"Only a fool cuts a consumption tax over income tax. " Indeed, but given Chretien's previous stance a slam dunk to win votes. Still meets your criteria of a tax cut for all - there is a large overlap between Canadians who pay virtually no GST and those who pay no Federal tax either. That's the disadvantage of such progressive tax rates, out tax curves are skewed so heavily towards the wealthy paying, cuts to lower rates have a very limited effect. 

"employment rates never returned to pre-recession values and still haven't. "Nope and they won't until right before the next bubble bursts (and I doubt even then).  The world would need to have suffered all the years of excess stimulus that ran from 1998  through to the crisis and that is hard to see happening .