Sometimes what happens in a budget is the government will cherry-pick certain lines about it and say, “Hey, you don’t support the whole budget. How come you don’t support this one part?” And that is fruitless.

The reality, though, is that when you’re living in poverty, when you’re living on OW or ODSP, and you tell somebody, “You are going to get a tax credit,” you’re ignoring the fact that most people who live in poverty don’t file their taxes. They don’t. And so, most people, they use their taxes as a bank account, as a savings account—sorry, through the Speaker. So what they do is they don’t file because they wait for their fridge to break down, because every penny you have, you spend. So telling somebody that, “You’re going to live in poverty for 12 months out of the year, but three months after that, you’re going to get tax relief,” is not hope for them.

What they need is food on the table today, money in their pockets today. They need to make ends meet today. So it’s not that it’s a bad idea, but it’s a “yes and” conversation. Let’s give them the tax relief and let’s put money in their pockets today.