Tirade on Tricky Tacky Trudeau Tax Breaks

The Devil is in the details

The Trudeau government’s latest ploy in yet another disingenuous effort to pretend it gives a damn about Canadians should be seen for what it is – utter garbage and a bait and switch act to get what it really wants. And I will get to what it really wants later — first let's have a look at these bread crumbs that the Crown prince of privilege and tone-deafness is bestowing on his subjects. 

A tax break and a tax rebate? A tax break from the GST, but only for two months. And one time tax rebate of $250 for the year of 2023, but only for certain loyal subjects.  Let’s get to the GST break first. The Trudeau government has decided to eliminate the GST on a number of items – all starting December 14th and ending February 14th of 2025. In making the announcement at a small grocery store Trudeau began by telling Canadians that first and foremost, his government is eliminating the GST on groceries – ‘100 percent of groceries’ –  he emphasizes.

I guess he thinks Canadians are either gullible or as stupid as he is. Most Canadians that shop for groceries, either daily or weekly, know that the vast majority of groceries are already not subject to sales taxes like the GST or any Provincial Sales Tax (PST). So exactly on what ‘groceries’ is his government eliminating the tax? Well, primarily junk food – candies and chocolates bars, chips and other such salty snack foods, ice cream products, pastries, fruit bars, puddings, granola bars and soft drinks.  Well thanks a lot Justin – south of the border the incoming Trump administration, with the help of Robert Kennedy Jr., is trying to make Americans healthier by getting the junk out of their diets, while you’ve just given Canadians a tax break on the most unhealthy food items they can buy.

No tax on junk food, those are Trudeau's 'groceries' he is saving you money on.

But there’s more — taxes will also be coming off beer, wine, ciders and coolers, so we can drink to our health I guess, tax free for two whole months. Watch for a run on the liquor stores and other outlets that sell booze, when real drinkers take advantage of that windfall. 

As well, Canadians will also be able to buy pre-prepared foods tax free, along with dine-in, takeout and delivery meals from restaurants. Well I am sure that will make restaurant owners happy, as it will likely may result in more people deciding to treat themselves to a dinner out, and I wish them well, because it’s a tough business in these inflationary times. It may, however, not work out so well for waiters, given those lower food bills could result in lower tips. Tax will also be eliminated from toys, video games, and children’s clothing and diapers (gee, one would think diapers – a necessity – should already be tax exempt). Christmas trees, real and artificial, will also be exempt from tax as well as newspapers and ‘select’ books (whatever that means). Well I guess Trudeau can afford to lift that tax from newspapers given that he ‘owns’ most of them for all intents and purposes. 

Then, of course, there is the $250 tax rebate that will apparently be available to Canadians who earn less than $150,000 in net individual income a year. Wow, what a bonus! The government giving Canadians back their own money – how generous! But who won’t be getting it? Retirees, I guess, given that they aren’t employed. So seniors, who only receive the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) and Old Age Security, will get zilch. And based on the information given thus far, the rebate may not apply to self employed individuals or gig workers as many don’t make contributions to CPP or Employment Insurance (EI) which is stipulated they must in order to qualify for the rebate. I would think that a lot of these people might be at the lower end of the income scale, but never mind them, or retirees. As well, if this is a tax rebate – meaning the government is giving money back to you that you otherwise would have paid as part of your taxes, what about people whose income is so low that they don’t pay tax? That would be the poorest of the poor – do they, or don’t they qualify for this ‘gift’ from the government. But like most things that get whipped up by this Liberal government, they have not thought the whole thing through so it is rife with potential problems. 

For example, have they given any thought to how many extra people they may have to hire or have to pay overtime at the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) to figure out who will and won’t qualify for the tax rebate and to send out the rebate cheques? Or will this be another boondoggle like the Canadian Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) – where cheques in the millions were sent out to people who did not qualify for the benefit. 

Now, back the the GST exemptions, Trudeau has said this exemption will apply to provinces where PST and the GST were ‘harmonized’ to become the HST. Has his government consulted with the provinces? Are they all in for this… and what happens if they are not?  And finally what about the businesses that are going to have to reprogram their point of sale registers, their computers, and their accounting systems to remove the taxes on all of these specific items, and then add it back in after two months. That is going to take time and staff and that costs money –  extra costs for the businesses.  Who do you think they will pass those costs on to? As I said earlier, a typical Trudeau Liberal plan that will likely end up costing the government, businesses and taxpayers more money. But it looks good when you’re making the announcement, it’s good photo op in a little Mom and Pop grocery, and it makes for great talking points in how you’re ‘looking out’ for hard working Canadians, but other than it’s as I said — garbage and a pittance coming from a government that has greatly increased the cost of living and tax burden on all Canadians through its own policies, actions and incompetence. 

Would there be better ways to provide Canadians some relief, even in the short term, if the Liberals wanted to? How about removing the GST from home heating fuel? They already charge the carbon tax on top of the GST, so removing the GST for even a few months in the winter would be a double bonus – no GST and lower carbon tax rates.

From an efficiency point of view, wouldn’t that be much easier to manage, rather than giving grocery stores and other retail outlets the task of first determining what in their inventory they need to exempt from tax and then programming their systems to make those exemptions? How about removing the GST at the gas pumps. A lot of people like to visit family over the holidays, wouldn’t making gas cheaper for those trips be better than removing the GST from junk food? As for their $250 tax rebate, that is almost insulting given what Canadians pay in income tax every year, not to mention the fact that Trudeau still plans to hike the carbon tax again in April of 2025. It is like the Lord of the manor telling a beleaguered peasant, “I am only going to take your pig today in lieu of taxes, but I will send my men back for the goat tomorrow so you can at least have milk today.” 

As much as Canadians want, need and deserve even the slightest relief from the inflationary price of groceries and other goods, together with continuously increasing taxes this government has caused, they should not fall for this blatant pandering and trickery to curry their favour. It reminds me of a oft-told mythical story about Stalin where it is said that he once ripped all the feathers off of a live chicken. He then set the bloodied and suffering animal on the floor a short distance away from him. Yet, when he began tossing wheat towards the bird, it headed straight back to him seemingly forgetting the torture it had endured for the small reward of some food. Well that’s what this is, a few grains of wheat.

But setting all this aside, now we get to the real reason that Trudeau is dangling this rather meagre carrot in front of voters. While it has not been widely reported in the media, the House of Commons has been deadlocked for nearly two months. The issue at hand is that the Conservative party, together with the other opposition parties, have been pressing the Liberals to hand over documents to the RCMP to investigate possible criminal acts related the Liberal’s latest misdeed. Now known as the ‘green slush fund’ scandal it involves the Liberal’s use of Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC) to funnel hundreds of millions of dollars to Liberal insiders under the guise of awarding contracts for the development of ‘green’ technologies

The Conservatives have been filibustering as part an ongoing privilege of debate on the matter in order to force the Liberals into handing over those documents. The Liberals argue they delivered the documents, neglecting to mention that they have redacted much of the information in them due to what they claim are ‘privacy concerns’.

This caused the House Speaker, Greg Fergus, who is Liberal himself, to rule that the government violated the powers of Parliament by failing to surrender those records to the RCMP unredacted. 

Until the issue is resolved, Fergus further ruled that all government business in Parliament be halted, save for Question Period, which has allowed opposition parties to continue to pressure the government, as well as uncover more scandals.This included another misuse of funds wherein the Auditor General again discovered the Liberals had also used the Green Accelerator Fund to hand over billions of dollars to major companies without proper oversight. Meanwhile the Liberals can only run for cover and dodge questions, while not being able to move ahead with any government business. Although opposition parties could side with the Liberals to bring the privilege debate to an end, neither the NDP or the Bloc Quebecois seem willing, as they too are calling on the Liberals to hand over the documents.

So this puts the Liberals in a bit of a pickle – hence their tax rebate plan. In order for Canadians to benefit from this Liberal ‘largess’ of tax breaks and rebates a bill must be introduced into the House of Commons to have the actual legislation passed. That cannot happen in a Parliament deadlocked by a privilege debate. The Liberals are hoping that the NDP and the Bloc might be compelled to vote in favour ending the privilege debate in order to allow the legislation to be introduced and passed to give Canadians this small tax break. If that were to happen the Liberals would get the ‘document production’ monkey off their back and they would be free to move ahead with the tax break legislation as well as other bills and business that have been sitting in the cue before they head out for Christmas break.

The Conservatives, alone, would not have enough votes to stop this legislation from moving forward, and if they did vote against it, then the Liberals and their chorus of media supporters would have the pleasure of calling Pierre Poilievre the ‘Grinch ‘for trying to spoil the Liberal’s plan to make Christmas a little merrier for Canadians. But don’t be fooled folks, if this legislation does go through and you get your puny GST break and $250 tax rebate, it wasn’t about you, it was about the Trudeau Liberals and what they wanted, as it always is.