Federal aid | Seniors must receive the $250 check, argue the NDP and the Bloc

(Ottawa) Seniors should receive the $250 check that Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government plans to send this spring, insist the New Democratic Party (NDP) and the Bloc Québécois.

“It’s a real slap in the face!” Why do liberals exclude the most vulnerable people? » launched New Democratic leader Jagmeet Singh on Monday during question period in the House of Commons.

At a press briefing, Mr. Singh explained that his party had announced that it was in favor of this measure and the TPS holiday from December 14 to February 15 on the basis of inaccurate information from the Liberals.

Mr Singh now proposes that Parliament votes separately on the two measures. The GST holiday could be adopted “immediately this week”, and checks when the situation is “resolved”. It is not clear whether the Liberals accept this proposal.

Called to clarify whether the NDP, which holds the balance of power, will make the inclusion of seniors a sine qua non condition of its support, deputy leader Alexandre Boulerice simply responded that the party “will push” since “the current measure makes no sense.”

The Bloc plans to support

In the Bloc, leader Yves-François Blanchet warned that to hope to obtain its support, the government will necessarily have to ensure that “people who have worked all their lives” are not excluded. Those around him specified that with such a change, the political party would “a priori” be favorable.

In the House, he was also outraged that the government was “abandoning those who really need help”, not to mention that even “millionaires” will benefit from the TPS holiday.

To this, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland responded that the government shares these concerns and that it has “supported seniors across Canada more than any other federal government.”

“This year, Canadian seniors will receive $48 billion in federal support. And that’s right. Because they deserve it,” she continued, noting in passing that seniors who earned work income of less than $150,000 in 2023 will be eligible, like their fellow citizens.

Mr. Blanchet proposed that the government play on the threshold of those who have access to the check to give it to “those who really need it”, including retirees, at the same overall cost.

Justin Trudeau’s political lieutenant for Quebec, Jean-Yves Duclos, said that “no” federal government has done as much for seniors as his own.

“This is one of the reasons why the senior poverty rate has fallen by 20% since 2015,” he said. If we had listened to the Conservatives, unfortunately often supported by the Bloc members, we would not have reduced the age of eligibility for old age pensions to 65, which means that at the moment there would be […] in fact 100,000 seniors […] who would not live in poverty, but in misery. »

” Grumpy ”

Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre – whom the Liberals have called “grumpy” since he suggests that he wants nothing to do with the GST rebate and the $250 check – denounced “a sleight of hand” where the citizens will save with the “10 cents on a bag of chips” tax rebate.

He criticized the Bloc for having obtained “nothing” for seniors and described Mr. Blanchet as a “big talker, little doer.”

Minister Freeland was quick to reciprocate. “Today, we really ask the question: who is the big talker and who is the big doer? » she sent.

Quebec seniors have “the impression that the federal government has let them down […] once again,” said the president of the FADOQ network, Gisèle Tassé-Goodman, in an interview with La Presse Canadienne.

“The seniors are disillusioned, they are unhappy,” she insisted, noting that they “have paid their taxes [et] their taxes throughout their lives, they continue to contribute to society in many ways […] as a volunteer, as a caregiver or even as a grandparent”

She warned that her “nearly 600,000 members” could “absolutely” turn this frustration into a vote when the time comes.

With information from Émilie Bergeron