life, I learned how to cook macaroni. It was a tough haul, but 15 minutes later, I was a chef master. I learned to search for Cheez, but couldn’t find it. I had to settle for Real Cheese.
I didn’t order it in a box. I went to No Frills. Turns out they have cheeses galore. And vegetables too! Mail order meals in a box? I still don’t get it. I don’t need to, because if I order from Uber Eats, they will ask, “Where the hell is Bloomfield? There could be a $250 delivery charge.”
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