TORONTO – Thirty days ago, an amnesty on the harmonized sales tax in Canada was implemented to last until February 15th, 2025. What does this mean. It means no taxes on select food and beverages, select children’s clothing and select literature. Confusing? Perhaps. 

When the effectivity date on this amnesty kicked in on December 15th, 2024, some small establishments like mom and pop stores found themselves scrambling on how to distinguish which items were taxable and which were not. This was resolved in time. And now, you can walk into any restaurant or fast food chain and surprise yourself by not paying tax on the food that you eat. On the same vein, parents get some measure of relief when they shop for clothes for their young children.

Question is, does this amnesty help at all with the current economic situation in this country?  Temporarily, for some. I have a relative who goes grocery shopping every Thursday which she calls flyer day. She says that the soaring food prices in the country are affecting her budget. I agree. It’s not an observation. Rather, a fact. Our dollar as of today, January 14th, 2025 is .6920 to every US dollar. Why US? Because our currency is pegged to the US currency. I can live with this exchange rate but with the present political situation in the US where the President elect who will be sworn in on the 20th day of this month threatening to slap 25% tariffs on Canada’s exports to the US, life will only get tougher especially for those with fixed income. And pensions are fixed income, the way I see it.

In a subtle way, Canadians are being warned to prepare for the worse this year. The ticker in my elevator’s tv screen says that the loonie is expected to go down which is disconcerting to anyone on a fixed income. Twenty five percent tariffs on our exports to the US is nothing to sneeze at. And with this comes the “joke” that economic threats to this country might be used to get Canada into the bosom of the US.

Gone are the days when you can get a taco for under a dollar or a bbq pork bun for a dollar or a meal at a fast food chain for $5.99. There’s a saying here in Ontario – when the price of something goes up, it’ll never come down even if everything else is coming down. I learned this from my once upon a time favourite dollar store. This dollar store increased its price from everything in the store costing a dollar to an increase in 25 cents to 50 cents when the price of fuel rose, even promising to bring the price back to a dollar when the fuel supply stabilized. The fuel price went down but that dollar price never returned.