OTTAWA – Statistics Canada reports that the national inflation rate has fallen for a second consecutive month, and the nation’s grocery stores are dutifully pretending not to hear about it.
“Oh, inflation’s down? I’d have to check on that,” commented Loblaws spokesperson Lucinda Thatcher. “I haven’t had a chance to read the news yet today. Or last month. Really on a media detox over here. Have you checked Facebook? There’s nothing about it on Facebook!”
Canada’s inflation rate has fallen to 2.8%, comfortably sitting in the Bank of Canada’s target inflation range for the first time in months. Yet the prices for grocery staples continue to ratchet higher and higher, becoming unattainable for any Canadians who need food and water to survive.
Independent consumer watchdog Aaron Anderson has tried to get the message to grocery corporations – with minimal success.
“I’ve contacted a few PR reps at different companies,” Anderson said. “But emails get lost, calls get dropped, and faxes get responded to with crude children’s drawings of a graph showing inflation going up. One in-person meeting ended with an exec running from the room while plugging his ears and saying ‘lalala, our bread prices have always been normal!’ In a singsongy voice.”
As a response to falling inflation, the C-suite at Metro HQ has instructed their IT department to block all news sites on company equipment. Loblaws’ new ‘It’s All Good’ internal program rewards employees for discussing comparatively benign news items, like the weather, or the Barbie movie, or how if a nationwide class war broke out, it would be definitely totally unrelated to food prices. Meanwhile, the CEO of Sobeys was found in their server room aggressively chewing on an old phone cord so “those damned telegrams couldn’t get through to the skirts on the switchboard.”
Back at Loblaws, the response remained firm. “We have no control over our prices – our suppliers fleece us, and we pass that fleecing onto the consumer,” explained Thatcher, when forced to acknowledge three ironclad pieces of proof of falling inflation using the eyeball thingy from A Clockwork Orange. “Then price stickers show up on our shelves overnight, like they were placed by a tooth fairy or a babadook-type creature. Do you really want to confront the grocery babadook? I don’t think so.”
When reached for comment about the government’s inaction in combating grocers’ “ignorance-based greedflation,” multiple MPs from each federal party commented “Oh, grocery prices are high? Huh. I hadn’t heard about that. I’ll have to get back to you.”
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