Wednesday November 27, 2024 – 1:26 pm | NATIONAL [Last update 7:21 pm]
Political analysis by Mary P Brooke | Island Social Trends
The NDP will support a GST tax holiday (as contrived as it is) but not the approach to a one-time cheque that excludes a wide range of people who are in need of financial support.
The proposed tax holiday to suspend the 5% GST on purchases of a select range of products during December 14, 2024 to February 15, 2025 will clearly benefit those who have more money to spend in the first place, but the NDP can live with that aspect so that some relief is forthcoming over the holiday season.
Meanwhile, the one-time cheque proposed by the Prime Minister to be issued in April 2025 (to people who worked in 2023 and earned less than $150,000) would not include people who didn’t work in 2023 but are often low-income (e.g. seniors and people with disabilities) or who circumstantially weren’t working, e.g. students.
Without the NDP’s support for the Liberal government’s bill to activate the GST tax holiday, the government would fall and an election would be triggered.
Update at 3:35 pm — the Liberal government has split the bill into two separate bills, one for the tax holiday and the other for the bonus cheque.
Alistair MacGregor, MP (Cowichan-Malahat-Langford) said in the House of Commons this week: “Why is the federal government so adept at offering half measures?”
The NDP will always stand for benefiting Canadians who need support, as stated in various ways today by NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, and two BC Members of Parliament — House Leader Peter Julian, MP (New Westminster-Burnaby) and Don Davies, MP (Vancouver-Kingsway) who is a member of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance.
===== RELATED:
- GST winter tax holiday misses political mark, frustrates businesses, and fails many families (November 23, 2024)
- GST consumer tax holiday to start Dec 14 (November 21, 2024)
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