Thank you for giving me the opportunity.
Non-refundable tax credits are in the tax system primarily to make the income tax system more progressive.
We now have the technical capability of making them refundable, since the introduction of the HST credit, the child tax credit, and so on. There's no region in logic why non-refundable tax credits should be non-refundable. Making them refundable would essentially convert the income tax system into the analog of a negative income tax system, and would be much fairer.
How would we finance this? I think the way we would finance them would be by making them more targeted. Accompany refundability of tax credits with making them more income tested, and reduce the value as you go up the income scale. I think it's a perfectly feasible thing to do.