Giving people money via an increased GST credit doesn't lower food costs. Getting government out of the industry would

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The federal Liberals are again trying to solve the country’s economic problems by handing out money to people, this time in the form of a “Canada Groceries and Essentials Benefit” that will provide more than 12 million Canadians with handouts totalling $11.7 billion over six years. With this money, Ottawa’s announcement said, “Canada’s new government will be offsetting grocery cost increases beyond overall inflation since the pandemic.” Whose monetary and fiscal policies enabled these harmful price increases since the pandemic the “new” government’s announcement did not say.

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There is some logic to the handouts: if people cannot afford something, like food, then give them money to buy it. This makes more sense than many other government affordability strategies. In the case of child care, the Liberals effectively took over the daycare sector, to disastrous effect in recent years. Simply giving parents money and letting them decide how to care for their own children would have made much more........

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