Grocery price surge shows scrapping GST works to drive down prices

OTTAWA—The Liberal government’s choice to slap GST back on all groceries drove food price inflation faster than any month since April 2022 – and that’s exactly why the NDP will remove the sales tax from daily essentials for good.

According to Statistics Canada’s latest Consumer Price Index numbers, grocery price inflation surged to 2.8 per cent in February after the GST break literally lowered the cost of food for Canadian families for the first time in years.

The Liberal government ended the GST break on Feb. 14, driving up the day-to-day cost of living again.

“A GST holiday helps families put food on the table, and we have proof that it works to cool inflation,” said NDP MP Alistair MacGregor (Cowichan—Malahat—Langford), critic for Food Price Inflation. “To make life more affordable, the NDP will permanently take the GST off grocery store meals, and expand it to help with essentials like diapers and car seats plus monthly bills including cell, internet and heating bills. The government shouldn’t have been charging you tax on those essentials in the first place.”

Jagmeet Singh and the NDP’s Tax-Free Essentials plan forced the Liberals to implement the half-measure in December – a two-month GST holiday – just enough to prove it works, but it was too short to help everyday working families get ahead of the bills and start saving,” said MacGregor.

Mark Carney said the GST holiday was a bad idea. Pierre Poilievre said it would drive up inflation.

“The Liberals and Conservatives are both promising a tax cut for the rich — a change to capital gains that will allow those who make $1.4 million per year to not pay taxes on most of their income,” said MacGregor. “New Democrats believe it’s regular everyday working people that deserve a break -- not the multi-millionaires. The American tariff threat is only going to cause more uncertainty and higher inflation. We know that a GST break helps, so we'll make it permanent.”