Shopping

 My most hated thing is shopping but spent the afternoon yesterday doing that very thing having cleaned the basement and the main floor in the morning. I last filled the tank of the car with gas in early January and it is still nearly full. I really do not need a car; it is just practical and already existed because my husband loved to drive everywhere. But I needed all sorts of things - the largest container of dishwashing soap you can buy (lasts me about eight months), large container of Mr Clean for cleaning also lasts about the same amount of time and finally clothes washing detergent and again the largest and it says 100 loads and it generally lasts me well over a year and a half. Having accomplished I moved on to the essential of my existence - breakfast cereal makings which includes large bags of sultana raisins (2 bags lasts me about four months), bags of oats and each bag is good for about six weeks and then two large boxes of blueberries (frozen) and again I am looking at about four months for that and the cranberries I buy at my regular every three weeks or so trip to the grocery store. It involves going to four separate stores and all had what I wanted in stock. The hermit in me is fully satisfied by this type of shopping on my part. The clerks most efficient at checkout and all is stored away in my house now. Generally my groceries when I am alone cost me about $75.00 per week - I do eat well (chicken thighs generally are in a container of 12 and I freeze two packages of four each making the first four into my regular stew. I buy frozen scallops and there is enough in the package for four meals. I buy 1 and 1/2 dozen eggs usually at a time and that is six per week which is generally plenty for me. Bread I buy four loaves and freeze three of them. Then all the vegetables (stored in Canada through the winter like cabbage, turnip, potato, carrots, onions, garlic and frozen like peas, broccoli, spinach, corn are in my freezer) but generally I supplement with fresh vegetables that come up from the United States along with fruit but not happening just at the moment I sadly report as I do miss them. Hopefully that will all be resolved one of these days. It is our duty as Christians to maintain the earth as it passed to us and to pass it on intact to those who follow us. It must be carefully nurtured and maintained and waste especially eliminated. Hence our desire to make sure that Canada is as pristine as possible and we have the good advice of the First Nations which we follow in many respects to how we care for this huge land of which we are guardians. That is important to us.

I am assuming that this tariff war against us is a desire to renegotiate CUSMA/USMCA/MUSCA in the near future (required in 2026). We devote a good deal of money to the care of this land and protecting our food supply (hence the Dairy Management System that does annoy other countries because we protect in particular our dairy industry but we do not want to lose our family farms and one is left with the thought that perhaps a Free Trade Deal is not everything it is said to be as we managed very well before Free Trade Deals and just having to pay duty on imported items either at the border or on receipt).  Canada is a country rich in natural resources and we do share these with the world both through trade deals and donations to the poorest countries. We are also an extremely supportive neighbour and do plan to continue in that regard. Americans have had branch plants in Canada for a very long time (since I was a child) and it benefits both of us as there is some manufacturing that is more economically produced in this way but we can also return to the many smaller companies that existed in Canada before Free Trade but were out-competed/bought out during Free Trade. It depends on our very large neighbour the United States and how they decide to deal in trade with us. They are much much larger (9 times in people) and so it is a disproportionate relationship and I am beginning to wonder if it actually can work (although we buy a great deal of American goods in Canada both from their stores here and what is ordered in by Canadians stores (I am suspicious that our actual purchase of American products is very much under reported); Should we just return to pre Free Trade lifestyle?  It is pretty cheap to ship raw materials south from Canada and the Free Trade deal between us worked very well in that regard but the loss of so much of our industry is a problem for us if free trade turns to tariff. The desire of the United States to restore their industry from other areas of the world (who would have ever dreamed that American industry would hire people in other countries around the world (build branch plants; desire for more and more money in profit is really the problem) to produce products for consumption in the United States and Canada since we are a large purchaser of American products). Bringing production back to the United States is the aim of the current President. Time will tell how it all flows but making Canada pay for the mistake of American producers going off shore should not be our fault but the tariff is penalizing us for that very thing it would appear. Our workers are being laid off because of tariff and that is painful for the premiers of our provinces to see their constituents suffer.

Our military expenditures are now increasing exponentially and we shall be at an exceptional rate soon enough which means that our part in protecting this continent is covered although in reality I think we were always capable of doing our part in union with the United States in protecting it. Converting from peace time to war time is a very rapid process actually according to my mother when she commented on the Second World War.