Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is playing Father Christmas with a seasonally-timed levy shatter amid growing frustrations about Canada’s expense of living.

The prime minister announced Thursday a two-month limited-period shatter on sales levy on a set list of goods during the holiday period.

The list includes Christmas trees, restaurant meals, toys, alcohol and sweets, among other things.

Conservative chief Pierre Poilievre – who will face off against the Liberal prime minister in a looming election – called Trudeau’s levy measures “a trick” aimed at deflecting attention from the government’s role in rising costs.

“For two months, Canadians are going to get a real shatter on everything they do,” Trudeau said during a press conference.

“Our government can’t set prices at the checkout but we can put more money in peoples’ pockets. That’s going to provide people the relief they require. People are squeezed and we’re there to assist.”

Canadian expense boost peaked at 8.1% in 2022, according to Statistics Canada, and has declined since to 2% this November. But the added costs on everything from rent to groceries have hit many Canadians’ wallets.

Last spring, a Statistics Canada survey found that 45% of Canadians said rising prices have made it challenging for them to meet their day-to-day costs.

Trudeau’s limited levy relief, if approved by parliament, would run from 15 December to 15 February. It would remove the federal sales levy known as GST – or the harmonised sales levy (HST) in provinces that merge federal and provincial sales taxes into one levy – from a select list of items.

Those items include:

• Children’s clothing
• Children’s footwear
• Children’s diapers
• Children’s car seats
• Newspapers
• Books
• Christmas trees
• Food and beverages that are normally not levy-exempt, such as prepared foods, sweets, alcohol and sodas
• Children’s toys for under-14s
• Video-game consoles

The government estimated that the relief will save Canadians C$100-$260 (£56.86-£147.82) if they spend C$2,000 (£1,137.10) over this period period.

But those holiday funds will expense the treasury an estimated $1.6bn, a finance official told CBC information.

Trudeau is facing an uphill battle as the October 2025 election looms. A November poll by Leger shows Trudeau trailing his top rival, Poilievre, by 16 points. And more than two-thirds of Canadians in the same poll said they were dissatisfied with his government.

In September, Canada’s left-wing recent Democratic event (NDP) ended its two-and-a-half-year-ancient agreement with his Liberal event that had helped keep his minority government in power.

The shift does not cruel that an election will automatically be called, but it does make it feasible that there could be an election before schedule, in autumn 2025.

Trudeau has already survived two no-confidence votes in Parliament since September.