Taxpayers Federation calls Trudeau’s GST break a ‘sorry excuse for a tax cut’

The Canadian Taxpayer Federation is calling on the federal government to provide more support following this week’s proposal for temporary GST cuts and rebates for Canadians.

On Thursday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the federal government’s plans to remove GST from a number of items, including toys, diapers, restaurant meals, beer, wine and various grocery items. The tax break, which has not yet been passed by Parliament, is expected to begin December 14 and end on February 15.

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Additionally, Trudeau announced that in the spring his government will mail a $250 cheque to Canadians who worked in 2023 and earned less than $150,000. Around 18.7 million Canadians are expected to receive the cheques, costing the feds around $4.7 billion, while the GST break will cost an estimated $1.6 billion.

Franco Terrazzano, the federal director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, said he views the tax relief as a small step in the right direction for Canadians in a stressful time, he called it a “sorry excuse for a tax cut.”

Listen to Franco Terrazzano’s full interview on The Evan Bray Show:

“The government has been essentially taxing everything under the Sun all the time,” he told The Evan Bray Show on Friday, highlighting the carbon tax, along with payroll and capital gains taxes.

“We’re being taxed so much, and then the government turns around and wastes money on ballooning the bureaucracy (and) giving corporate welfare to multinational corporations,” he added. “Right before Christmas, Trudeau wants to toss us a little bit of crumbs.”

Terrazzano noted that the proposed tax cut is not permanent, and pointed out that six weeks after the GST holiday another carbon tax increase is expected from Trudeau’s government.

He noted the rise in the carbon tax will make basic life necessities more expensive across Canada, adding that the feds will have to hire additional bureaucrats to impose the tax on Canadians.

“The administrative cost of the carbon tax has already dinged taxpayers for about $200 million to date,” Terrazzano said, adding that by 2030 the cost of the carbon tax bureaucracy alone will hit taxpayers for approximately $800 million.

“There is no way that a government can impose a carbon tax, charge its sales tax on top of the carbon tax, then skim hundreds of millions of dollars off the top to pay for hundreds of additional bureaucrats and somehow make people better off with rebates,” he said.

“That’s magic math, and this is just another proof point that that is factually inaccurate.”

—With files from the Canadian Press