MORGAN: Why $100 cheques and grocery ‘bonuses’ are just expensive distractions

Nothing says “we feel your pain” quite like a politician announcing a one-time cheque that evaporates on your first trip to the store or a gas station. Ottawa’s latest attempt to paper over soaring food prices with a targeted top-up had limited uptake, negligible lasting relief, and zero dent in the underlying inflation that made the bonus necessary in the first place. A Blacklock’s Reporter article reported that federal focus groups didn’t see the value in the latest federal inflation-fighting “grocery bonus” program.A report entitled Continuous Qualitative Data Collection Of Canadians’ Views prepared for the Privy Council found citizens weren’t terribly enamoured with the rebates. Researchers wrote, “A number expressed the view that while any action to help make the cost of living more affordable represented a step in the right direction, more needed to be done by the Government of Canada to stabilize or bring down the cost of groceries going forward.”In other words, Canadians aren’t as dumb as the federal government hoped they would be. Citizens may welcome any funds they can get to offset the rising cost of living, but they understand that handouts are only a band-aid rather than a solution to inflation.Alberta’s version is equally performative. Premier Danielle Smith’s “Dani Dollars” (officially the Alberta Energy Rebate) handed eligible residents a grand total of $100 this summer. It’s framed as relief from high energy costs after oil prices spiked, replacing a temporary fuel-tax pause. Critics correctly noted it barely covers a couple of fill-ups or a modest grocery run for a family, yet the announcement generated the usual photo-ops and self-congratulatory messaging. Many Albertans took the money but were nonplussed.These are not isolated stunts, and the concept of trying to bribe citizens with their own money is hardly new. Ralph Klein offered a $400 handout to Albertans when his political fortunes began to sink, and myriad other governments have used the same tactic..Trudeau offered a 2023 federal Grocery Rebate: a one-time payment of up to $467 for a couple with two children, and doubled GST credit amounts for lower-income households. As the price of the consumer carbon tax began to sink in, Trudeau started handing out rebates. Again, while citizens happily took the rebates, they didn’t lose their loathing of the tax. Carney’s removal of both the consumer carbon tax and the associated rebates was one of his most popular moves as a new prime minister. People didn’t want more damn rebates. They wanted tax cuts.These rebates are always sold as “putting money back in your pockets” while politicians hope that citizens forget who took the money out of their pocket in the first place. The real drivers of pocketbook pain are the cumulative weight of big government. Layer upon layer of regulations on businesses. Everything from environmental permitting delays to labour rules and supply-chain mandates drives investment out of the country while raising the cost for consumer goods. Protectionist trade deals and interprovincial barriers keep competition artificially low and prices artificially high. The simple move of dumping supply management policies on poultry and dairy products would save Canadian families thousands, but the state won’t budge. Meanwhile, high consumer and corporate taxes leave less in the wallets of those managing to remain employed while the federal government maintains a massive, bloated, and inefficient bureaucracy.Canada’s productivity lags the developed world, and the GDP per capita when compared to the United States is embarrassingly low and dropping.A $100 cheque or a temporary GST holiday does nothing to unwind the pressures placed on citizens by big government. Actual relief would come from cutting regulations so businesses can operate more efficiently, liberalizing trade so Canadians can access cheaper goods, and lowering the overall tax burden, so people keep more of what they earn in the first place..Real solutions demand something direly lacking in legislatures, both provincial and federal. They need political courage. Governments must find the testicular fortitude to stand up to civil service unions and senior bureaucrats protecting their little fiefdoms. Buying love from labour unions through endless capitulation to strike threats while passing on the costs through higher taxes won’t be tenable for much longer.Tossing a few dollars here and there at citizens to purchase electoral peace is insulting yet has been politically effective so far. People understand the bad deal they are getting yet can’t find the will to vote for change. In that sense, much of the electorate is no less cowardly than the politicians are.Albertans and Canadians will keep receiving the odd hundred bucks and keep wondering why the cost of living never seems to ease.Until the well truly dries up.

MORGAN: Why $100 cheques and grocery ‘bonuses’ are just expensive distractions

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