Business
Canada’s department of government efficiency: A blueprint
From the Canadian Taxpayers Federation
Average compensation for a federal bureaucrat is $125,300. Cutting back the bureaucracy to population growth would save taxpayers $9 billion every year
Dumb government spending doesn’t stop at the 49th parallel.
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump announced the creation of a Department of Government Efficiency, with a mandate to “dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure federal agencies.”
Those marching orders sure would sound good in a prime minister’s mandate letter to a finance minister. And here’s the blueprint they should follow.
Begin with crazy research Canadian taxpayers are forced to subsidize.
The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council spends $1 billion a year supporting “research and research training in the social sciences and humanities.”
Here’s a little taste of the reports it funds with your tax dollars:
- Gender Politics in Peruvian Rock Music ($20,000)
- Cart-ography: tracking the birth, life and death of an urban grocery cart, from work product to work tool ($105,000)
- My Paw in Yours: Dead Pets and Transcendence of Species Divides in Experimental Art-Making Practice ($17,500)
- Playing for Pleasure: The Affective Experience of Sexual and Erotic Video Games ($50,000)
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Parks Canada put Mr. Magoo in charge of its hunting operations. It spent four years and $10,000 capturing a single bullfrog and dropped $800,000 hunting 84 deer on a B.C. Island. How can a simple hunt cost $10,000 per deer?
Well, hunting gets more expensive when instead of your grandpa’s old rifle, you use prohibited semi-automatic weapons, instead of a box of shells, you get a crate of ammo, and instead of your buddy’s old pickup, you rent a helicopter for $67,000.
Or how about the $8-million barn at Rideau Hall. Or $12,500 live senior citizen sex story shows. Or the $8,800 sex toy show in Germany. Or the millions wasted producing government podcasts no one listens to.
Then there’s government officials living high on the hog.
Governor General Mary Simon spent $71,000 on limo services in Iceland. Bureaucrats spend $76,000 a month renting art. Global Affairs Canada spends $51,000 on booze a month.
Now, the big stuff.
The size and cost of the government is out of control. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau hired 108,000 new bureaucrats. That’s a 42 per cent increase in less than a decade.
Had the bureaucracy only increased with population growth, there would be 72,491 fewer bureaucrats today.
Average compensation for a federal bureaucrat is $125,300. Cutting back the bureaucracy to population growth would save taxpayers $9 billion every year.
It’s time to stop rewarding failure with bonuses.
The feds dished out $1.5 billion in bonuses since 2015.
And the bonuses flow despite federal departments only managing to hit half of their performance targets once in the past five years.
Government executives overseeing ArriveSCAM took $340,000 in bonuses.
The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation rubberstamped $102 million in bonuses amid the worst housing crisis in Canadian history.
The Bank of Canada printed $20 million in bonus cheques in 2022, as inflation reached a 40-year high.
The CBC dished out $132 million in bonuses since 2015.
The next thing on the chopping block? Corporate welfare.
Trudeau put taxpayers on the hook for $30 billion in subsidies to multinational corporations like Honda,Volkswagen, Stellantis and Northvolt.
Federal corporate subsidies totalled $11.2 billion in 2022 alone.
Shutting down the federal government’s seven regional development agencies would save taxpayers an estimated $1.5 billion annually.
True efficiency would also mean eliminating failing government operations altogether. The feds should sell any Crown corporation that can, or should, be left to the private sector.
Here are a few examples.
The CBC, which takes more than $1 billion from taxpayers annually.
Canada Post, which lost $1.2 billion in the last two years and forecasts “larger, unsustainable losses in future years.”
VIA Rail, took $1.8 billion in taxpayer cash during the past five years just to cover operating losses.
The bad news for taxpayers is we pay too much tax because the government wastes too money. The list of wasteful spending in this article is far from exhaustive.
Other examples include the multi-billion dollar gun confiscation that police officers say won’t work, the $25-billion equalization scheme and taxpayer-funded media bailouts, among others.
The good news is a champion of taxpayers could make massive cuts and barely anyone outside the Ottawa bubble would notice.
This is the blueprint to slash Ottawa’s wasteful, bloated bureaucracy. All we need now is a prime minister with the guts to pick up the scissors.
Business
The ESG Collapse: Al Gore, Intel, BlackRock, and the Failed Promise of “Sustainable” Investing
From StosselTV
For years, investment firms pressured companies to hire people of certain races and genders, and pushed “sustainability.” That has hurt returns.
Investments that claim to be “sustainable” have been underperforming. It’s because companies that embrace “ESG” woke investing end up prioritizing politics over innovation.
Intel, once a leader in the tech world, wasted millions on ESG goals. Now, it lags behind its competitors. Its stock is down more than 70%. “You have a company that’s absolutely failing!” Says Matt Cole, CEO of Strive investment managing.
Even BlackRock, which led the “ESG” push, now backs away from ESG investments. “What you’re seeing today,” says Cole, “is ESG funds shuttering at record speed.”
Our new video explains why.
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Business
GOP Lawmakers Urge Coast Guard To Defend US Ports Where ‘Chinese Military Company’ Operates
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By Philip Lenczycki
Republican lawmakers urged the U.S. Coast Guard on Wednesday to take “decisive action” against a Chinese military company that has “expansive operations at major U.S. ports,” according to a letter exclusively obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
The House Committee on Homeland Security and House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party sent a letter to U.S. Coast Guard Acting Commandant, Admiral Kevin E. Lunday requesting information and a classified briefing related to COSCO Shipping, a Chinese state-owned enterprise that the Department of Defense (DOD) recently added to its list of “Chinese Military Companies.” COSCO Shipping poses a “significant” national security threat to the U.S., ranging from “espionage, cyber intrusions, sabotage, and supply chain disruptions,” according to the letter.
“Permitting vessels and personnel affiliated with COSCO SHIPPING to operate within U.S. ports without adequate safeguards exposes the nation to unacceptable risks, particularly during times of increased geopolitical tension,” the letter states. “As the lead federal agency for maritime security, the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) must take decisive action to mitigate these risks.”
The letter is signed by House Homeland Security chairman, Tennessee Rep. Mark Green, China Select Committee chairman, Michigan Rep. John Moolenaar, Florida Rep. Carlos Gimenez and South Dakota Rep. Dusty Johnson.
The People’s Republic of China (PRC) exploits “Chinese Military Companies” for intelligence and military purposes as part of its “Military-Civil Fusion Strategy,” the letter states.
Military-Civil Fusion “supports the modernization goals of the People’s Liberation Army by ensuring it can acquire advanced technologies and expertise developed by PRC companies, universities, and research programs that appear to be civilian entities,” according to the DOD.
Toward that end, China engages in “forced technology transfer, intelligence gathering, and outright theft,” and directs Chinese enterprises to “undertake classified military R&D and weapons production,” according to the State Department.
In addition to being a state-owned enterprise, the committee’s letter warns that COSCO Shipping vessels “frequently have Chinese Communist Party (CCP) political commissars embedded amongst their crews.”
COSCO Shipping’s website includes a section for “Party building” and states that its CEO, Wan Min, also serves as the Party secretary of the firm’s internal CCP branch. A “Party branch” is the smallest “grass-roots” CCP organization, and one must be established within any Chinese institutions containing three or more Party members, according to the Chinese government.
The committee’s letter also urges the USCG to intensify its protocols for “screening vessels, owners, and crew members associated with COSCO Shipping and other entities linked to the PLA or the PRC’s security and intelligence services.”
COSCO Shipping’s previous CEO, Xu Lirong, simultaneously served as deputy director of the China International Culture Exchange Center (CICEC), which former analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute Alex Joske identified as a front for China’s premier civilian intelligence service, the Ministry of State Security, the DCNF previously reported.
“It is essential that biographical information for all foreign mariners, particularly those from the PRC and other high-risk countries, undergo comprehensive scrutiny utilizing the complete range of classified and unclassified data resources accessible to the U.S. government,” the committee’s letter states.
A USCG spokesperson told the DCNF it “routinely evaluates vessels before arrival within U.S. waters” and examines vessels “for safety and security” after arrival as well.
The committee’s letter also requests for USCG to provide answers to nine questions by Feb. 3.
More than half of the questions relate to the protocols, process, or datasets USGC uses to vet foreign vessels and mariners.
For example, one question asks: “What classified and unclassified datasets are used by the USCG to vet foreign mariners, vessel owners, and operators?”
Another question asks: “Is the USGC’s vetting and screening process for foreign vessels and mariners fully automated, partially automated, or primarily manual?”
Other questions concern USGC’s possible coordination with federal agencies, like the FBI, and inquire into whether or not USGC has conducted a risk assessment specific to COSCO Shipping.
“The USCG must prioritize the integration of both classified and unclassified intelligence, strengthen interagency coordination and collaboration, and leverage advanced technological solutions to enhance its ability to detect and deter emerging threats,” the committee’s letter states.
COSCO Shipping did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
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