Throughout the election, the complaint I saw most was about inflation, which in the U.S. got up to about 9%, and lasted less than 2 years.
I guess people only know what they've experienced themselves, and nothing like that has happened for quite a long time, except for a couple of very short-lived spikes. But for those of us who are older, we remember inflation -- inflation that we got through -- that was miles beyond what the U.S. experienced after the pandemic.
In the 70s and 80s, there were two distinct inflation episodes that led to double-digit price increases in Canada. One from 1971 to 1976 and another from 1977 to 1983. In both cases, food and energy price shocks were the trigger. In the first episode, adverse weather in 1973 caused food prices to jump 18.4%. And following the Yom Kippur war in that same year, a quadrupling in the world price of oil caused a massive rise in gasoline prices. By December 1974, with Canadian inflation hitting a peak of 12.7%, the economy entered recession.
The second inflationary spike was an echo of the first. In 1978, meat prices skyrocketed by 70%, causing the overall food index to rise by 20.2%. Then the Iranian Revolution caused the 1979 Oil Crisis, which was followed by the Iran-Iraq war of 1980. This resulted in another doubling in the price of oil. Canadian gasoline prices ended up rising by 45.5% in 1981, which pushed Canadian CPI to an all-time high of 12.9%.
You have to understand, I was an employed adult during all of that period, and trust me on this, while it was unpleasant, we got through it. Yes, we grumbled, but we didn't have the kind of hysteria that the U.S. had over the past couple of years. Again, in fact, Canada had inflation the same as the U.S. since 2021, but we simply didn't get into the same panic as the U.S. did. Perhaps the fact that we have better social supports explains part of that, but I honestly think that a lot of people in the U.S. really did over-react.
I guess people only know what they've experienced themselves, and nothing like that has happened for quite a long time, except for a couple of very short-lived spikes. But for those of us who are older, we remember inflation -- inflation that we got through -- that was miles beyond what the U.S. experienced after the pandemic.
In the 70s and 80s, there were two distinct inflation episodes that led to double-digit price increases in Canada. One from 1971 to 1976 and another from 1977 to 1983. In both cases, food and energy price shocks were the trigger. In the first episode, adverse weather in 1973 caused food prices to jump 18.4%. And following the Yom Kippur war in that same year, a quadrupling in the world price of oil caused a massive rise in gasoline prices. By December 1974, with Canadian inflation hitting a peak of 12.7%, the economy entered recession.
The second inflationary spike was an echo of the first. In 1978, meat prices skyrocketed by 70%, causing the overall food index to rise by 20.2%. Then the Iranian Revolution caused the 1979 Oil Crisis, which was followed by the Iran-Iraq war of 1980. This resulted in another doubling in the price of oil. Canadian gasoline prices ended up rising by 45.5% in 1981, which pushed Canadian CPI to an all-time high of 12.9%.
You have to understand, I was an employed adult during all of that period, and trust me on this, while it was unpleasant, we got through it. Yes, we grumbled, but we didn't have the kind of hysteria that the U.S. had over the past couple of years. Again, in fact, Canada had inflation the same as the U.S. since 2021, but we simply didn't get into the same panic as the U.S. did. Perhaps the fact that we have better social supports explains part of that, but I honestly think that a lot of people in the U.S. really did over-react.
