Justin Trudeau's Finance Minister Bill Morneau has said that the government will not rebate GST payments to smaller Canadian businesses as it is "not their money," according to Blacklock's Reporter.
Morneau's statement follows a request by opposition MPs to give this money back in order to save small businesses from bankruptcy.
Speaking to the Senate on Saturday, Morneau said that "the idea of rebating GST which people have brought up is just not functional."
"There are three reasons. Businesses hold GST in trust; it’s not their money. They don’t actually own that money, so we can’t rebate something that is not actually theirs," he added.
"We looked at it. It doesn’t work," finished Morneau.
Conservative MPs have long been pushing for sudden redemptions of quarterly GST payments after the economic shock of coronavirus.
This would save small businesses who "desperately need to pay rent, suppliers, salaries and other urgent expenses that cannot wait any longer," said the Shadow Finance Critic Pierre Poilievre.
"Here in Canada even though the Opposition cooperated and met with the government, passed in one day their amendments to the Income Tax Act they claimed would be enough to help small business, not a single penny has moved," he added.
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