Manitoba government to hand out cheques to help with rising food, fuel costs

The Manitoba government is cutting $225 and $375 cheques as part of a new affordability package billed as a carbon tax relief fund, intended to help people make ends meet in a time of high food and fuel costs, the premier says.

"It is getting hard to afford the basic necessities. We hear Manitobans when they say they can they can hardly afford to put gas in their cars," Premier Heather Stefanson said at a news conference on Thursday.

The $200-million fund will benefit roughly 700,000 people older than 18 who lived in the province on Dec. 31, 2021, and whose family net income that year was less than $175,000, with or without children.

A single person who meets the criteria will receive $225, while couples will receive $375. For couples, the lower income earner will receive the cheque. They will begin to be mailed out at the end of this month, the government website says, but the process will likely take up to six weeks.

Stefanson said the carbon tax is adding to people's financial burden, and called on the federal government to put a stop to it.

"Particularly during these very difficult times, this is something that they could halt immediately," Stefanson said.

The office of the federal environment minister said in a statement the tax is not there to raise revenues for the federal government, but to drive innovation for cleaner alternatives.

"As the cost of polluting activities increases, individuals and businesses will seek out cleaner alternatives. This creates an opportunity for companies to develop and scale-up cleaner fuels and new technologies," the statement said.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has previously suggested Stefanson isn't being honest with Manitobans about carbon taxes and their impacts on people.

"In the places like Manitoba, where the federal price on pollution applies, average families get more money back from the price on pollution than the extra price on pollution costs them," he said in a visit to the province in September.

Manitobans who meet the criteria each year receive payments from the federal government totalling $416 for an individual, $208 for a spouse or common-law partner, $104 per child under 19 and $208 for the first child in a single-parent family, the climate action incentive payment website says.

There is an increase of 10 per cent on the base amount for residents of small and rural communities.

Dorothy Bond says any amount helps her address the rising cost of living.

"The price of food is going up, and so is a lot of things, clothing — sometimes you have to make choices," she said.

"You just do the best you can."

This is the provincial government's second round of help to address inflation. In 2022, Manitoba targeted families with children, low-income seniors and people receiving income assistance.

Stefanson said the province's projected revenues are higher than anticipated, so the government is giving some of that money back.

The carbon tax relief fund is part of an $850-million package that will be made public in the coming days, she said. The money is meant to address financial pressures within the health-care system, support Manitoba municipalities with targeted project funding and help communities and industries to continue to recover, she said.

PCs 'picking a fight': NDP

Manitoba NDP Leader Wab Kinew said Stefanson is playing into the same politics as her predecessor Brian Pallister.

"The same old picking a fight with Ottawa over the price on pollution that we heard from Mr. Pallister," he said in an interview at the legislature on Thursday afternoon.

Kinew also questioned the motive for the cheques.

"This is a sure sign we're in an election year. Government has to go to polls in a few months and here they are — they're going to send cheques to everybody in the province," he said.

The one-time cheque doesn't go far enough, the Opposition leader said.

"I think for most people who are getting worn down by the rising cost of living, month after month, OK, we're here in January. What are you going to do next month in February? What about March, April, and so on through the rest of the year?" he said.

Kinew didn't give specifics about what an NDP government would do to address affordability, but the party has talked about freezing Hydro rates.

Manitoba Liberal Leader Dougald Lamont also questioned the nature of the funding.

"This is a $200-million Band-Aid that manages to combine bad policy with dishonest spin about inflation," Lamont said in a news release.

"Manitobans need meaningful, long-term, targeted investments. Instead, we're getting money sprayed out of the back of a plane like a crop-duster."

Program too broad: professor

Fletcher Baragar, an associate professor of economics at the University of Manitoba, said Quebec provides an example of a better approach to supporting people hit hard by inflation.

There, people who earn less than $104,000 were eligible for a cost of living credit, but it was a sliding scale based on income, that province's website says.

People who earn less than $50,000 were eligible for up to $600, while those who earned slightly more were eligible for between $400 and $600. Those who made more than $104,000 weren't eligible for the credit.

"It's a narrower base, but for the same amount of money ... you can provide a bigger package to those recipients at the lower end," Baragar said in an interview on Thursday.

"I think that this [Manitoba] program is too broadly based to really make a big impact on those that are perhaps most in need."

The $175,000 cutoff for eligibility for the cheque is well above the province's median, he said.

The latest available data from Statistics Canada from 2016 says the average household income, before taxes, was $68,070.

"That would seem to suggest to me that rather than … an important income assistance program, looking at it, it would strike me as something that's more politically expedient," Baragar said.