Raise basic personal amount

AI summary

Petitioners ask the government to raise the basic personal amount to $28,000, permanently remove GST/HST on home heating, electricity and all food, and suspend discretionary foreign aid in deficit years to reduce debt.

AI summaries describe petitioners’ requests and claims. Consult the official record for the full text.

Official petition

Petition to the House of Commons in Parliament assembled It is the duty of the government to always uphold the best interests of its citizens and residents. Yet today, citizens are taxed before they can afford to survive. The 2026 Basic Personal Amount is only $16,452—nearly $12,000 below the poverty line. Taking money from paycheques before people can afford food or rent is fundamentally unjust; This systemic unfairness multiplies daily. Canadians are taxed upon earning their livelihoods, then penalized again via GST and carbon taxes when simply buying groceries or heating their homes during winter. This relentless taxation cycle disproportionately devastates low-income families, who must spend absolutely every dollar on baseline survival; and Meanwhile, 11 cents of every tax dollar simply services the interest on our staggering $1.27 trillion National Debt. That is $55.6 billion wasted annually. Simultaneously, the government runs an annual deficit exceeding $70 billion. On any commercial flight, the universal safety instruction is explicit: you must secure your own oxygen mask before attempting to assist others. A nation must operate by this exact same undeniable logic. Sending billions overseas in discretionary foreign aid while nearly 7 million Canadians face severe food insecurity at home is unacceptable. We, the undersigned, citizens and residents of Canada, call upon the Government of Canada to: 1. Raise the Basic Personal Amount to the $28,000 poverty line, guaranteeing no income tax is collected until survival needs are met; 2. Permanently remove GST and HST from home heating, electricity, and all food; and 3. Halt all discretionary foreign aid during deficit years, legally redirecting those exact funds to aggressively reduce Canadian debt.

Government response

No government response is available yet.