On the price of chicken in Toronto.

Cross posted as a comment at Small Dead Animals, I discovered how much more tax I'm paying on my heating fuel bill this winter. The tax is about triple. Here's my riff:

I would like at this time, in view of the ever increasing Ontario government deficit, to relate an interesting and important confluence of events. Namely the coldest winter in twenty years, and a tripling in the price of propane in Ontario.

Now, normally a liter of propane goes for about 45 cents. That's what it went for last winter, and we barely burned any because it was warm most of the time. Heating bills roughly $400.00/month.

Right now, the price is $1.008/liter. People around here are going through the usual 500 gallon tank in four weeks. That's pretty close to two thousand bucks a month, for easy counting. 500 gallons = 1892 liters equals ~$1892.00

Oh, plus HST. Yeah, they charge tax on heating fuel. $1892.00 x 13%HST is $245.96. That's $246 of TAX. Anybody hear Kim Dong Wynne talking about temporarily suspending the HST on heating fuel to give people a 13% break on their suddenly catastrophic heating bills this winter?

Nope. Because why? Because people heating with propane are all RURAL, and all vote CONSERVATIVE. If it was natural gas price gone sky high, and all the Liberal voters in the city were getting crushed with $2k/month heating bills, would we hear about some kind of tax relief from HST for the duration of the emergency? I think we might.

Guess what uses up a ton of heating fuel? CHICKEN FARMS. Egg farms, hatcheries, chicken farms, they all use PROPANE to heat those big-@ss barns. Right now a bunch of farmers are doing their sums, figuring out if its cheaper to heat the barn or let the chickens die and start over in the spring. Deciding if they can re-start in the spring, or if this is the straw that broke the camel's back and they're out of the chicken biz.

Guess what is going to be real f-ing expensive in about three to six months? Eggs and chickens. Also pork, because hog barns use propane, and also beef and milk/cheese etc. because the heavy winter down south killed off an awful large number of cattle, and even more were let out to slaughter rather than heat the barns. Because -propane-.

Could be worse though. They could be heating with electricity. That could get pricey.

Are the Liberal voters in the city going to scream when chicken hits $20/lb? Beef hits $20/lb? Bacon hits $15.00 a package? And you can't buy an Egg McMuffin because there's no freakin' eggs to be had for any money, because all the chickens are dead?

Yeah, they are going to scream. You think they'll blame Kim Dong Wynne? Not a chance.

Deficits go UP, taxes go UP, prices go UP, jobs go DOWN.

Personally, I'm burning wood. $125 a face cord, delivered. Cheap like borcht. Y'all remember the discussion we had the other day about insurance companies and fire places, and how "expensive" it was to get things WETT certified?

I made all my money back already in propane I didn't burn.

I'm seriously thinking "gas well" for next year, too. At $500 a week (plus HST!) for propane heat, a gas well is looking pretty handy right about now. FYI, if you have a decent gas well you can run a really big generator off it, giving you heat AND electricity. Electric lead casting pot, anyone? Or you could go gas fired. Being able to melt a wheel weight might come in handy some day. Like a fireplace might.

The Phantom