Sticker Shock

From $8 coffees to $20 sandwiches, consumer rage is real—and it's shaping the next election

- IRA WELLS

LET ME TELL YOU about the sandwich I ate for lunch: a mouth-watering, foot-long torpedo of teriyaki chicken on multigrain bread. The price, however, was enough to induce indigestion: $21.36 after tax and a 15 percent tip.

Over the past couple of years, some version of this observation has become commonplace in group chats and around dinner tables: everything is too damned expensive. A friend from Alberta recently texted in disbelief when his coffee rang in at $8, a price he once paid for an entire lunch. In May, CTV reported that the price of a McDonald's Big Mac value meal had risen to $17.59, and that fast food prices had risen 33 percent since 2019.

It's not just fast food. The cost of everything has been trending upward, from extra virgin olive oil (which more than doubled in price over the past three years) to cars (a new set of wheels will set you back an average of $67,817, up almost 20 percent since 2023). Canada's 2023 Food Price Report projected grocery costs for a family of four to reach $16,288.41 annually, up by $1,065.60, with the 2024 report forecasting another $701.79 increase.

On it goes. Gasoline has surged more than 37 percent since 2019. Rent has shot up by about 10 percent over the past year alone. Mortgages have been unsustainable for many homeowners, while home prices continue their inexorable climb, especially in large urban centres. The Barenaked Ladies once promised to "buy you a house" if they had "$1,000,000." Good luck with that: the median sale price for a single detached home sailed past that marker long ago, at least in Toronto. It's now $1.3 million.

Grumbling about rising costs is a universal fact of life. But today's dissatisfaction feels new. The anger is taking a political shape, and erupting into boycotts, slogans, and an "affordability crisis" that may deliver the Conservatives a decisive electoral victory.