Canada is in the midst of an affordability crisis, and the Liberals have presided over the whole thing

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An old rule of thumb in politics is that if a leader is thinking of calling an early election, he or she will open the floodgates and announce policies and programs to entice voters, such as tax cuts and new social spending programs.

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But there are also moments when the political dam shouldn’t break. Certain policies may look tantalizing and beneficial to a government at first glance, but they could easily have the opposite effect. Prime Minister Mark Carney may learn this lesson the hard way with a policy he just introduced.

Carney recently announced a new “Canada Groceries and Essentials Benefit.” In a nutshell, Ottawa will be topping up the existing GST credit by 25 per cent and providing a one-time payment, as he explained, that’s “equivalent to 50 per cent of the GST credit this year.”

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