Skip to main content

Canadians are getting rip-off!

A study conducted by the Bank of Montreal showed that prices in the U.S. are between 15% and 30% lower than in Canada!  This is no big surprise, with the internet I can buy books at Amazon (for my Ipad) that are at least 20% cheaper than if I bought them from the Canadian equivalent.

But the best one yet relates to Quebec’s based SAQ (Quebec’s liquor store monopoly).  A few months ago they purchased a high end U.S. distributor, and the same bottle of wine in the U.S. sells for 28% less than in Quebec.  When confronted with this fact, the PR person (soon to be unemployed if there is any justice) argued that the SAQ has a wider mission, to generate additional revenues for the Government -- really this person said that to a journalist from the Montreal based French newspaper “La Presse”.  Truth of the matter, the SAQ is now stating that as a monopoly it has an OBLIGATION to rip-off its customers.

There used to be a thriving business in Canada of buying cars in the U.S., especially luxury models, at a very steep discount to what you would pay in Canada.  A friend bought a BMW X5 and saved more than $30k – the car was literally 30% cheaper in the U.S (with higher specs).  This trade is now more or less dead, as car prices in Canada and the U.S. are almost identical.  Still if you’ve ever bought shoes in Burlington (Vermont) you must wonder why the same pare is nearly double in Montreal…

A few months ago I purchased a new showerhead, using a U.S. distributor reduced my purchase price by more than 50%.  If I were able to purchase a heat pump in Vermont it would cost less then 40% of what the same machine (I know I checked) in Montreal.  Less competition I guess, importers with near monopoly position that are able to extract economic rent.  My guess is that increasingly Canadians will turn to the internet for their shopping as the price differential is wide enough to justify action.

The report by BMO outlines something that Canadians have known for many years, the internet was not an option a few years ago – and with NAFTA the only duties you have to pay are taxes (not an issue in any of the discussions we’re having here by the way).  I always check on the internet before I buy.  My guess is that once Amazon comes to Canada (for things other than books) Main Street will suffer.

Popular posts from this blog

Ok so I lied...a little (revised)

When we began looking at farming in 2013/14 as something we both wanted to do as a "second career" we invested time and money to understand what sector of farming was profitable.  A few things emerged, First, high-quality, source-proven, organic farm products consistently have much higher profit margins.  Secondly, transformation accounted for nearly 80% of total profits, and production and distribution accounted for 20% of profits: Farmers and retailers have low profit margins and the middle bits make all the money. A profitable farm operation needs to be involved in the transformation of its produce.  The low-hanging fruits: cheese and butter.  Milk, generates a profit margin of 5% to 8%, depending on milk quality.  Transformed into cheese and butter, and the profit margin rises to 40% (Taking into account all costs).  Second:  20% of a steer carcass is ground beef quality.  The price is low, because (a) a high percentage of the carcass, and (b) ground beef requires process
Post a Comment
Read more

21st century milk parlour

When we first looked at building our farm in 2018, we made a few money-saving decisions, the most important is that we purchased our milk herd from a retiring farmer and we also purchased his milking parlour equipment.  It was the right decision at the time.  The equipment dates from around 2004/05 and was perfectly serviceable, our installers replaced some tubing but otherwise, the milking parlour was in good shape.  It is a mature technology. Now, we are building a brand new milk parlour because our milking cows are moving from the old farm to the new farm.  So we are looking at brand new equipment this time because, after 20 years of daily service, the old cattle parlour's systems need to be replaced.  Fear not it will not be destroyed instead good chunks will end up on Facebook's marketplace and be sold to other farmers for spare parts or expansion of their current systems. All our cattle are chipped, nothing unusual there, we have sensors throughout the farm, and our milki
Post a Comment
Read more

So we sold surplus electricity one time last summer...(Update)

I guess that we will be buying an additional tank for our methane after all.   Over the past few months, we've had several electricity utilities/distributors which operate in our region come to the farm to "inspect our power plant facilities, to ensure they conform to their requirements".  This is entirely my fault.  Last summer we were accumulating too much methane for our tankage capacity, and so instead of selling the excess gas, that would have cost us some money, we (and I mean me) decided to produce excess electricity and sell it to the grid.  Because of all the rules and regulations, we had to specify our overall capacity and timing for the sale of electricity (our capacity is almost 200 Kw) which is a lot but more importantly, it's available 24/7, because it's gas powered.  It should be noted that the two generators are large because we burn methane and smaller generators are difficult to adapt to burn unconventional gas, plus they are advanced and can &qu
Post a Comment
Read more