Income Tax Act
Bill to Amend--Third Reading
February 12, 2026
Moved third reading of Bill C-19, An Act to amend the Income Tax Act.
He said: Honourable senators, I am pleased to rise at the third reading of Bill C-19, An Act to amend the Income Tax Act, or, by its short title, the Canada groceries and essentials benefit act —
I would like to thank the Minister of Finance and National Revenue for presenting this important bill in greater detail before the Committee of the Whole.
In his remarks today, the Minister of Finance and National Revenue underscored the urgency of this legislation while commending parliamentarians of all stripes for coming together to consider and hopefully pass this bill in an expedited fashion.
I share the minister’s sentiments, and for the purposes of today’s debate, I would like to offer you a few more brief reflections on Bill C-19 in its final form and why it merits your support.
Colleagues, the targeted financial support provided for in this bill will make essentials, such as groceries, much more affordable for Canadians facing financial hardship during this period of global economic crisis.
In short, this will help more than 12 million low- and modest‑income Canadians meet their basic daily needs starting this spring, subject to Royal Assent.
The benefit will accomplish this in two steps. First, it will provide a one-time top-up payment, to be paid as early as possible this spring and no later than June, equal to a 50% increase in the annual 2025-26 value of the GST credit. This will deliver, as was mentioned, $3.1 billion in immediate assistance to individuals and families who currently get the GST credit.
Second, it will increase the value of the Canada Groceries and Essentials Benefit by 25% for five years starting in July 2026. This increase will deliver $8.6 billion in additional support over the period from 2026-27 to 2030-31, including to over 500,000 new individuals and families.
In practical terms, the one-time payment of 50% planned for this spring means that a family of four will receive up to $1,890 this year and approximately $1,400 per year for the next four years.
Currently, a single person who is eligible for the GST credit can receive a maximum of $543 per year. This same individual would receive roughly $950 in total, thanks to the one-time payment during the 2026-27 benefit year, and approximately $700 per year for the next four years.
Taken together, these measures would provide up to an additional $402 for a single individual without children, $527 for a couple and $805 for a couple with two children. At these levels, this new benefit will be offsetting grocery cost increases, which have outpaced inflation since the pandemic.
Without question, this benefit truly will help people who need it most. Overall, approximately 75% of the additional support provided through top-ups over the next two years will go to families whose net incomes are less than $40,000.
And to ensure that more Canadians with low incomes receive these new benefits, the government has made recent investments in outreach and assistance with tax filing for vulnerable populations. For example, the government is introducing the automated federal benefits program, starting in the 2026 tax year, to ensure up to 5.5 million low-income Canadians automatically receive the benefits they qualify for, including the Canada groceries and essentials benefit.
What’s more, to ensure that those who need this assistance receive it when they need it, the benefit will be paid quarterly, at the start of the quarter, to permit timely access to the funds.
These amounts are additional to existing benefits such as the Canada Child Benefit, the Canada Disability Benefit, and the Guaranteed Income Supplement and the Canada Workers Benefit.
Besides introducing this new benefit, the Prime Minister also announced measures to strengthen domestic food production, competition and supply chains, including funding to help businesses address the costs of supply chain disruptions without passing those costs on to Canadians at the checkout line, as well as to help address food insecurity and support food banks.
That is why the government has implemented several other measures aimed at making life more affordable for Canadians.
This includes reducing taxes for 22 million taxpayers, eliminating the GST for first-time homebuyers of new homes valued up to $1 million and reducing the GST for first-time homebuyers of new homes valued between $1 million and $1.5 million, cancelling the federal fuel charge and making the National School Food Program permanent, to name just a few examples.
These actions are part of the government’s agenda to help Canadians manage essential costs, improve food affordability, strengthen a more resilient food system and ultimately build a more resilient, affordable economy for the future.
Honourable senators, at a time when global supply chain disruptions have driven up prices to the point where some Canadians can no longer comfortably buy food to feed their families, the Canada groceries and essentials benefit is deserving of our support.
This benefit will help more than 12 million low- and modest‑income Canadians afford day-to-day essentials in a targeted, timely and temporary manner.
Parliamentarians have acknowledged the merits of Bill C-19 with their decision to expedite its passage, and I strongly believe this legislation deserves the same treatment here.
Thank you, meegwetch.
Thank you, Senator Boudreau, for your remarks. I’ll try to be brief as well.
Honourable senators, we have created this new precedent over the last few years in this new independent Senate of having speeches both at second and at third and final reading, which I really have a hard time understanding at times. I will spare you all my second reading speech. Those of you who were here, of course, remember how great it was. Those who were not here, well, you can go back and read it. I won’t repeat it. I will, though, just make a couple of comments.
The opposition, both in the House and in the Senate, supports Bill C-19 not because it addresses the problem — because this government is constantly busy addressing the symptoms and not the causes, and this is another example of where we’re going now a fourth time around the track with the same policy, trying to resolve the same problem of scarcity, an economic crisis where the cost of living has hit record highs, where grocery prices are hitting record highs and the Canadian public is suffering.
Of course, there is an old adage that when you do the same things over and over again expecting a different result, that is the definition of insanity. I know that is something we wouldn’t be doing in business as entrepreneurs. I know Senator Loffreda wouldn’t be doing that when he had a real job, like I did, working at the RBC. When a strategy doesn’t work, we re-evaluate, reflect and change strategies.
Putting in place a patch job on a hole for the fourth time — it has been tried since 2020 by this government, and it hasn’t worked — I can guarantee you we will be back a year from now and continue to have the same problem. The problem is the following: We have a government with no fiscal anchor. We have a government that is running historic debts and deficits while creating a climate where we are not bringing in enough foreign investment in this country in order to unleash the entrepreneurial spirit and create the preconditions for the creation of wealth.
When all those common denominators are the factor of creating a weak economy, it is why foreign investors are not investing in Canada. It is why Canadian domestic investors are choosing to invest in the United States, Europe and other parts of the world — because they think we are not competitive. You can see study after study over the last 10 years: Canada’s level of competitiveness is one of the worst amongst the G20 nations and industrial countries in the world.
Let’s have a coherent policy, not makeshift programs. We had a budget a few months ago, 405 pages. The government put so much thought, right after the election, into giving us a budget of 405 pages where they didn’t think that this was worthy only two months ago of putting in the budget. As the problem continues to grow, they are in a very rash way trying to put other patches on top of patches.
When they get rid of the carbon tax, which we were calling for in this house and in the other place for the last seven years, on the eve of an election, to win an election — if you are going to borrow the ideas of the opposition to win an election, at least borrow all of them and, in addition to the carbon tax, get rid of the industrial carbon tax so all the money that farmers are passing on to consumers when they are producing their goods and services aren’t passing on those goods and services. That would be the kind of thoughtful public policy that would give you results.
When you have a weak dollar and it costs a distributor of fruits and vegetables in this country C$136 to buy US$100 worth of produce, who do you think is paying for it at the end of the equation?
Any one of us who has been in business and has transactioned in the buying and selling of goods and services and produce, we know how it works. Get rid of unnecessary taxes that are driving up prices. Get rid of unnecessary taxes that are creating a climate of stagnation in the economy, and strengthen the Canadian dollar to where it was in 2008, 2009 and 2010, when we were equal and, at times, over 2010-11, stronger than the U.S. dollar. So when we hit an international economic crisis, what happened? Canada weathered that storm a little bit better than any other country — a lot better, actually.
These are some of the things I want to share with you.
Despite the fact that, as I said, the government is dealing with the symptoms and not the cause, we in the opposition do recognize that middle-class and poor Canadians are suffering like they have never done before.
I will say this: We have seen my good friend the leader of the government get up in this chamber time and again and try to paint the rosy picture of how great things are and justify the fact that he is on that side and I’m on this side, and why we’re losing elections. I will say this: If you do not at least steal the entirety of our public policies, you will not be there on that side for very long. Time will tell. But I will tell you this: In the meantime, we know that Canadians are suffering. We will support, Your Honour and honourable colleagues, this bill because we think it needs to be done at this particular juncture, but I plead with the government to take note of solid public policy ideas that won’t bring us back in the future to doing these short-term measures in order to patch holes that are getting larger and larger.
I call the question on Bill C-19.
Are honourable senators ready for the question?
Is it your pleasure, honourable senators, to adopt the motion?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
(Motion agreed to and bill read third time and passed.)
