Can you tell me of a single 1%er that would care about a $4500 increase in a non-taxable account?
TFSA's are easily withdrawn with no financial hit, it is the perfect account for the low and middle class compared to deferred taxation that RRSP's provide. Most people in general don't realize what a TFSA is (they think it's a tax free savings account) with little understanding that it can be used for investments, mostly because of the name of the policy. It doesn't change the fact that it is the best tool there is for lower income earners, over RRSP's which are drastically more beneficial for higher income earners. If it is under-used, then it posed little risk to the government anyway.
TFSA's are pocket change for high income earners.
Trudeau has made huge strides on social issues since being elected, but he has certainly done some questionable things when it comes to increasing financial pressure on the lower and middle class. Namely he took a hammer to a number of family tax credits. If you're middle class, you're almost certainly taking home less pay.
TFSA are better for low income earners if they even knew it existed and utilized it.
Most low income earners don't even make enough to fill it. Don't even know enough about investing to fill it with the right products.
So saying it "hurts" the lower and lower-middle income families seems like a hypothetical since most don't max it anyway.
The kind of people who would best use them are the already finanmcially-savvy, and that will be either people who make enough big money to have the time to think about it, or who have enough money to hire someoen else to think about it.
I am pretty sure they studied this through and it ended up that rich families just started filling out other family members' TFSAs as part of their own tax havens. It seems made for richer families to store and hide their wealth more than it is for lower income families to benefit from.
Since its inception, if you were 18+ years old in 2009, you would have $57,500 in contribution room in total now. I don't think many low income families even have that much in ALL their accounts let alone a specialized account as a special investment vehicle.
It's great if the few people who are low-mid income and have enough savvy exist to make the most of TFSAs (like me .. trying to. I opened one as soon as they were available! but it's not even halfway filled yet!), but I think it would be misguided to say lowering the annual amount back to 5,500 HURT low income families in a significant way. I think you're just greedy and were disappointed, as I would have been.. had I had the money to max out lol.