Justin Trudeau accuses the NDP and the Bloc Québécois of “turning their backs on workers” by wanting to expand the pool of people eligible for the famous $250 check, threatening the very survival of the project.
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“The decision we made to recognize Canadian workers and to be there to help them was made very deliberately,” Mr. Trudeau defended at a press conference in Prince Island. Édouard Friday.
However, the Bloc insists on including seniors and says it is open to considerably reducing the threshold of $150,000 to limit the costs of the measure. The NDP also wants to include students and people with disabilities, otherwise the bill would not find support.
Stuck between the rocks and the bark, Mr. Trudeau insisted on the fact that his government has already “delivered a lot of aid to [les] seniors” with, in particular, the dental care program, or the increase in the old age pension.
Plea for workers and against the NDP
To defend his point, Mr. Trudeau pleaded for workers he met “across the country”, such as this 26-year-old employee “who works in a grocery store” or this professor “in his thirty-something who has no children.
“They’re saying, ‘The government has nothing for us, isn’t out there recognizing that we’ve done the work to get through the pandemic as an economy,’” Trudeau said.
These workers, he said, “need a little break.” “It’s a check to recognize that workers are the strength of our country, and they are struggling.”
Visibly disappointed, the Prime Minister attacked the Bloc Québécois and the Conservative Party, but especially his usual dancing partner, Jagmeet Singh’s NDP.
“That the NDP has turned its back on workers is incomprehensible because it was supposedly, at some point ago, the party of workers. But there, no, they say no to the workers.
A controversial choice
The Liberal government chose, earlier this week, to split the Christmas gifts promised last week into two: on one side, the GST holiday, adopted Thursday evening, and on the other, the $250 check, postponed until the Greek calendars.
Announced with great fanfare by Mr. Trudeau last week, this check is called the “Rebate for Canadian Workers” because it is currently only intended for those with a net income of $150 000$ and less in 2023.
Estimated cost to the public treasury: $4.7 billion.
Unless there is a compromise by the Liberals with at least one party, the check may never land in the workers’ account.
Ottawa initially planned for the check to be sent around the middle of April. This gives the government leeway to modify its bill in order to pass it in the Commons.
