The supposedly tight-fisted Premier Doug Ford has added ten of billions to Ontario’s debt load, which now exceeds $400-billion. The 200-buck bribe will add another $3-billion to the pile. Mr. Ford speaks during a news conference about police helicopter funding in Mississauga, Ont., on July 29.Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press
Imagine that, instead of pulling presents from the bottom of a magical, bottomless sack, Santa Claus stole into your house in the dead of night, raided your gift closet and put what he found there under the Christmas tree. You wouldn’t feel too kindly toward the jolly old elf, would you? In fact, you might regard him as a rotten old sneak.
Voters should view the latest attempts to bribe them with their own money with the same skeptical eye. The money that politicians are conjuring to produce all these pre-election goodies has to come from somewhere. Sooner or later, we will have to pay for them, either through higher taxes or poorer services.
This holiday season, our leaders are positively falling over each other to play Santa. Consider the ridiculous spectacle that unfolded on Thursday. Rolling up his sleeves to display his splendid forearms, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stood before the news media to announce a brimming bag of breaks and bonuses for Canadians.
Trudeau unveils $6.28-billion in new spending on two-month GST break, stimulus cheques
First they will get a two-month sales-tax holiday on everything from diapers to wine to toys. The list includes Christmas trees, both real and fake; printed newspapers and books, but not blueprints, owner’s manuals or colouring books; footwear “that is designed for babies or children and has an insole length of 24.25 centimetres or less;” and nummy snacks such as “chips, crisps, puffs, curls or sticks.”
Second, Canadians will get a nice little cheque from Ottawa. The Working Canadians Rebate of $250 will go to anyone who makes up to $150,000 a year. That’s 18.7 million of us. The dough will arrive in the spring of 2025 – by sheer coincidence, an election year.
But Thursday’s naked pandering didn’t end with the Prime Minister’s announcement. Soon his rivals were lining up to out-pander him.
Jagmeet Singh of the NDP was at the front of the queue. Though he has been propping up Mr. Trudeau’s minority government for two and half years, he denounced the “Liberal letdown.” If he were in charge he would go much further, granting tax-free status to things such as home internet and heating expenses – not just for two months but forever.
Next was Pierre Poilievre of the Conservatives. He called Mr. Trudeau’s GST holiday a “temporary tax trick,” omitting the small fact that, only last spring, he proposed just such a gimmick: a summer tax holiday on fuel taxes.
Not to be left out, Ontario Premier Doug Ford soon joined the chorus. His Progressive Conservatives, he boasted, were way ahead of Mr. Trudeau’s Liberals when it came to vote buying. They had already cut sales taxes on kids’ clothing, shoes, diapers, books and many food and drink items. And that was on top of cutting gas taxes and getting rid of public-road tolls.
As for the $250 cheque, the Libs had simply stolen the idea from the PCs. Hadn’t the Ford government just promised to put a cool $200 in the pockets of every single eligible Ontario taxpayer? The cheques are to start going out early in the New Year. An election is expected in the spring. Another startling coincidence.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford announces $200 tax-free rebate cheques
Nowhere in all of this pathetic sweet-talking and chest-thumping was there the merest hint of concern about the consequences of showering cash on the public. Mr. Trudeau said with a straight face that his government’s iron fiscal discipline has left Ottawa with lots of room to splash out on tax holidays and juicy cheques.
In fact, after coming to office promising to balance the books within three years, the Trudeau government has run deficit after deficit, adding hundreds of billions to the federal debt. The supposedly tight-fisted Mr. Ford, meanwhile, has added ten of billions to Ontario’s debt load, which now exceeds $400-billion. The 200-buck bribe will add another $3-billion to the pile.
This is hardly the time to be raiding the treasury to butter up restive voters. Mr. Trudeau’s giveaways look like desperation, Mr. Ford’s like hubris. If they have any sense, Canadians will see through these would-be Santas and set a blazing fire in the hearth just as they come down the chimney.