http://www.winnipegsun.com/2016/01/20/trudeau-davos-and-7-cauliflower
Trudeau, Davos and $7 cauliflower
By Mark Bonokoski, Postmedia Network
First posted: Wednesday, January 20, 2016 05:06 PM CST | Updated: Wednesday, January 20, 2016 05:11 PM CST
OTTAWA – The lowly cauliflower, which will likely make no appearance on any crudité tray when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau again meets with the super-rich and powerful in Davos today, began trending last week on social media.
In a matter of hours, it became a tangible indicator of just how far the Canadian loonie has fallen, aided and abetted by a barrel of oil that is hovering south of $30.
Suddenly the cauliflower, almost inedible to kids unless slathered in the melted particulates of Cheez Whiz, was experiencing the feeling that comes with star power.
Chances are slim, however, that it will be used as a symbol of our dire fiscal circumstances at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland where the PM, other international leaders and the super elites of business, are more likely dipping into bowls of caviar than pulling a cauliflower floret off a tray of veggies from the Davos equivalent of Loblaws.
This rise to celebrity status began, for historical reference, after Melissa Lantsman, former director of communications for Harper finance minister Joe Oliver, posted on her Facebook page a picture of a display of cauliflower that was selling for $6.99 a head, and then wrote, “Ludicrous. This is the price of cauliflower in Justin Trudeau’s Canada.”
This, naturally, did not go unnoticed by the media types who mine Facebook and Twitter for such nuggets.
The very next day, in fact, the National Post’s John Ivison led off his column thusly, “Justin Trudeau pronounced himself ‘tremendously optimistic’ about the Canadian economy.
“(But),” added Ivison, “he obviously hasn’t paid $7 for a bloody cauliflower in recent days.”
This, of course, is entirely relatable to the average Canadian. One cannot easily wrap the mind around $300 billion provincial debts, or the running of multi-billion dollar federal deficits, but the average Canadian can relate, for example, to the squandering of $16 for a glass of orange juice that one-time Conservative cabinet minister Bev Oda once audaciously billed to taxpayers.
Or the gall of Senator Nancy Ruth, born of privilege, publicly admitting her unwillingness to put up with the breakfast fare of “ice-cold Camembert and broken crackers” served to her on taxpayer-paid flights.
Yes, it is these small things that are easily understood by the average Canadian, like a shoelace snapping with no time left, as so brilliantly put by beat poet Charles Bukowski.
Or the $7 cauliflower that Melissa Lantsman posted on her Facebook page.
As symbolism goes, it was tough to beat, which is why it was snapped by columnists and cartoonists alike to illustrate how the 68-cent loonie is driving up the price of any and all imported food to the point that it is, well, “ludicrous.”
Few things, after all, are more basic than a cauliflower, a baseborn vegetable which was selling for $1.99 only three months ago.
Damn you, Justin Trudeau!
What is needed, of course, but what we are not getting, is an economic single-mindedness coming out of this new Liberal government, complete with the hands-on involvement of an all-party finance committee and the accelerated delivery of Finance Minister Bill Morneau’s first budget.
Nothing will come out of more global gallivanting, or from the luxury of Davos, that will assist with the immediacy of a Canada’s economic malaise.
The price of cauliflower speaks to that.
That, and the fact that the actual barrel our oil is sold in costs only slightly less than the oil that’s in it.