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.
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.
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.”
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.”
Neoliberalism makes capital (ie, the wealthy) more powerful. I read an article this morning which I will add if I can find it again that said that 50 trillion dollars has been siphoned from US workers since the Reagan-era policies of the 80s, which continue to this day. If people think that everyday people are winning off of a 2-month ‘GST holiday’ on select items and a 1-time check of $250 for employed people - that’s like Stockholm syndrome in my eyes
I’ll take the money. It isn’t changing my vote, which wasn’t going to be for conservatives before this. I also doubt it will sway many votes in the Liberals’ favor, either. But I really wish they had a coherent plan to fight the populist rhetoric of the conservatives, because their current course isn’t likely to lead to victory. This is at least trying something, but it’s a feeble attempt. Let’s get a new leader, let’s get some engaging talking points, and let’s put together a plan to make authoritarian policies difficult to implement. Getting rid of first past the post is part of that, which the Liberals completely dropped the ball on, but as a number of countries in Europe demonstrate, it isn’t enough in itself.