Planned Shortages

It's no accident that shelves are virtually bare and inflation will limit the amount of groceries bought:

Grocery stores are struggling with rising labour and product shortages that could threaten Canada's food security, experts say.

(Sidebar: there's that term again!)

Employee absenteeism due to workers calling in sick and COVID-19 protocols has hit about 30 per cent at some stores and is continuing to rise, Gary Sands, senior vice-president of public policy with the Canadian Federation of Independent Grocers, said Tuesday.

 

Oh, that's not it:

New rules requiring truckers to show proof of vaccination when crossing the Canada-U.S. border are cutting into shipping capacity and boosting the cost of hauling everything from broccoli to tomatoes.

The cost of transporting produce out of California and Arizona to Canada jumped 25 per cent last week as fewer trucks are available to cross the border, according to George Pitsikoulis, president and chief executive officer of Montreal-based distributor Canadawide Fruits.

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According to Ontario Trucking Association president Stephen Laskowski, Canada already faces a trucker shortage, as fewer people have chosen to get into the job in recent years. This will be heavily exasperated, he says, as, in Ontario alone, he expects to lose 10 per cent of his workforce instantly, roughly 16,000 truckers.

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WATCH: Canadian truckers against Covid mandates BLOCK all lanes of traffic to and from the United States.

A sign on one truck reads: "MANDATE FREEDOM"pic.twitter.com/OJXjt0wJKY

— Election Wizard 🇺🇸 (@ElectionWiz) January 18, 2022

Oh, it doesn't end there:

The warnings came from economists with the major British financial holdings company HSBC, according to Bloomberg News, who said the rapid spread of the omicron strain of the coronavirus across Asia — but particularly in China — will lead to production disruptions in China that add up to a devastating blow to the already struggling U.S. economy.

Bloomberg reports that as China pursues its aggressive “Covid-zero” strategy, “scattered infections” of COVID-19 have forced shutdowns of “clothing factories and gas deliveries around one of China’s biggest seaports in Ningbo, disruptions at computer chip manufacturers in the locked-down city of Xi’an, and a second city-wide lockdown in Henan province Tuesday.”

 

And: 

China has been stockpiling grain on behalf of its 1.4 billion people as it struggles with mismanagement of its agricultural industry and more farmers flee the country for life in the city increasing concern that famine could overtake the country.

“China spent $98.1 billion importing food (beverages are not included) in 2020, up 4.6 times from a decade earlier, according to the General Administration of Customs of China,” reported news site Nikkei Asia. “In the January-September period of 2021, China imported more food than it had since at least 2016, which is as far back as comparable data goes.”

And China has been hoarding more than just grain, too. “China seems to be on a ‘hoarding spree,’” said EpochTimes, “stockpiling strategic commodities from chips, minerals to grains and cotton. In its global purchases, the United States is one of its largest suppliers.”

 

Somewhat related:

A group representing truck drivers is calling on the B.C. government to ensure highways are cleared of snow and dangerous potholes are fixed or goods will no longer be transported.

Ajay Toor, who speaks for the West Coast Trucking Association, said black ice and large potholes are creating hazardous driving conditions which have resulted in several crashes over the past few weeks.

Truckers are encountering black ice, particularly at night, and some are worried they’re putting their lives at risk while on the job, he said.

Toor said truckers who report harsh highway conditions on the government’s DriveBC website are being informed that so many complaints are coming in that they should be emailing highway maintenance contractors instead.

But it’s impossible for drivers to know which of 28 government contractors are in charge of particular highways across the province, he said.

 

The shelves aren't bare because a few people are out with the flu.

Shelves are bare because we do not produce what we can in North America, because politicians waste money on utter garbage instead of basic infrastructure and because we rely on the same country that gave us this virus in the first place.