Canadian retailers say they welcome the opportunity to explain to a senate hearing why consumers pay more for some items in Canada than in the U.S. The Retail Council of Canada was responding to federal finance minister Jim Flaherty’s call for a senate inquiry into complaints about the Canada-U.S. price gap.
I have no doubt in my mind that the Retail Council of Canada will be able to respond to this inquiry AND justify the difference.
Look! 4/5th’s of an iceberg is under water and 4/5th’s of this problem is before the item gets to the Canadian retailer. To truly get to the root of the problem Flaherty has to start at the beginning to understand where uplifts are placed on goods from the manufacture to distributor to shipper to retailer to customer. The supply chain is broken not just the retailer. Everyone who touches a product before it gets to the consumer is paying h gasoline, heating, electricity, packaging, shipping, labour, benefits, EHT, CPP, Workers Comp, taxes, HST and more that MUST BE factored into the price of goods before passing it on to the next entity in the chain that MUST DO the same thing.
Only one person is on the nut for ALL these charges – the Canadian Consumer.
I just read an interesting article on the Toronto Star about this. It seems nobody has ever done this analysis:
– Shoe leaves China on a boat to the US and Canada (I assume the costs are the same at this point)
– Shoe arrives in US or Canada
– Shoe goes through different distributors and shippers and ends on a store shelf with a price tag on it. What is the cost uplift through each step?
Why has this never been done? I am sure the answer can be found! Not even by Conservative groups in Canada. Are people afraid of the answer? Are they lazy?
http://www.moneyville.ca/article/1050009–retailers-say-they-welcome-u-s-price-gap-inquiry
I saw the second segment on this on Lang – O’Leary report yesterday and both times the analysis is just a shoulder shrug and a “Canadians are suckers” comment.
“Canadian retailers said they felt unfairly blamed. They said prices in Canada are higher because they face higher costs here. However, nobody has provided a detailed explanation of how much these factors affect prices.”