Trudeau thinks he can buy you for $250
So, let’s get this straight: Justin Trudeau and his scandal-plagued Liberal Government have racked up more debt than every other government in our history combined.They have raised taxes on Canadians at every turn to pay for their reckless addiction to spending, including their economy-crushing carbon tax.
They have unleashed massive deficits every year, borrowing and printing money, driving the highest inflation in a generation, causing a cost-of-living crisis.
They have caused an affordable housing crisis by bringing in a million new people every year without having adequate homes for them. They have two million people visiting food banks every month. They have unleashed economic vandalism the likes of which Canada has never seen before.
They have given billions of dollars to improve other countries, including China, and hundreds of millions to Liberal insiders and lobbyists, while Canadians struggle to get by.
Now, they think Canadians will be fooled by a two-month GST break (on limited items) and a cheque for $250?
But wait. Not everyone is getting the cheque—as Canadian seniors and those with disabilities (who have been among the hardest hit by Trudeau’s inflation) are only now finding out. No boost for them. The $250 cheques will be going to working Canadians earning less than $150,000 dollars a year. That said, when folks who have good paying jobs can’t afford to eat, heat, or house themselves and their families, that $250 may not go very far this Christmas.
Except it’s not for Christmas.
The insult to injury of the government pitching a brief limited GST break and $250 cheques right before Christmas and expecting financially stretched and stressed Canadians (whose struggles they have caused) to thank them aside, the cheques aren’t for Christmas. The cheques are scheduled to come in April—just as the Liberal Government hikes the Carbon Tax even higher. Trudeau and Freeland deceptively announced the cheques along with the holiday GST break to make it seem that way.
In reality, in just a few months the Liberals plan to raise taxes on the very items they now giving a tax break on.
This isn’t extra money the government has lying around unspent. Nor was this desperate—clearly spur of the moment—ploy budgeted for.
This is more new deficit spending. While they refuse to release the actual numbers, according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, the Liberals are already running around a $47 billion deficit for 2023/24. These two new expenses will cost the government more than $6 billion (at least $1.6 billion for the GST break and $4.68 billion for the cheques) in additional deficit spending. This doesn’t make sense either logically or financially.
Logically, it’s doubling down on the same bad policies that caused the problem in the first place. Canadians can’t afford to eat, heat, or house themselves because of inflation. Inflation is caused by supply and demand—in this case, increasing the supply of money available. This move will only exacerbate the problem. It’s pouring more fuel on the inflationary fire.
The cost of the cheques alone is the equivalent of an additional $117 of debt for every Canadian—more than half of whom will not be receiving one. For those who are receiving one, the added debt means that really that cheque is only $133—a debt that Canadians will pay back and then some when the Government hikes the carbon tax that same month.
To make matters worse, economists are already warning the GST break could further drive inflation by affecting interest rates this spring.
Then there is the significant burden this puts on businesses, who, at their busiest time of year, must now manually reprogram their cash registers and point of sale machines to jockey back and forth between items where the GST applies, and where it does not. Even smaller stores often sell hundreds if not thousands of products. This hodgepodge list presents nightmare for retailers. For example, a toy store selling a model airplane. The GST relief applies to the model airplane but not the glue.
It will also present additional costs to businesses. Resetting a point-of-sale machine (twice) alone will cost some businesses $1,000, and there is the ever-present fear that one mistake with the GST will risk audit from an increasingly hungry Canada Revenue Agency.
This tax trick is just that.
Common Sense Conservatives will axe the carbon tax permanently and take the GST off new homes to offer real savings. Only Common-Sense Conservatives will bring home powerful paycheques, lower taxes, and lower prices.
