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Generous Justin: Trudeau hands out one million raises in four years

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4 minute read

From the Canadian Taxpayers Federation

Author: Ryan Thorpe

The Trudeau government rubberstamped more than one million pay raises to federal bureaucrats since 2020, according to access-to-information records obtained by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

The federal government gave 319,067 bureaucrats a raise in 2023. The government has consistently declined to disclose how much annual pay raises cost taxpayers.

“Taxpayers deserve to know how much all these raises are costing us,” said Franco Terrazzano, CTF Federal Director. “It’s wrong for the government to hand out a million raises while taxpayers lost their jobs or struggled to afford ground beef and rent.”

The cost of the federal payroll hit $67 billion last year, a record high, representing a 68 per cent increase since 2016.

Meanwhile, the size of the bureaucracy spiked by about 40 per cent since Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took office, with more than 98,000 new employees being added to the federal payroll.

In 2020, the federal government issued 373,134 pay raises to bureaucrats, followed by 266,646 in 2021 and 162,263 in 2022.

All told, the feds rubberstamped 1,121,110 pay raises since the beginning of 2020.

“What extra value have taxpayers received from the million raises Trudeau has given bureaucrats?” Terrazzano said. “You shouldn’t get a raise just because you show up to work twice a week with your shoes tied.”

The raises come on top of lavish bonuses for federal bureaucrats. The government rubberstamped $406 million in bonuses in 2023 alone.

Bureaucrats working in federal departments and agencies took home $210 million in bonuses last year, while bureaucrats working in federal Crown corporations took $195 million in bonuses.

The government dished out more than $1.5 billion in bonuses to employees in federal departments since 2015, despite the fact that “less than 50 per cent of [performance] targets are consistently met within the same year,” according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer.

The average compensation for each full-time federal employee is $125,300 when pay, pension, paid time off, shift premiums and other benefits are considered, according to the PBO.

Meanwhile, the average annual salary among all full-time workers was less than $70,000 in 2023, according to data from Statistics Canada.

Government employees also receive an “8.5 per cent wage premium, on average, over their private-sector counterparts,” according to a report from the Fraser Institute, an independent, non-partisan think tank.

The Public Service Alliance of Canada, the largest union representing federal bureaucrats, is currently fighting against a government order asking employees return to the office three days per week.

Alex Silas, PSAC’s regional executive vice-president for the National Capital Region, said bureaucrats were “infuriated” by the government asking them to show up to their jobs in person three days per week.

“Taxpayers have zero sympathy for overpaid bureaucrats throwing a hissy fit about having to swap out their sweatpants for suits,” Terrazzano said. “Taxpayers are the ones who should be complaining after the feds hired tens of thousands of extra bureaucrats, paid out hundreds of thousands of raises and hundreds of millions in bonuses and still can’t deliver good services.

“Trudeau needs to take some air out of his ballooning bloated bureaucracy.”

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National

Doug Ford is calling an election to save his political skin and Justin Trudeau’s government

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Krayden's Right with David Krayden

Ford is the ultimate Red Tory, a faux conservative and faithful apologist for Trudeau

Ontario Premier Doug Ford has just called an election for two reasons: to keep himself in power and to keep the Liberal Party in charge of the Canadian government. Ford has been in the pocket of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for so many years. He has been his constant political companion, especially during the Covid pandemic when Ford stood rigidly by Trudeau over lockdowns and mandates. When Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act to flatten the Freedom Convoy, Ford was there all the time, not just approving of Trudeau’s decision but becoming an active cheerleader for the Liberal government.

Ford has done little to nothing for Pierre Poilievre and the Conservative Party of Canada because he’s not a Conservative or a small-c conservative. Ford is a “Progressive Conservative” or Red Tory who is indistinguishable from a Liberal. His party’s name is an oxymoron but Ford is just a moron who pretends to lead something called the Ford Nation, feigning some degree of populism, while all the while serving the same elites that Trudeau is in bed with.

Ford has done his utmost to convice us that the Liberals have a border security plan. They do not. Spending $1.3 billion on the border OVER SIX YEARS is not a plan, it’s a poor excuse for policly. And just look at how the Trudeau government preserves these woke programs even as it kicks the can of border security way down the road. But Ford, who seemed to be pretending that he had actually seen this “plan” tried to suggest that the Liberals had the situation well in hand.

“Minister [Dominic] LeBlanc laid out the plan. It’s a fabulous plan. Let’s get out there and tell the people of Canada they’ve worked hard on it. So what I said this morning after seeing the plan, it’s a solid plan, and it’s going to work,” he said, noting that Public Safety Minister David McGuinty was coordinating everything with all the relevant agencies and police forces.

“It’s a collective, collaborative group that are going to secure our borders. But the numbers that I have seen, it’s impressive, and the plan is impressive as well. Specifics about what this plan involves, I’ll leave that up to the federal government. I’ll leave, leave that up to Minister McGuinty to get out there and put the plan in front of the Canadian people. But it’s a solid plan,” Ford rambled on, adding that he had never even met McGuinty and “I wouldn’t know him if he walked through the door right now.”

The current tariff crisis with US President Donald Trump is all about Canada not securing its border and not doing anything to change that posture. Ford has been Trudeau’s echo since Trump first threatened to slap on the tariff, joined at the hip with him, supporting his Team Canada charade that is really Team Trudeau and welcoming a trade war with Trump. The Liberals, whether they go into the next election with Trudeau at the helm or not, don’t want to run against Poilievre and the Conservatives because they are 20 to 30 points behind in the polls. They want the next federal election to be against Trump because the only hope the Liberals have of winning is to pretend to be the party of Canada.

This works well for Ford as well. He can parade around as the politician who puts his country above self but that is precisely what he is not doing. Ford wants a provincial election now because there is some profoundly bad news in the offing for Ford and his corrupt government. Trudeau has co-opted Ford on his electric vehicle agenda that has squandered $52.5 billion in taxpayer money and ensured that the premier stood by his side every time he was announcing another EV manufacturing plant in the Ontario. The future of EVs looked pretty certain six months ago when the Green New Deal was ascendant in the US and it looked like the gas-powered vehicle was slated for the planned obsolescence of stupid government decrees and environmental extremism.

The Liberals, whether they go into the next election with Trudeau at the helm or not, don’t want to run against Poilievre and the Conservatives because they are 20 to 30 points behind in the polls. They want the next federal election to be against Trump because the only hope the Liberals have of winning is to pretend to be the party of Canada.

Not so today. Trump has changed all of that with the stroke of a pen, ending all EV mandates and removing any future sanctions of the internal combustion engine in an executive order. EVs are essentially finished for now and no one is buying them. There is no market for the cars being assembled in Windsor and St. Thomas. These plants are destined for failure. That’s why Ford has to move now, before the closures begin and before the unemployment begins. Ontario will also be facing an economic catastrophe from Trump’s 25 percent tariff and all of Ford’s bluster and BS will have done nothing to prevent it. If Ford does not seek reelection now, his chances of winning another mandate will be extremely low.

What really has Ford panicked is Trump’s talk about not needing to buy any cars made in Canada. That sounds like the dissolution of the Auto Pact that has been a mainstay of the Ontario economy for 60 years.

But of course, he is also helping Trudeau to avoid an early election and the Liberals could well campaign in the summer or fall as the anti-Trump party. The Conservatives could be almost irrelevant by that time if they can’t differentiate themselves from the Liberals and demand that voters go to the polls to elect a legitimate government that can negotiate with the US instead of remaining with a snide, insouciant prime minister who continues to ignore the border security that the Trump has insisted we deliver on while continuing to fire insults his way.

Currently, the only Canadian politician who is really working for Canada is Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, who is actively negotiating with Trump. Unfortunately, Trump apparently doesn’t even know that Poilievre exists and is continues to talk about hockey great Wayne Gretzky becoming the next prime minister. Poilievre needs to correct this misunderstanding immediately, start traveling with Smith to Washington if necessary. But he has to become a part of the process and stop letting Trudeau and Ford blather on about retaliatory tariffs and the punishment they think they are going to administer to the US.

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Business

Taxpayers launching court fight against undemocratic capital gains tax hike

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From the Canadian Taxpayers Federation

By Devin Drover 

There is no realistic chance the legislation will pass before the next election. Despite this, the CRA is pushing ahead with enforcement of the tax as if it is already law.

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation is filing a legal challenge today to stop the Canada Revenue Agency from enforcing a capital gains tax increase that has not been approved by Parliament.

“The government has no legal right to enforce this tax hike because it has not received legislative approval by Parliament,” said Devin Drover, CTF General Counsel. “This tax grab violates the fundamental principle of no taxation without representation. That’s why we are asking the courts to put an immediate stop to this bureaucratic overreach.”

The CTF is representing Debbie Vorsteveld, a resident of Mapleton, Ontario. Last year, she and her husband, Willem, sold a property that included a secondary home. They had rented the secondary home to their adult children, but had to sell it when their kids were ready to move on. The CRA says the Vorstevelds must pay higher capital gains taxes under the proposed capital gains increase or face financial penalties.

The CTF is seeking urgent relief from the Federal Court to block the CRA’s enforcement of the proposed tax increase. In its application, the CTF argues the tax increase violates the rule of law and is unconstitutional.

The government passed a ways and means motion for the tax increase last year but failed to introduce, debate, pass, or proclaim the necessary legislation into law.

Parliament is now prorogued until March 24, 2025, and opposition parties have all pledged to bring down the Liberal government. As a result, there is no realistic chance the legislation will pass before the next election. Despite this, the CRA is pushing ahead with enforcement of the tax as if it is already law.

A new report from the C.D. Howe Institute shows the capital gains tax increase will result in 414,000 fewer jobs and shrink Canada’s GDP by nearly $90 billion.

“The undemocratic capital gains tax hike will blow a huge hole in Canada’s economy and punishes people saving for their retirement, entrepreneurs, doctors and Canadian workers,” said Franco Terrazzano, CTF Federal Director. “It’s Parliament’s responsibility to approve tax increases before they’re imposed, not unelected government bureaucrats.

“The CRA must immediately halt its plans to enforce this unapproved tax hike, which threatens to undemocratically take billions from Canadians and cripple our economy.”

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