Prime Minister Mark Carney is embracing the politics of economic tinkering, offering a rebranded, narrowly targeted GST credit top-up when Canadians need broad, structural relief. While the government says it is responding to the affordability crisis, modest tweaks to the GST credit will not deliver the kind of meaningful, universal relief that cutting income taxes would.

The newly named Canada Groceries and Essentials Benefit will provide a one-time top-up payment this spring to families that currently receive the GST credit and will boost payments by 25% for five years, beginning in July.

The government says the benefit will also become available to 500,000 new individuals and families.

According to the government’s backgrounder, up to 12.6 million Canadians could benefit from the program.

But those headline numbers hide a major flaw: There are millions of hard-pressed Canadians who don’t qualify.

According to the Canada Revenue Agency, a single person without children no longer qualifies for the benefit when they earn $56,181 or more. And for........

© Edmonton Sun