Canada's $250 Embarrassment

Canadians and the general public across the West are looking for significant, transformative change. They want to dump the establishment, shake up the political landscape, get back on track to having generations that are more prosperous than those of their parents, and end the unease of an increasingly unstable world. In the face of this overwhelming mood across the voting world, teetering on the edge of abandoning democracy as a failed experiment, Justin Trudeau’s solution is to… give some Canadians $250.

What the actual heck is going on? Has Katie Telford and her tired crew of minions lost the thread this completely? Are they only hearing Conservative talking points?

Donald Trump won the American election just three weeks ago. Democratic voters stayed home by the millions. The Christian Right led by the Heritage Foundation is about to reshape the United States in ways we cannot begin to comprehend. And it happened because the Democratic establishment refuses to understand that the stock market is not the people, that GDP growth is not widespread individual success, that “freedom” does not pay for a dozen eggs.

Trump’s support only went up by 2 million votes over his 2020 results. Harris got 7 million fewer votes than Biden. We can infer that at least 5 million Democratic-leaning voters did not want Trump, but could not find the motivation to vote for Harris and the increasingly inept status quo.

In Canada, the Conservatives are learning the lessons clearly and effectively. There is an angst in society that is relatively easy to tap into. Voters know the buying power of their income is dropping, that housing is harder to get than it has been in any of our lifetimes, that many aspects of our society simply don’t work for them any more. They don’t necessarily know why, but they know that what we are trying now does not work.

We need massive, New Deal level transformative change, and we need Canadians to understand that this is what we are doing. A one-time $250 cheque to some tax-paying Canadians (to the exclusion of most seniors, no less) is a clear statement to the people that this government is not up to the challenge and does not understand the problem.

In 2015, Canadians were excited about Justin Trudeau. He was a young, energetic leader promising real change after nine years of Harper’s increasingly hard-right government.

Justin Trudeau made real changes with, for example, the Canada Child Benefit, the Canadian Dental Care Plan, $10 subsidised day care, but they were centred and premised on our existing social structures, when those underlying structures are what no longer work for the people. There is, after all, little value to a $10 day care plan if there are no day care spaces, or an affordable dental plan if you can’t find a dentist taking patients.

For most people, the country does not feel better than it did in 2015, and Trudeau’s sermonising on social issues without tangibly solving economic issues has left the entire country tired of seeing his face and hearing his voice.

Pierre Poilievre is not Justin Trudeau, and, as it stands now, at the ballot box next year that is the only thing that will matter.

We have had nine years to do real things, to make real changes, to realign Canada to a future that includes everyone, that brings genuine prosperity back to the so-called “middle class”, that addresses climate change in ways that make Canadians feel like part of the solution rather than part of the problem.

To waive GST on a handful of items over the Christmas holiday season is to hand over the narrative to those who say that taxes are the problem, when many of the most essential items are already exempt from the GST; to give a $250 one-time gift, enough for barely a single visit to the grocery store, is to hand over the narrative that the government is responsible for cost of living increases.

It is all too little, too late, misses the mark, and ultimately benefits the opposition. It solves absolutely nothing and is an insult to the intelligence of Canadians.

If Trudeau wants to buy votes at the price at which they for sale, he needs to end the prevarication on resolving the structural problems of Canadian society. Taxes need to be assessed on a capacity to pay them at all social classes and regardless of incorporation status or investment vehicle, loopholes benefitting the haves need to be shuttered, survivable income needs to be guaranteed, minimum wage needs to mean something, and provinces who spend more time fighting against the federal government than fighting for their people have to be brought to heel.

If provinces are willing to play with the notwithstanding clause, the federal government needs to be willing to play with disallowance. The Canada Health Act needs to be ruthlessly enforced, ensuring genuine timely access to medical care for all Canadians at all times. Pointless interprovincial barriers have to be knocked down at every level. How, for example, is a doctor in one province not a doctor in another?

In short, rather than wasting all of our time with a transparent $250 one time gift just before the government falls on the spring budget vote, it’s time to make the ballot question a real one. Is Canada ready for guaranteed minimum income, a fair and equitable tax system, and a federation where Canadian knowledge, accreditation, goods, and ultimately people can genuinely flow freely between the provinces? Where single payer universal healthcare is not just a sound bite? Maybe even a relative upper limit on wealth?

We are going to the polls next year. The Liberal government has no hope if they are simply representing “the establishment,” the status quo, on the ballot. This is the last chance to offer something real, tangible, and long term to a people ready to follow Americans in throwing their democracy out the window just to try something else.