Justin Trudeau’s Liberals haven’t technically lost the next election yet. But in the broader battle of ideas, it sure looks like they’ve already surrendered to the Conservative Party of Canada.
Last week, the Liberal government announced a temporary pause on the GST for two months on an eclectic basket of goods that includes diapers, toys, beer, wine, Christmas trees, snack foods, and video game consoles. It also announced it would send GST rebates worth $250 to anyone who worked in 2023 and made less than $150,000.
This is what political desperation looks like, folks. After months of talking about the importance of bringing down inflation, the Trudeau Liberals are now engaged in explicitly inflationary policymaking. Worse, it’s regurgitating a move by the Ford government in Ontario that already announced its own attempt to bribe voters with their own money.
The federal GST holiday also inadvertently (I hope, anyway) adds pressure to some existing fractures in our political discourse, given that people living in provinces with a harmonized sales tax will get a bigger break on the temporarily exempted goods than those living in BC, Alberta, and Quebec. Oh, and because it’s only being given to people who worked in 2023, those who didn’t — whether they’re students, unemployed, or on disability leave — won’t get the cheques they probably need more than anyone.
All told, this gesture could cost the federal treasury as much as $7.7 billion. That’s money that could go towards any number of other priorities, whether it’s building more homes, investing more heavily in childcare, or expanding the new dental care program to more Canadians. It represents a striking failure of political imagination on the part of a government that desperately needs to start showing more of it. And it doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in whatever moves it might have left.
If there’s any consolation for Trudeau’s team, it’s that they aren’t the only progressive politicians who seem to have run out of ideas. The NDP’s Jagmeet Singh not only tried to take credit for what he called “an NDP demand” but suggested it ought to be made permanent. But that was actually Erin O’Toole’s idea, one he pitched to Canadians back in 2021.
Even provincial New Democrats are trying their hand at playing the populist economic card using the language created by Conservatives. In Saskatchewan, for example, opposition leader Carla Beck is pressing the Moe government to “axe the (Saskatchewan gas) tax.” Her chief of staff, Jeremy Nolais, suggested on social media that she’s “focused on what actually matters to people, like making life more affordable.” That the promised affordability is apparently best delivered by cutting taxes, the preferred path for Conservative populists and politicians, is something of a confession.
Progressives in Canada need to remember that they’re never going to cut their way to political success. They can’t compete with Conservatives here, if only because Conservatives will always be willing — and, indeed, eager — to cut further and deeper. To win, progressives must reclaim their natural reputation as builders. They should tell Canadians what they intend to create with their tax dollars instead of finding ways to return them. That means articulating a vision of optimistic abundance, one in which government investments and interventions create a richer and more prosperous society. And it means spending far more time talking about how that abundance and prosperity gets created than how it should be distributed.
As The Tyee’s Andrew Nikiforuk wrote in a wonderful — and worrying — analysis of the US election’s aftermath, this is a defining moment for progressives. “In many ways the Trump triumph, which may explode under its own contradictions, has provided the left with an opportunity to snap out of its incoherence and come back to reality. Maybe, just maybe, it is time for a visionary populist movement that challenges the concentration of money and technology with a practical plan for civilization’s survival. Maybe that is the only way to fight right-wing populism funded by techno-optimists.”
We’re still a long way from that awakening here in Canada. Instead of articulating a clear and coherent alternative to Poilievre’s plan to pillage the CBC, cut taxes for the rich and reduce services for everyone else, the Trudeau Liberals and most of our New Democrats are offering up some warmed-over version of economic populism. The problem with that, as Abacus Data pollster David Coletto noted on social media, is that “it’s the vision and purpose behind the policy that inspire loyalty and drive political momentum. Without it, even well-intentioned measures risk falling flat.”
Indeed. The Liberal government’s GST measures are the political equivalent of trying to treat someone dying of heart failure with a botox injection. If they want to actually save the patient, they’ll need to do something much more dramatic — and invasive. Yes, that might mean a new leader and some new faces around the cabinet table. But at the very least, it must offer Canadians a clear alternative to the economic ideology of the government-in-waiting — and a vision of the future that can excite and energize people. All the GST rebates in the world can’t do that.
Comments
The GST holiday and the rebate cheque is partly due to pressures of the NDP and ensures the Liberals can cling to power. Unfortunately, the younger generation will foot the bill, but also benefit from the GST break and rebate the most. I don't believe the Liberals along would have done this without preasurre from the opposition parties.
Seniors who are complaining they have been left out, seem to forget, they got a check during the pandemic, while no one else did. As a senior myself, yes it would help, but you can't expect every handout to also include seniors. Seniors need to stop complaining, our generation is far better off than the previous generations and it is only fair to help those with growing families in these more diffcult times.
That is not to say that some seniors should have been included that have reported income below the poverty line on their tax returns, but that would have taken a bit more time to work out.
I am not so sure that giving a lot of people what they want and need is such a bad idea.
Should the Liberals also present bold new ideas? Yes.
Maybe it's the complimentary meal before the big pitch (to use an analogy).
As for Max, who I generally can agree with, getting behind the progressive movement / government instead of tearing it down (I get force fed enough of that in my local National Post satellite newspaper thanks very much) no matter how imperfect it can seem, is the only hope of defeating what would be a mind numbing environmentally disastrous
Conservative government that would line up behind "drill baby drill" Trump faster than you can fear monger the public about a tepid carbon tax, that oh btw rebates the money back.
I think Henry Giroux's analysis is spot on. For 40 years we have been fed the mantra from the Right that all problems are at the individual level, free up the individual to make choices then all the problems are solved. The reality is that most problems require collective action but there is no language or voice coming from the left to articulate this
A good build-up but totally lame conclusion. "... a new leader and some new faces around the cabinet table" will do squat. The only thing likely to derail the Conservative horde is exposing Pierre Poilievre for the foreign-owned, fascist tool that he is. In the meantime, making people feel better about their economic situation can at least help stop the bleeding.
Enjoyed, save the "bribing taxpayers with their own money" comment.
Arguably, that's ALL government does, tax away money, and than hand it back in the form of infrastructure and services and subsidies. This one is clearly progressive - comes from everybody's progressive income tax, goes to working people on lower incomes.
Not saying it's a good program, I just hate that "bribe" usage.
I think the effort will probably fall flat, not because it's a bad idea but because the media in almost every province has lined up to lampoon the liberals regardless of what they do. Instead of celebrating a relief on prices and getting a $250.00 check, the media focuses in on the negative (Who doesn't get the check and is it inflationary).
One thing this policy does is forces the conservatives to vote against lowering costs for Canadians, which is what they are supposed to be all about. Perhaps the media will focus on that, oooops nope they will focus on Trumps tariffs that are also probably Trudeau's fault somehow.
I agree with Mr. Fawcett on this one. There is a reason governments collect taxes--it's so they can do useful things with them. It's so they can make life better for us all, in ways that the private sector wouldn't because they can't make money from it (or can't make money from doing it right). Taking it away and then individually giving it back again only makes sense if there's a serious policy reason (e.g. the people you're giving it back to are starving).
The GST is a fundamentally not very good tax, because sales taxes are fairly regressive. But, like, have it or don't. And if you're going to not have it, then replace the revenue with a progressive tax, e.g. make the income tax more steeply progressive, collect meaningful estate taxes on the wealthy, put in that transaction tax on stock market trades, boost corporate taxes back to where they were before some of the times we cut them . . . stuff like that. Saying, "Well, I dislike this tax enough to not do it for a couple of months, but then I'm going to put it back because I don't have any better ideas" . . . yeah, that's just pointless.