OTTAWA \u2014 One of the federal Liberals’ flagship affordability measures will start landing in the bank accounts of eligible Canadians today.<\/p>\n
First announced by Prime Minister Mark Carney in January, top-up payments for the Canada Groceries and Essentials Benefit will start going out today.<\/p>\n
The program previously was called the GST\/HST credit and is usually paid out on a quarterly basis to lower-income households to help them keep pace with the rising cost of living.<\/p>\n
An estimated 12 million Canadians are eligible for the one-time benefit. Payments will vary based on the size of the household, with a single adult with no children getting up to $267 and a couple with two kids receiving a maximum of $533.<\/p>\n
The one-time top-up payment is worth 50 per cent of the annual benefit and regular quarterly payouts will also rise by 25 per cent for the next five years, starting in July.<\/p>\n
Canadians who meet the income threshold based on their 2024 tax returns will receive the benefit automatically by direct deposit or by mail.<\/p>\n
Carney said at a FreshCo grocery store in Brampton, Ont., on Friday that the money will reduce cost-of-living pressures and help families enjoy the summer.<\/p>\n
Finance Minister Fran\u00e7ois-Philippe Champagne said in a video posted on social media Friday that the benefit is a key affordability measure.<\/p>\n
“We’ve heard from many Canadians that obviously affordability is top of mind,” he said.<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 5, 2026.<\/p>\n
Craig Lord, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OTTAWA \u2014 One of the federal Liberals’ flagship affordability measures will start landing in the bank accounts of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":76557,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[98],"tags":[13946,90,30400,2109,30476,5271,111,989],"class_list":["post-76556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mark-carney","tag-affordability","tag-brampton","tag-canada-groceries","tag-federal-liberals","tag-freshco","tag-grocery-store","tag-mark-carney","tag-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76556\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}