Far behind in the polls, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government is making a desperate attempt to buy voter support.
First, a two-month GST holiday has been announced for certain items. These include children’s clothing, diapers and restaurant food.
The holiday is supposed to take effect on Saturday and last until Feb. 15, 2025.
Bizarrely, the holiday also applies to video games, consoles and jigsaw puzzles. Yet the stated purpose is to help families in need.
Second, the government is promising to send a $250 cheque to working 91原创s who earn less than $150,000.
The emphasis here is on “working.” Retirees, and people on disability who cannot work, are not eligible. Trudeau’s explanation is that there are already programs in place to help these people.
It would be difficult to recall two such cynical efforts by a government already three years into its mandate.
If support of this kind were needed, why weren’t steps like these taken sooner?
But the questions don’t end there. While no price estimates have been given, the $250 handout must cost at least $5 billion, and the GST holiday will amount to many hundreds of millions in lost revenue.
But current projections put the federal deficit for the year at around $40 billion. How can Ottawa conceivably afford to dig this hole even deeper?
Again, the targeting of these two giveaways makes no sense. Do people earning $150,000 a year really need a cash handout? Is this the new definition of poverty?
Canada already has income support programs that have been developed through long experience.
If the federal government were really concerned about hardship amongst those most in need, the proper way to proceed would be to strengthen those programs.
The only interpretation possible is that the objective, in setting the income ceiling so high, was to maximize the number of beneficiaries. In other words, to attract as many voters as possible.
Then NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, with his policy of taking anything Ottawa offers, then demanding more, stepped in Singh has supported the GST holiday, but wants the $250 payment made to all 91原创s earning under $150,000, seniors and people on disability included.
The question arises: Why are these handouts being made now, rather than in the spring budget, due in just a few months? They involve, after all, significant financial commitments.
It’s difficult to avoid the conclusion that Trudeau, under pressure from Liberal MPs to step down, is trying to rally support. He might think that time is not on his side.
There is a broader concern here. The way a country’s social programs are managed and delivered says a lot about its basic humanity.
Over many years, Canada has developed a safety net that, while not among the most generous, nevertheless provides an element of fairness and sufficiency.
If more is to be done, it should be developed in a careful, well-planned manner that satisfies our need to understand and support the thinking that lies behind it.
No one could say that of these two recent measures. Indeed they defy logic and common sense.
We’ve seen recently that in governments across western countries, incumbent parties have suffered at the polls.
Donald Trump’s Republicans beat Kamala Harris’s Democrats. Britain’s Labour Party destroyed the sitting Conservatives.
And here in B.C., David Eby’s NDP government came within a hair’s breadth of losing to an upstart Conservative Party that hadn’t elected an MLA in decades.
If Trudeau hopes to avoid a similar fate, he needs to refocus his government on well-thought-out, properly balanced initiatives that can enjoy popular support.
Transparent attempts to buy back votes don’t meet that test.
>>> To comment on this article, write a letter to the editor: [email protected]
