Prime Minister Mark Carney's plan will lower the tax rate for the first personal income bracket by 1 per cent for 22 million people.Justin Tang/The Canadian Press
Rodney Beatty is a writer and former business leader based in Sarnia, Ont.
When I heard Prime Minister Mark Carney announce that his government’s first order of business would be a middle-class tax cut, I paused. Not out of cynicism, but out of hope. Maybe this was finally the moment someone in Ottawa would acknowledge people like me.
But as I listened closer, that hope gave way to something familiar: a sense that I was invisible in a system I still help fund.
I’m a single Canadian. I live alone. I pay taxes, and like millions of others, I carry the full cost of housing, groceries, utilities, insurance – without the benefit of a dual income or child-related tax credits. The new tax cut may ease pressure for some households. But for people like me? The needle barely moves.
Carney’s plan will lower the tax rate for the first personal income bracket by 1 per cent for 22 million Canadians. It’s being framed as broad-based relief. But broad doesn’t mean equitable. And when you already live on the margins of what the tax system rewards, a one per cent cut doesn’t address the imbalance – it reinforces it.
Here’s what I mean.
A married couple earning a combined $72,000 often pays less tax than a single person earning the same amount alone. Why? Because they can split income, reduce their taxable amount and access benefits that singles can’t. Meanwhile, a single taxpayer earning that $72,000 covers every expense themselves, and gets no additional consideration in return.
Turns out the July federal tax cut has some fine print attached to it
We’re not talking about a niche group. Nearly one-third of Canadian households are made up of single individuals. Yet tax policy continues to reflect an idealized version of family life that leaves millions of us shouldering more, while qualifying for less.
Earlier this year, I proposed a modest change: Increase the basic personal amount – the portion of your income that’s exempt from federal income tax – for single Canadians. I suggested raising it to 150 per cent of the standard amount. It wasn’t meant to punish couples or families. It was meant to recognize that fairness isn’t just about how much you give back. It’s about who’s still not being seen.
I shared this idea with my local Conservative MP, Marilyn Gladu, who represents Sarnia-Lambton-Bkejwanong. She wrote back, calling it “well thought out.” That was encouraging. But encouragement doesn’t stretch across the grocery store checkout or the monthly rent. Encouragement doesn’t pay for heat.
This isn’t about political sides. I don’t care what party you vote for. But I do care when the very first move of a new government – the signal moment meant to define its values – reinforces a system that already excludes so many.
I’m glad families will save a little. But I hope someone on Parliament Hill – maybe someone in Carney’s very large cabinet – remembers that the “middle class” includes people who eat dinner alone, too.
