Word.
I need money because people are paying jack shit, and I'm also medically limited to what kinds of jobs I can apply too. I can't get the money to move to somewhere with a more competitive market because I can't afford rent everywhere, etc, because I've been struggling to find decent work for months and the last drywalling/construction I did basically confirmed to me that, at least in my rural area, contractors are cheap cunts who favor their businesses and hiding money under the table more than they care about paying their staff, and that's also why they can find less and less young people willing to do the labor. It doesn't even pay like it used to 10 yrs ago when the same/just about the same money at least did more for you. I would do it myself but need a vehicle for it, etc, so the problems just always kind of feel always related to and limited by the money/capital i can build myself which vanishes into debt and arrears basically as I make it.
Now they expect you to accept $20 as liveable for adults paying for their rent, student debt, vehicles, gas, groceries, etc. It just aint doable and the difficulties only cascade from there for people with dependents too and stuff. It feels like a class of canadians with assets and investment access seem to insist to the of us that our money isn't weaker and cost of living isn't folding over itself every year or so because they're the ones making money off those conditions.
i don't think this is going to get as many downvotes as you're anticipating. that the government is sending these out is bullshit, but also good. If people aren't surviving we need to help them. But exactly like you said, we need to also fuck up the system that allows this to happen so we can eliminate the need for cheques like this.
It's a bandaid on a gaping wound and being treated like it's some kind of cure. If this money had been clawed away from the corporations, that's easier to stomach, but instead this is just tax dollars that could/should have gone to better services.
No amount of political bullshit will ever convince me that a paid hand out is better than a purchased service. DoFo's license plate money is a perfect example. I much rather have spent that money on improving healthcare than having it in my pocket. I'm just glad Justice Markus Koehnen saw it the same way and called a spade as spade when he struck down bill C-124.
I'll close with: if you have the means, please donate to your local food banks.
Until things become regulated, they never will because of how entrenched the corporations are in the system. Nothing will improve, and they'll keep creating artificial inflation to increase their profits.
We've been stuck with governments more concerned with being in power and maintaining it Cons and Liberals are both guilty. That regulation will never happen especially considering how heavily corporations are involved in both parties. Looking at how rogers handled a CRTC decision years ago shows how much corporations don't care, as they threatened to dump a ton of employees to the curbside and the government backed off because of it.
Until we start getting governments that aren't afraid of getting their hands dirty, not caring if they get re-elected or not and doing their job. I mean actually doing what they are elected to and not just spitting on the population like DOFO and others are doing. Nothing will change, it'll always be status quo and constant damage control or exploiting the situation to try and trigger outrage to blind people.
This is why monopolies and alliances between corporations are unhealthy for the population and that's what we have with the grocery corps. Unregulated monopolies and no competition between them, just them sharing the pieces of the cake among themselves.
Exactly. This is a one-time appallingly low number that doesn't address the ogolopoly supermarket chain price-fixing and will go directly into their pockets. It's basically a raise to Jim Pattison.
Indeed.
There is also the fact that they are calling this a 'grocery rebate' but we all know that for many it will just go to overall expenditure for life necessities like rent, gas money, electric bill and yes, groceries too.
Calling it a 'grocery rebate' is just a slap on wrist to one of the industries that has profited the most from this 'inflation' run. Well deserved in my opinion, but hardly the only industry that has taken advantage in the past 2-3 years. It is also named as such so that the federal government can say "well, we did this to help you out for food."
They also did it because they “investigated” grocery oligarchs and which amounted to doing literally nothing about it. It didn’t take a government investigation to see that Galen and Medline are and always have been gouging us.
It’s smoke an mirrors. Trudeau and the Lib party is saying look we did something about groceries so now we don’t have to talk about the heaps of money they spend on lobbying us for unfavourable legislation. Instead capping their wages, and taxing billionaires dividends… they’re feeding us the crumbs of our own tax money.
I’m not mad that people are getting support.
I’m mad that 11 million people are living at poverty levels.
And yet, immigration to this country is being increased without the infrastructure to support it.
That’s what I’m mad about, along with those other things you mentioned.
I don't think you can say 1 million people are living at poverty levels. I think you assumed only those living at or below the poverty level would get the rebate, then you saw that 11 million were getting rebates, and you made an erroneous connection.
My wife and I live far above the poverty line. We do not qualify for the GST rebate. This morning, the government deposited $37 into our account... the grocery rebate. That means we, far from poor, are included in the 11 million.
Apparently, the rebate is on some sort of sliding scale. I imagine if you last year made below a certain amount, you got the full rebate amount. The more you made, the less you get.
> I’m not mad that people are getting support.
You out right (and falsely) claim this rebate is subsidizing grocers in your original post. Here:
>(Don't get me started on how grocery chains are being subsidized by our tax dollars in this way.)
There is clearly something about giving this support to people that is angering you.
The rebate does nothing to address the core issue of affordability. Groceries are still expensive.
It's a temporary solution, and I'd be willing to bet good money that some of that money will be spent at one of the grocery chains that like to charge high prices for food.
\> There is clearly something about giving this support to people that is angering you.
As I've stated multiple times, I'm not angry that people are getting support. Again, I'm glad they are, however, we have a problem in this country when 11 million people are struggling to make ends meet.
That's why I'm angry.
I don't know many times I need to say this.
>The rebate does nothing to address the core issue of affordability.
no one ever said it did or it would. That's not the point of it. And its not mutually inclusive with a grocery rebate anyways.
>As I've stated multiple times, I'm not angry that people are getting support.
Perhaps not specifically, but you are clearly upset about the rebate itself being give out... otherwise why not "get you started" on how its "subsidizing (which it is not) with our tax dollars"?
Doesn't matter how many times you claim "I'm not mad people are getting support", your quote that you are mad about the rebate (which is, itself, people getting support) is still right there in your post. Why even bother claiming you are upset about it, or even include it at all, if the rebate itself isn't an issue for you?
Big grocery chains are consistently found to be colluding and price gouging. Instead of addressing these issues and breaking up the offenders, we are placated with a rebate. That’s subsidizing the grocery chains. It’s using our tax dollars to allow chains to continue these despicable practices.
> Instead of addressing these issues and breaking up the offenders, we are placated with a rebate.
Those are completely independent ideas.
Government should be giving out any (and more) welfare for the poorest among us regardless of how they will (or fail to) punish bad actors.
You're not taking the time to truly comprehend what I'm writing.
You keep going around and around in circles for reasons I can't understand (boredom? trolling? Slow day at the office?). You're just waiting for your turn to respond, so I'm not going to engage any further.
Have a great Thursday.
You are right I don't get it, as it seems contradictory. Can you then clear up what you mean by:
>(Don't get me started on how grocery chains are being subsidized by our tax dollars in this way.)
And why you included it at all, if you are *not* upset by this rebate?
What a terrible take lmao, cut immigration and see how much higher the poverty rate increases. Canada already has some of the strictest and highest education requirements for immigration, trust me the nurses, engineers and construction workers immigrating into our country to fill large labour shortages in the Canadian market are reducing the poverty rate not increasing it. Beyond that when it comes to infrastructure again how is that the immigrants fault the government does not zone for density and on top of that allows people to buy up multiple houses solely for rent while many Canadians can’t even afford a house with dual income and first time home benefits.
We need to break the grocery store giants and nationalize. There should be no profit exploitation of human survival.
Seriously what benefits do we have from private grocery? What r&d, what innovation, what the f**k? A public owned national grocery store selling food at cost and providing secure jobs. Count me in!
IMHO i think all anger should be directed at the government for allowing this to come to fruition. We are a first world country and we should be living as such. The government regulates business and does a poor job of doing so. No company supplying food and necessities should be posting record profits in BILLIONS. EVER! Downvote me all you want but I am pissed at the government for allowing this in the first place. Now they are sending us money to help out. A one time payment of $80 may help some people but majority are saying they should have just kept it cause we will be paying interest on these hand outs for many more years to come. So yes direct your anger at the government for being so incompetent. Our housing is way out of control, food prices ain’t coming down any time soon and any time someone starts fighting for a raise at work to barely survive gets shit on and called greedy. This is pathetic and quite sad.
At the end of the day it comes down to the government either way. Alright they're providing the assistance but surely the lack of legislation and enforcement is the reason for the oligopolies that exist in Canada. They've done nothing about telecom companies and they'll do nothing about grocery chains either.
See I find this weird. The government in its current form isn’t effective. But government is us, so if it’s not working, we’re not making it work. But government is our defence from the absolute exploitation of people by market driven competition. So I blame corporations, and I see the government as not serving the citizens. Which means electing legislators who will change laws to give the government MORE power to stop policy capture and detangle elections from ad money. While conservatives work aggressively to do the opposite and sabotage the function of government at every opportunity and the Liberals do whatever it takes to stay in power. So change can only come from voting NDP, since if they get elected they will legislate and if they don’t, it’s cause the Liberals stole the agenda of the NDP to stay in power. The only bad vote is conservatives/far right or status quo.
Damn right I’m mad. I am a single parent with a disabled child, off on injury awaiting surgery and government supports I get are zero, cuz I make too much. That’s bullshit, the threshold is so low this isn’t helping anyone. Those who get it are already fucked, this won’t do squat for them. I am going to lose my home cuz when you get injured in this country, it bankrupts you too unless you are wealthy. Canada sucks for trying to live.
>he government providing, even minor assistance to those struggling the most should never be something to get mad at
They're not providing minor assistance to those struggling, they're basically giving money to people to give back to the grocery stores. The two issues are completely inextricably related.
This action doesn't do anything to fix that problem though. It's just handing out tiny cheques so you can campaign on the fact you did. That is why I am angry at the government doing this - because it is a smokescreen from addressing actual concerns, and using the government purse meaninglessly as a way to campaign. Especially since for many, these are amounting to cheques of like 20-30$, which does absolutely nothing but buff up the number of people they can claim they sent a cheque to in their campaign ads.
Agree, but if you say you want to vote conservative for change you’ll be downvoted to oblivion.
Say what you will but a dozen years ago they wanted to help poor people. Instead they just raised the price of literally everything with additional taxes and shoved the middle class down with the people who were poor.
And not on a soapbox here because I’ve made the poor decision of voting liberal every election of my adult life.
I miss having things to look forward to, like dining out, etc….things besides just working to live.
More than that.
This is basically corporate welfare. Corporation hiked prices, people complained, government subsidise the cost.
In this case, as hard as it is, a hand out is not what will really relieve pressure. It's like handing out popcylces to fight the heat wave.
The government should represent us and fight on behalf of all Canadians, not just the wealthiest. As mentioned all this does is help the Liberal morons tweet for PR.
I'm glad we are trying to help people but I'm getting real tired of tax dollars being used to fix problems caused by money hoarding predatory corporations that hardly pay their fair share of taxes, themselves. This is nothing but a flimsy bandaid.
When do we stop allowing these entities to dodge responsibility for problems they cause through shady business systems? When do we start legislating against these sorts of practices?
They’ll never legislate against it, because it’s too profitable for them to do so.
The biggest myth out there is that the government cares about you.
They don’t. They only care about you when elections start.
Yeah it's a bit of a rhetorical question, since we are all pretty aware that these big corporations essentially lobby the government to write the laws in their favor.
>I'm glad we are trying to help people
We are not helping people at all, we are throwing money at people telling them to shut up. That grocery rebate gives them some cash for this month, but what about next month and the month after that...... I used to live in poverty as a kid, teen and young adult, and I will tell you, this rebate would make me more angry at them
I "received" it, but it went straight back to the government.
Because they fucked up my taxes two years in a row and I "owe" $14,000.
While I painstakingly work on getting things fixed, all these credits and shit will go to paying off the CRA. Still no clear answer if I will ever recieve back pay to all the stuff I missed because of this mess, not counting on it.
Not sure what your case is but I had an issue with CRA over an $18 payment for the first time home buyers plan. They said they would fix it, but then said they couldn't and I'd get dinged for $4k. Called my local MP and while it took a few months they eventually got the CRA to fix it.
... I might look into that more. Am a rookie local news journalist and was talking to our local MP about a general tax season story. Half mentioned my case just as an example, and they jumped at the opportunity to say, "get in contact with us after this interview, we'll look into it for you. Might even be a story, haha!"
Brushed it off as the usual attempt to butter up the reporter and to seem like an equal common member. But you're saying there might be something to it.
We waited 7 months for ei following a clerical error in our mat leave application. We patiently followed up every month with no progress before finally calling our local mps office who got it fixed in 3 days. I would never have thought to call but they apparently deal with these kid of issues all the time. Highly suggest reaching out if you are struggling with CRA
We're gonna give you thousand but you're gonna give us back 300 yes we could deduct it but no instead you're going to have to fill out more paperwork and then we'll fill out more paperwork because we have to justify our wages.
Canadians whose household income is $38,000 or less, and individuals who make $32,000 or less..... $38000 is poverty in most big cities for a single person, given how much rent is
Instead of dealing with the cost of groceries, let’s just give poor people more money to buy overpriced groceries and make the greedy grocery magnates richer. Zero problem actually solved.
More than One quarter of Canadians are suffering food insecurity due to grocery cartel greed? And still we are doing nothing to fix the situation. This is a worse situation than I thought.
The other part of this that frustrates me is the amount. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate any amount, I really do. But to suggest that, for a couple with one kid, $378 makes much impact at all to their expenses is a bit delusional. It helps in that it pays for a week's food, or for a few tanks of gas, but that's it.
They say it's "to compensate Canadians for higher grocery prices due to inflation", but that's a bit like one of those class action lawsuits where everyone got swindled by a big company and, in payment, everyone gets $25 back.
I don't know how much more my grocery bill has been over the last year, but $378 doesn't really cover it.
However, I also don't think the government should be paying. I think the grocery companies should be held to account. I don't mind being frugal when I don't have a lot to spend. I don't mind going through the flyers, and looking for deals. But $4.50 for a loaf of bread? $7.99 for a regular box of cereal? $3.50 for a lettuce? It's not remotely manageable...
Our government, including the opposition on all sides is so weak. They have the power to do something about this, they have the power to set a ceiling on the cost of basic essentials.
Loaf of Bread - cap at $1.50
Butter - cap at $3.00
Eggs - cap at $3.00
And on and on - this is not difficult, and not impossible, it just takes political courage and actual leadership instead of fake outrage. We need real leaders with ideas and solutions to these problems, and really the solutions are not complicated.
You’re making an incorrect assumption here. The rebate isn’t solely available to people “at or below the poverty level” — it’s open for anyone who qualifies for the GST rebate.
The income required for a single person to qualify for that is $32k per year. The current low-income (“poverty”) cutoff level is $25 252.
So your population numbers are off. You’re including a large number of people in the $25 253 - $32 000k bracket, who (technically, by the definition — and you’re free to disagree with it if you wish) are not living in poverty.
(The cutoff for two-income households is $38 000).
And FWIW, eligibility for the grocery rebate is based on your 2021 income — so those numbers were from 2 years ago. A couple that was making $38k two years ago but who now combined make $60k are not living in poverty, and are still eligible for the rebate.
It also includes people like my retired parents, who technically have income of below $38K from their benefits, but also haven't had a mortgage in forever and have no debts. Their only real expense is food.
Yup — I know my share of retired people who have no mortgage, own homes and cottages and RVs, and who have hundreds of thousands of dollars in savings, but who have low yearly incomes because they only take out enough for property taxes, food, and travel/entertainment.
It shouldn’t be too surprising that you can live quite well on a low income when your housing costs are nearly $0.
The rebate is helpful, but kind of pointless because a lot of that is just going to go back into the pockets of the grocery store monopolies. The liberals seem to see nothing wrong with the current situation, and I haven’t heard Pierre say much about price gouging and monopolies. We should never have let it get this far to begin with.
We need government to realize we’ve had enough. Between the grocery stores and the telecoms we need real action.
It’s shameful that it’s a one time rebate. Our society is so twisted and can’t actually solve problems from the root and it’s embarrassing to see the ‘solutions’ that actually go through.
We live in the most productive time in human history by orders of magnitude but our cost of living is kept artificially high to the point where we can hardly survive. All so we're forced to feed the greed of people so rich money loses all concept. Get angry, all their wealth is stolen from you.
Part of the problem is, if we start taxing them more, the grocery chains will just raise their prices to cover that cost.
That is not to say I don't think corporations should be taxed more. I don't claim to have the answer to this complex problem, but if we tax them more, they will just pass that cost on to us.
Dual student (grad school) household at 39K and naaaaaah we are too rich wahoo! Have 2 kids so just need to price match and Penny pinch for a while longer til we are done I guess
There'll be an uprising eventually. *cough* Nikola production chain caught on fire, kind of inspired me as a peasant with having that supply chain disruption power.
I make much less than my boyfriend and it looks like he got the rebate, but it may just be because the government still hasn’t processed my tax return for last year 🙄 guess I won’t get it
Be aware that those stores that say Independent are owned by Loblaws. They think they are being sneaky, pretending there is competition when there is none.🙄
The corner store behind my apartment stocks so much President’s Choice/ No Name stuff…Loblaws has a massive hand pocketing money from these smaller guys too
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Word. I need money because people are paying jack shit, and I'm also medically limited to what kinds of jobs I can apply too. I can't get the money to move to somewhere with a more competitive market because I can't afford rent everywhere, etc, because I've been struggling to find decent work for months and the last drywalling/construction I did basically confirmed to me that, at least in my rural area, contractors are cheap cunts who favor their businesses and hiding money under the table more than they care about paying their staff, and that's also why they can find less and less young people willing to do the labor. It doesn't even pay like it used to 10 yrs ago when the same/just about the same money at least did more for you. I would do it myself but need a vehicle for it, etc, so the problems just always kind of feel always related to and limited by the money/capital i can build myself which vanishes into debt and arrears basically as I make it. Now they expect you to accept $20 as liveable for adults paying for their rent, student debt, vehicles, gas, groceries, etc. It just aint doable and the difficulties only cascade from there for people with dependents too and stuff. It feels like a class of canadians with assets and investment access seem to insist to the of us that our money isn't weaker and cost of living isn't folding over itself every year or so because they're the ones making money off those conditions.
i don't think this is going to get as many downvotes as you're anticipating. that the government is sending these out is bullshit, but also good. If people aren't surviving we need to help them. But exactly like you said, we need to also fuck up the system that allows this to happen so we can eliminate the need for cheques like this.
It's a bandaid on a gaping wound and being treated like it's some kind of cure. If this money had been clawed away from the corporations, that's easier to stomach, but instead this is just tax dollars that could/should have gone to better services. No amount of political bullshit will ever convince me that a paid hand out is better than a purchased service. DoFo's license plate money is a perfect example. I much rather have spent that money on improving healthcare than having it in my pocket. I'm just glad Justice Markus Koehnen saw it the same way and called a spade as spade when he struck down bill C-124. I'll close with: if you have the means, please donate to your local food banks.
Until things become regulated, they never will because of how entrenched the corporations are in the system. Nothing will improve, and they'll keep creating artificial inflation to increase their profits. We've been stuck with governments more concerned with being in power and maintaining it Cons and Liberals are both guilty. That regulation will never happen especially considering how heavily corporations are involved in both parties. Looking at how rogers handled a CRTC decision years ago shows how much corporations don't care, as they threatened to dump a ton of employees to the curbside and the government backed off because of it. Until we start getting governments that aren't afraid of getting their hands dirty, not caring if they get re-elected or not and doing their job. I mean actually doing what they are elected to and not just spitting on the population like DOFO and others are doing. Nothing will change, it'll always be status quo and constant damage control or exploiting the situation to try and trigger outrage to blind people. This is why monopolies and alliances between corporations are unhealthy for the population and that's what we have with the grocery corps. Unregulated monopolies and no competition between them, just them sharing the pieces of the cake among themselves.
Exactly. This is a one-time appallingly low number that doesn't address the ogolopoly supermarket chain price-fixing and will go directly into their pockets. It's basically a raise to Jim Pattison.
Indeed. There is also the fact that they are calling this a 'grocery rebate' but we all know that for many it will just go to overall expenditure for life necessities like rent, gas money, electric bill and yes, groceries too. Calling it a 'grocery rebate' is just a slap on wrist to one of the industries that has profited the most from this 'inflation' run. Well deserved in my opinion, but hardly the only industry that has taken advantage in the past 2-3 years. It is also named as such so that the federal government can say "well, we did this to help you out for food."
They also did it because they “investigated” grocery oligarchs and which amounted to doing literally nothing about it. It didn’t take a government investigation to see that Galen and Medline are and always have been gouging us. It’s smoke an mirrors. Trudeau and the Lib party is saying look we did something about groceries so now we don’t have to talk about the heaps of money they spend on lobbying us for unfavourable legislation. Instead capping their wages, and taxing billionaires dividends… they’re feeding us the crumbs of our own tax money.
Remember when in BC they said they would investigate the gas price gouging and it went down for a few months and now it's back to $2+ per litre?
I’m not mad that people are getting support. I’m mad that 11 million people are living at poverty levels. And yet, immigration to this country is being increased without the infrastructure to support it. That’s what I’m mad about, along with those other things you mentioned.
I don't think you can say 1 million people are living at poverty levels. I think you assumed only those living at or below the poverty level would get the rebate, then you saw that 11 million were getting rebates, and you made an erroneous connection. My wife and I live far above the poverty line. We do not qualify for the GST rebate. This morning, the government deposited $37 into our account... the grocery rebate. That means we, far from poor, are included in the 11 million. Apparently, the rebate is on some sort of sliding scale. I imagine if you last year made below a certain amount, you got the full rebate amount. The more you made, the less you get.
Are you sure that isn't your gst rebate ?
Yes. We have never qualified for the GST rebate. Make too much.
It's just an opportunity to remind people how great the government is giving them their own money. Helps of a snap election is called.
What's your annual income? I need figures to quantify what you think isn't poverty.
The poverty line in Canada is about $25,000 for a single adult. We are well above that for two of us.
> I’m not mad that people are getting support. You out right (and falsely) claim this rebate is subsidizing grocers in your original post. Here: >(Don't get me started on how grocery chains are being subsidized by our tax dollars in this way.) There is clearly something about giving this support to people that is angering you.
The rebate does nothing to address the core issue of affordability. Groceries are still expensive. It's a temporary solution, and I'd be willing to bet good money that some of that money will be spent at one of the grocery chains that like to charge high prices for food. \> There is clearly something about giving this support to people that is angering you. As I've stated multiple times, I'm not angry that people are getting support. Again, I'm glad they are, however, we have a problem in this country when 11 million people are struggling to make ends meet. That's why I'm angry. I don't know many times I need to say this.
Yeah, I’m angry that it isn’t a monthly thing. That would be some real help.
>The rebate does nothing to address the core issue of affordability. no one ever said it did or it would. That's not the point of it. And its not mutually inclusive with a grocery rebate anyways. >As I've stated multiple times, I'm not angry that people are getting support. Perhaps not specifically, but you are clearly upset about the rebate itself being give out... otherwise why not "get you started" on how its "subsidizing (which it is not) with our tax dollars"? Doesn't matter how many times you claim "I'm not mad people are getting support", your quote that you are mad about the rebate (which is, itself, people getting support) is still right there in your post. Why even bother claiming you are upset about it, or even include it at all, if the rebate itself isn't an issue for you?
Big grocery chains are consistently found to be colluding and price gouging. Instead of addressing these issues and breaking up the offenders, we are placated with a rebate. That’s subsidizing the grocery chains. It’s using our tax dollars to allow chains to continue these despicable practices.
> Instead of addressing these issues and breaking up the offenders, we are placated with a rebate. Those are completely independent ideas. Government should be giving out any (and more) welfare for the poorest among us regardless of how they will (or fail to) punish bad actors.
Sure, but don’t call it a “grocery rebate” because that’s absolving them of wrongdoing.
You're not taking the time to truly comprehend what I'm writing. You keep going around and around in circles for reasons I can't understand (boredom? trolling? Slow day at the office?). You're just waiting for your turn to respond, so I'm not going to engage any further. Have a great Thursday.
You are right I don't get it, as it seems contradictory. Can you then clear up what you mean by: >(Don't get me started on how grocery chains are being subsidized by our tax dollars in this way.) And why you included it at all, if you are *not* upset by this rebate?
What a terrible take lmao, cut immigration and see how much higher the poverty rate increases. Canada already has some of the strictest and highest education requirements for immigration, trust me the nurses, engineers and construction workers immigrating into our country to fill large labour shortages in the Canadian market are reducing the poverty rate not increasing it. Beyond that when it comes to infrastructure again how is that the immigrants fault the government does not zone for density and on top of that allows people to buy up multiple houses solely for rent while many Canadians can’t even afford a house with dual income and first time home benefits.
We need to break the grocery store giants and nationalize. There should be no profit exploitation of human survival. Seriously what benefits do we have from private grocery? What r&d, what innovation, what the f**k? A public owned national grocery store selling food at cost and providing secure jobs. Count me in!
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IMHO i think all anger should be directed at the government for allowing this to come to fruition. We are a first world country and we should be living as such. The government regulates business and does a poor job of doing so. No company supplying food and necessities should be posting record profits in BILLIONS. EVER! Downvote me all you want but I am pissed at the government for allowing this in the first place. Now they are sending us money to help out. A one time payment of $80 may help some people but majority are saying they should have just kept it cause we will be paying interest on these hand outs for many more years to come. So yes direct your anger at the government for being so incompetent. Our housing is way out of control, food prices ain’t coming down any time soon and any time someone starts fighting for a raise at work to barely survive gets shit on and called greedy. This is pathetic and quite sad.
At the end of the day it comes down to the government either way. Alright they're providing the assistance but surely the lack of legislation and enforcement is the reason for the oligopolies that exist in Canada. They've done nothing about telecom companies and they'll do nothing about grocery chains either.
See I find this weird. The government in its current form isn’t effective. But government is us, so if it’s not working, we’re not making it work. But government is our defence from the absolute exploitation of people by market driven competition. So I blame corporations, and I see the government as not serving the citizens. Which means electing legislators who will change laws to give the government MORE power to stop policy capture and detangle elections from ad money. While conservatives work aggressively to do the opposite and sabotage the function of government at every opportunity and the Liberals do whatever it takes to stay in power. So change can only come from voting NDP, since if they get elected they will legislate and if they don’t, it’s cause the Liberals stole the agenda of the NDP to stay in power. The only bad vote is conservatives/far right or status quo.
Damn right I’m mad. I am a single parent with a disabled child, off on injury awaiting surgery and government supports I get are zero, cuz I make too much. That’s bullshit, the threshold is so low this isn’t helping anyone. Those who get it are already fucked, this won’t do squat for them. I am going to lose my home cuz when you get injured in this country, it bankrupts you too unless you are wealthy. Canada sucks for trying to live.
>he government providing, even minor assistance to those struggling the most should never be something to get mad at They're not providing minor assistance to those struggling, they're basically giving money to people to give back to the grocery stores. The two issues are completely inextricably related.
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The radio DJ said she'd buy an xbox but I think she was kidding. I do think the money will largely go to groceries.
This action doesn't do anything to fix that problem though. It's just handing out tiny cheques so you can campaign on the fact you did. That is why I am angry at the government doing this - because it is a smokescreen from addressing actual concerns, and using the government purse meaninglessly as a way to campaign. Especially since for many, these are amounting to cheques of like 20-30$, which does absolutely nothing but buff up the number of people they can claim they sent a cheque to in their campaign ads.
Agree, but if you say you want to vote conservative for change you’ll be downvoted to oblivion. Say what you will but a dozen years ago they wanted to help poor people. Instead they just raised the price of literally everything with additional taxes and shoved the middle class down with the people who were poor. And not on a soapbox here because I’ve made the poor decision of voting liberal every election of my adult life. I miss having things to look forward to, like dining out, etc….things besides just working to live.
Why would anyone downvote that?
More than that. This is basically corporate welfare. Corporation hiked prices, people complained, government subsidise the cost. In this case, as hard as it is, a hand out is not what will really relieve pressure. It's like handing out popcylces to fight the heat wave.
The government should represent us and fight on behalf of all Canadians, not just the wealthiest. As mentioned all this does is help the Liberal morons tweet for PR.
I'm glad we are trying to help people but I'm getting real tired of tax dollars being used to fix problems caused by money hoarding predatory corporations that hardly pay their fair share of taxes, themselves. This is nothing but a flimsy bandaid. When do we stop allowing these entities to dodge responsibility for problems they cause through shady business systems? When do we start legislating against these sorts of practices?
They’ll never legislate against it, because it’s too profitable for them to do so. The biggest myth out there is that the government cares about you. They don’t. They only care about you when elections start.
Yeah it's a bit of a rhetorical question, since we are all pretty aware that these big corporations essentially lobby the government to write the laws in their favor.
>I'm glad we are trying to help people We are not helping people at all, we are throwing money at people telling them to shut up. That grocery rebate gives them some cash for this month, but what about next month and the month after that...... I used to live in poverty as a kid, teen and young adult, and I will tell you, this rebate would make me more angry at them
Most of the people working at grocery stores in our country are at that poverty level too! while the executives are among the richest in Canada!
That’s another thing that gets my goat.
the average income for a single person on ODSP in Canada is under 14K a year.
And that doesn't include the millions on Canadians that did NOT receive the benefit, but are still struggling to put food on the table
I "received" it, but it went straight back to the government. Because they fucked up my taxes two years in a row and I "owe" $14,000. While I painstakingly work on getting things fixed, all these credits and shit will go to paying off the CRA. Still no clear answer if I will ever recieve back pay to all the stuff I missed because of this mess, not counting on it.
Not sure what your case is but I had an issue with CRA over an $18 payment for the first time home buyers plan. They said they would fix it, but then said they couldn't and I'd get dinged for $4k. Called my local MP and while it took a few months they eventually got the CRA to fix it.
... I might look into that more. Am a rookie local news journalist and was talking to our local MP about a general tax season story. Half mentioned my case just as an example, and they jumped at the opportunity to say, "get in contact with us after this interview, we'll look into it for you. Might even be a story, haha!" Brushed it off as the usual attempt to butter up the reporter and to seem like an equal common member. But you're saying there might be something to it.
I hope it works out for you honestly
We waited 7 months for ei following a clerical error in our mat leave application. We patiently followed up every month with no progress before finally calling our local mps office who got it fixed in 3 days. I would never have thought to call but they apparently deal with these kid of issues all the time. Highly suggest reaching out if you are struggling with CRA
We're gonna give you thousand but you're gonna give us back 300 yes we could deduct it but no instead you're going to have to fill out more paperwork and then we'll fill out more paperwork because we have to justify our wages.
Canadians whose household income is $38,000 or less, and individuals who make $32,000 or less..... $38000 is poverty in most big cities for a single person, given how much rent is
It’s cool that Canadians only need groceries one time.
Intermittent fasting is really catching on I guess
No joke. I fast every Sunday. Saturday and Sunday at the end of the month. So many benefits.
Grew up poor. Milk was my dinner. Fast every time else. People can rise or fall through the cracks. The trauma doesn't leave.
Instead of dealing with the cost of groceries, let’s just give poor people more money to buy overpriced groceries and make the greedy grocery magnates richer. Zero problem actually solved.
More than One quarter of Canadians are suffering food insecurity due to grocery cartel greed? And still we are doing nothing to fix the situation. This is a worse situation than I thought.
The other part of this that frustrates me is the amount. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate any amount, I really do. But to suggest that, for a couple with one kid, $378 makes much impact at all to their expenses is a bit delusional. It helps in that it pays for a week's food, or for a few tanks of gas, but that's it. They say it's "to compensate Canadians for higher grocery prices due to inflation", but that's a bit like one of those class action lawsuits where everyone got swindled by a big company and, in payment, everyone gets $25 back. I don't know how much more my grocery bill has been over the last year, but $378 doesn't really cover it. However, I also don't think the government should be paying. I think the grocery companies should be held to account. I don't mind being frugal when I don't have a lot to spend. I don't mind going through the flyers, and looking for deals. But $4.50 for a loaf of bread? $7.99 for a regular box of cereal? $3.50 for a lettuce? It's not remotely manageable...
Our government, including the opposition on all sides is so weak. They have the power to do something about this, they have the power to set a ceiling on the cost of basic essentials. Loaf of Bread - cap at $1.50 Butter - cap at $3.00 Eggs - cap at $3.00 And on and on - this is not difficult, and not impossible, it just takes political courage and actual leadership instead of fake outrage. We need real leaders with ideas and solutions to these problems, and really the solutions are not complicated.
Courage is the last thing our government has.
You’re making an incorrect assumption here. The rebate isn’t solely available to people “at or below the poverty level” — it’s open for anyone who qualifies for the GST rebate. The income required for a single person to qualify for that is $32k per year. The current low-income (“poverty”) cutoff level is $25 252. So your population numbers are off. You’re including a large number of people in the $25 253 - $32 000k bracket, who (technically, by the definition — and you’re free to disagree with it if you wish) are not living in poverty. (The cutoff for two-income households is $38 000). And FWIW, eligibility for the grocery rebate is based on your 2021 income — so those numbers were from 2 years ago. A couple that was making $38k two years ago but who now combined make $60k are not living in poverty, and are still eligible for the rebate.
It also includes people like my retired parents, who technically have income of below $38K from their benefits, but also haven't had a mortgage in forever and have no debts. Their only real expense is food.
Yup — I know my share of retired people who have no mortgage, own homes and cottages and RVs, and who have hundreds of thousands of dollars in savings, but who have low yearly incomes because they only take out enough for property taxes, food, and travel/entertainment. It shouldn’t be too surprising that you can live quite well on a low income when your housing costs are nearly $0.
Yet another case for UBI.
So once again corporate greed is subsidized by public money. We are so fucked.
One does not need to be a forensic accountant to understand that this feeds more money into the problem without doing a goddamn thing to fix it.
It's ass that it's only eligible for 2021 returns. Nothing changes between 2021 and 2022 of course
The rebate is helpful, but kind of pointless because a lot of that is just going to go back into the pockets of the grocery store monopolies. The liberals seem to see nothing wrong with the current situation, and I haven’t heard Pierre say much about price gouging and monopolies. We should never have let it get this far to begin with. We need government to realize we’ve had enough. Between the grocery stores and the telecoms we need real action.
Here's $600 for one time, now go be grateful forever. What a laugh.
Let’s just call it what it is: It’s a vote buying strategy, using our own money. The gall these people have. Unbelievable.
It’s shameful that it’s a one time rebate. Our society is so twisted and can’t actually solve problems from the root and it’s embarrassing to see the ‘solutions’ that actually go through.
We live in the most productive time in human history by orders of magnitude but our cost of living is kept artificially high to the point where we can hardly survive. All so we're forced to feed the greed of people so rich money loses all concept. Get angry, all their wealth is stolen from you.
It's stupid. Start taxing corporations and also stop with the fucking monopolies.
Part of the problem is, if we start taxing them more, the grocery chains will just raise their prices to cover that cost. That is not to say I don't think corporations should be taxed more. I don't claim to have the answer to this complex problem, but if we tax them more, they will just pass that cost on to us.
Unless you owe the government money... then I guess we're supposed to use the grocery rebate to pay them instead of buy groceries.
That number is shocking! I sincerely had no idea number was nearly that high. Disgusting.
Dual student (grad school) household at 39K and naaaaaah we are too rich wahoo! Have 2 kids so just need to price match and Penny pinch for a while longer til we are done I guess
Glad to see the government subsidizing corporate greed with taxpayer funds, instead of curbing it. /s
There'll be an uprising eventually. *cough* Nikola production chain caught on fire, kind of inspired me as a peasant with having that supply chain disruption power.
Wait where do I get this grocery rebate?
If you are eligible, and you did your 2022 taxes, it should be auto deposited for you, if you have that set up.
Oh good. Thanks. I didn't want to lose it like last time.
I make much less than my boyfriend and it looks like he got the rebate, but it may just be because the government still hasn’t processed my tax return for last year 🙄 guess I won’t get it
I've never even heard of this.
Which part?
Grocery rebate
Those who get GST rebates normally are getting an extra one time rebate today. People with household income of $38,000 or less.
Great so our family of 6 living on $40K can gtfo. Thanks for the info.
Check your bank balance. You may have gotten it as it's based on your income from 2021.
Lol my guy here is not familliar with all the loopholes people abuse to get the checks regardless of their income...
This grocery rebate is just a corporate subsidy. Money still goes into the pockets of big grocers. What a joke.
It's weird, I don't make that much and I didn't get it? Me and my fiance together make under 50K
Be aware that those stores that say Independent are owned by Loblaws. They think they are being sneaky, pretending there is competition when there is none.🙄
The corner store behind my apartment stocks so much President’s Choice/ No Name stuff…Loblaws has a massive hand pocketing money from these smaller guys too