CLC’s response for the Canada Groceries and Essentials Benefit

OTTAWA –– Today’s announcement from Prime Minister Carney recognizes what workers across this country already know: the affordability crisis is real, and families across the country are feeling it every day. 

Strengthening the GST credit, now the Canada Groceries and Essentials Benefit, with a 25 per cent increase over the next five years and a one-time boost this year, will help many Canadians trying to make ends meet. For up to 12 million people, this support will mean more breathing room when deciding between groceries, rent, medicine, and other everyday essentials. 

But tax credits alone won’t solve food insecurity. Canada’s Unions welcome the government’s commitment to develop a National Food Security Strategy but urge Ottawa to tackle the real causes of hunger in Canada. 

Canada’s Unions urge the government to address the underlying factors behind food insecurity. Too many people are stuck in insecure, low-paid jobs, struggling to get by on meager Employment Insurance benefits after being laid-off, or barely keeping it together on stingy disability benefits or social assistance.  

Families are still being forced into impossible choices, trading off groceries and prescription medications against rent, utilities, and other basic costs. 

Canadians also deserve accountability from corporations like Walmart that profit from our food system. Workers are right to be concerned when hundreds of millions in public support can flow to businesses without clear conditions to ensure savings are passed on at the checkout, especially when rising grocery prices are being driven by excessive profit margins. 

Canada’s Unions continue to call for windfall profits tax on large, highly profitable corporations, including big grocers, and for stronger competition enforcement to protect workers.