Justin Trudeau’s holiday tax break spectacle shows how stuck Parliament is

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Politics includes a lot of pretending.

People say one thing when they clearly mean another. They swear up and down that they’re not doing the thing they’re doing right in front of your face. Or they insist they’re doing it for some reason other than their obvious intent.

But this week, in glorious defiance of all of that shameless artifice, Justin Trudeau and Chrystia Freeland trotted themselves out at a charming little grocery store to basically holler, “Ho ho ho, guess who just saved Christmas, kids?”

What they were announcing was a two-month GST holiday, beginning in mid-December, on children’s clothes, shoes and diapers, Christmas trees, books, toys, games and puzzles, beer and wine, snacks, prepared foods and restaurant meals. Everyone who worked in 2023 and made less than $150,000 will also get a $250 cheque in the spring.

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Political communications is always about conjuring a narrative, but on Thursday, the baldness of that storytelling was nothing short of magical.

It was like the Trudeau government found a children’s colouring book in a desk drawer, and when they saw a page with an illustration marked “Christmas,” they tagged every item in the picture and lopped the GST off it.

The Prime Minister and Finance Minister unveiled this at Vince’s Market, an independent grocery store in Sharon, Ont., north of Toronto. The advance team from the Prime Minister’s Office had bedecked the kitchen event space with artful food still-lifes; it was all very cozy and appealing, like a daytime talk show set up for a cooking demonstration.

As Mr. Trudeau walked in, he grinned and said, “Today is a good day,” just to make sure everyone caught the right vibe.

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Later, as Ms. Freeland explained some of the finer points, she told everyone what message they should extract from this policy. “So this is really about saying to Canadians, things have been hard, they are getting better,” she said. “Our economy really looks like it is having a soft landing from the COVID-19 recession, and this is about making life a little bit easier.”

As fantastic as this pageant of festive government largesse was, they should have really leaned in – like a TV show that gets cancelled with three episodes to go, so the writers just get drunk on self-indulgence. They could have had a few saucer-eyed children in pyjamas, softly humming carols as they waited to hear who would save Christmas. Did no one consider an upright piano, or a phalanx of malevolent toy soldiers that look suspiciously like Pierre Poilievre?

The Prime Minister did have a makeup sponge soaked in Grinchy green ready to go. This was for the other part of what this was intended to accomplish, beyond demonstrating responsiveness to people’s economic pain.

The House of Commons has been in suspended animation since September, because of a Conservative filibuster that may belong on the naughty list. The Tories want to bring down the government and go to the polls yesterday, and since the shotgun marriage between the Liberals and the NDP fell apart, the minority government has become more precarious.

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So Thursday’s announcement was meant to plunk a sack full of nice things in front of Canadians, with a gift tag that read “LOVE, THE LIBERALS” on it, while simultaneously dangling an anvil stamped “MEAN OTHER PARTIES” above it.

“With this measure that has to get through Parliament – and get through Parliament quickly, so people can start feeling that tax break as soon as mid-December comes around – the NDP is going to have to step up and get beyond the freeze that we’re seeing in Parliament,” Mr. Trudeau said. “But I hope all parliamentarians get behind these measures.”

See, if they’d had a few kids there, one could have asked in a trembling voice why the other party leaders hate Santa Claus. If we’re saying the quiet part loud now, let’s just go for it.

But zoom out a bit, and this whole spectacle demonstrates how stuck the government is.

There is ample evidence that people all over feel the economy is worse than it is. But if you have a not-going-to-blow-up-in-your-clueless-elitist-face way to tell them that it’s not so bad, you are better at political communications than anyone else practising at the moment.

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are only the latest and most visible incumbents to be tossed onto a very large discard pile of vanquished sitting governments. Half of the world’s population voted in 2024, and the vast majority opted to throw the bums out – regardless of who their particular bums were.

Global inflation fuelled by pandemic snarls and geopolitics – because while that sounds like a defensive deke every time Mr. Trudeau or Ms. Freeland say it, it’s pretty accurate – is a big explanation for this tsunami of anti-incumbency.

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So what do you do if you’re the government? There’s the critique that they’re wildly late with this economic pain-relief, of course, but it’s easy to imagine howls about fanning the inflationary flames if they’d done this a year ago.

And the Liberals are hardly doing something new or unusually crass here.

Every time Premier Doug Ford senses Ontarians getting surly, he grabs his T-shirt cannon and fires people’s own taxes back at them a few hundred bucks at a time. Prime minister Stephen Harper enacted tax credits so boutique they seemed designed to benefit seniors named Susan or children who played hockey on Tuesdays. Flinging treats at the electorate is craven, but it’s established politicking.

The real problem for this government is that everything they do now looks clueless, or desperate, or both.

The difference between a bouquet presented on a giddy third date or one proffered after you’ve already decided to deliver the “We need to talk” speech isn’t the flowers, after all – it’s the giver and the vibe. You’re excruciating if you keep trying, but if you don’t, you’re proving that you don’t care.

And so here we arrive back at the same question: What else are they supposed to do?

I guess one way to pass the time, especially during the most wonderful time of the year, is put on a good old-fashioned variety show: Justin & Chrystia Save Christmas.