You can now buy shrink-wrapped, pre-cooked boneless roasts of beef. Just pop them in the microwave and serve. The Maple Leaf Meats advertisement says “No longer do you need an occasion for a roast.” Shame. This is an all-time low in Canadian cuisine, eclipsing pre-cooked unrefrigerated bacon or mini translucent jellied salads with suspended apricot chunks.
Loblaws has announced that it is building a new Superstore not far from my house, in a stretch of field that to now has been used as a neighbourhood vegetable garden. These huge stores are designed for more than groceries. You have to cross ailes of bulk goods and housewares to go from the produce to the canned peas. It’s a good thing the stores also have tank-sized carts. One needs to be ready for the spontaneous purchase of a dining room set while en route to the milk and eggs.
The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation has waived the regulation that requires home purchasers to put 5% down to buy. Now anyone can borrow a quarter of a million dollars (entry level price for a home in Ottawa) to buy a dream home made of plastic and particle board. Two out of three little pigs would shun these houses for their shoddiness.
In ten years at 4% interest, these lucky homeowners will have paid up to $80,000 in interest to the bank and will be living in rain-swollen pulp. Good for you!
In nicer news: Monia Mazigh, social justice champion and wife of Maher Arar, is running for the NDP in my riding (Ottawa South). The alternative in this long-Liberal riding is David McGuinty, a talented environmental lawyer who could have been a great catalyst for real change, and even Canada’s first Green PM, were he not a Liberal Party Opportunist. Go Monia!
