For Lower Prices, Rent and Interest Rates

WHEREAS prices across Canada have risen dramatically over the past year, with food costs increasing by 10.3 percent and rental costs by 12.4 percent, and are projected to rise by a further 5-7 percent this year;
AND WHEREAS official inflation was 6.8 percent last year but workers’ average wages only rose by 4 percent, leaving working people with a net decline in real wages of 2.8 percent;
AND WHEREAS corporate profits soared during the same period, rising 59 percent to $456 billion in 2021 and then jumping to $523 billion by mid-2022;
AND WHEREAS the Bank of Canada’s rising interest rate policy anticipates and produces rising unemployment and falling real wages as the solution to inflation, despite the cost to workers, their families and communities;
AND WHEREAS Parliament has the power to roll back prices, rents and interest rates, and has used this power at different times to protect working people from a high cost of living;
We the undersigned petition the Parliament of Canada as follows:
• Introduce price control legislation on basic necessities such as food, fuel for heating and transportation, clothing and health and personal care, including action to roll back prices and maintain them at an affordable level for working people;
• Legislate rent rollbacks and rent controls for all renters in Canada, so that nobody is compelled to pay more than 20 percent of their household income on rent;
• Direct the Bank of Canada to reverse its job-killing policy of rising interest rates, and to instead pursue policies which promote full employment.