Can Canada’s working class afford another year like this?

I just got back from my weekly trip to Metro and felt my jaw tighten as I pushed the cart. Prices have jumped since October, some of them dramatically. I left angry, worried and imagining what my family’s finances will look like in January.

You can’t buy a decent used car without being rich. New-vehicle prices are through the roof. Electric vehicles? Out of reach for most. Food keeps climbing too. If you subsist on cereal and candy, you might scrape through a week, but who wants that? Services we relied on have been trimmed away because rent, groceries and gas come first.

The cost of living is crushing us. It saps our energy, dulls our hope and makes a normal, honest life feel like a daily grind. Working people, their families and their neighbours are paying a steep price for stagnant wages and unpredictable policy. That wears you down.

Years ago, a group of frustrated Canadians camped in front of Parliament Hill. The convoy grabbed headlines with a raw, simple cry for “freedom.” For many, that word meant more than one thing: economic dignity, transparent leadership, and a government that feels their pain. Some of us saw a circus; others saw people who had finally run out of patience. The Legislature and media turned them into villains. Many participants still face legal and social consequences. I don’t agree with everything they did, but I understand the anger that led them there.

What matters is this: Canadians feel unheard.

What matters is this: Canadians feel unheard. The leaders we elect often ignore our daily struggles until an election cycle forces their attention. If we want change, we should bring our demands to every provincial legislature. A visible, organized push (peaceful but persistent) would remind officials who they serve.

The crisis has exposed a new social fault line. Our society feels sorted into classes, like a caste system where opportunity and security are unevenly distributed. Hardworking people feel trapped between rising costs and flat wages. That gap is in the contents of our carts, the dents in our cars, and the calls we make to family when a bill comes due.

We need three things from our leaders. First, transparent, accountable policy that targets the real drivers of inflation: housing, food supply chains and excessive corporate consolidation. Second, wage policies that match the cost of daily life. Third, accessible public services so people don’t have to choose between groceries and medicine.

This is personal. I shop, feed my family and pay bills. I want to keep working without watching my standard of living dissolve. So do millions of others. If the political class won’t act early, we must nudge them, loudly, clearly and where they will feel it: in their offices, their towns and at their legislatures.

Bring petitions. Organize peaceful assemblies. Vote in local elections. Write to your MP and MPP. Don’t let the crisis become business as usual.

We can erect pressure without violence. We can demand dignity without chaos. If nothing changes, more people will reach the breaking point the convoy exposed. This is a warning.