This is not exactly a love note to Ontario premier Ford and his pathetic finance minister. The wife and I are seniors on a fixed income and these idiots are offering us tax credits. Typical conservatives, offering tax credits instead of real money.
Tax credits are a bonus for people who have money. They have to already paid for something and can wait as much as a year for the government to give any back. That is what a tax credit means. And, if you do not owe the government for taxes, you do not get any money back.
Reading about the low-income individuals and families tax credit (known as LIFT) that is ballyhooed by the Tories as a break for 1.1 million Ontario residents is nothing but BS. Maybe by raising the “low income” limit to $50,000 or less, they might find a few more who can take advantage of the maximum tax break of $300. Wow!
And as much as the wife and I would love to take a staycation in Ontario, it is hardly likely we would spend $2000 or more on a hotel or cottage rental, just to get $400 back a year later. The finance minister claimed this was going to cost the government $270 million. If you want to check with the provincial auditor, a year or so from now, I would be damn surprised if the program cost half that amount.
This is just one more reason why governments are never spending as much as they claim they will. They lie, you know.
Where the Ontario conservatives lie the most is with programs such as the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP). It was four years ago when they came into office and actually cut the program back to a basic $1169 per month for a single person. There are people in this province spending more than that per month on their pet.
Think about it. Try this little exercise: could you live on $1169 today? What would it cost you for a room—with a common toilet down the hall? What would it cost you for food for 30 days? And we are obviously not talking a healthy diet. Could you afford a phone? Could you afford to ever buy clothes? Or a tube of toothpaste? Even if you were haunting food banks and charities, is this a life, you could live?
The answer is that all the experts are quoting about $2000 per month as a possible amount for one person to survive. The Ontario conservatives just raised that $1169 by five per cent.
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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry
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