National
The political welfare straw man
From the Canadian Taxpayers Federation
Author: Jay Goldberg
After taking office, Ford started decreasing political welfare payments. But once the pandemic hit, Ford cranked the payments up to all-time highs, blaming the pandemic for making it more difficult for political parties to fundraise.
For Ontario’s political parties, the jig may finally be up.
Premier Doug Ford is just six months away from scrapping Ontario’s political welfare system. Political welfare has been a golden goose for the province’s political bigwigs and a nightmare for everyday taxpayers.
The program will soon be relegated to the ash heap of history, so long as Ford doesn’t go wobbly.
How did we get here?
Nearly a decade ago, former premier Kathleen Wynne banned corporate and union donations to political parties in Ontario. But at the same time, she created a taxpayer-funded political welfare scheme. As a result, political parties get a set amount of money from taxpayers four times a year for every vote they received in the previous election – no strings attached.
In trying to sell this political welfare cash cow to Ontario taxpayers, Wynne presented the situation as a trade-off: to ban corporate and union donations to political parties, the so-called per-vote subsidy was needed.
“Democracy is not free,” argued one of Wynne’s ministers when the Liberals introduced the program.
Before Ford got to Queen’s Park, he knew all of that was hogwash.
“I do not believe the government should be taking money from hard-working taxpayers and giving it to political parties,” said Ford in 2018.
Political parties, Ford argued, should survive by raising money from everyday taxpayers. There was no need for corporate and union donations or taxpayer handouts.
Sadly, Ford lost his way.
After taking office, Ford started decreasing political welfare payments. But once the pandemic hit, Ford cranked the payments up to all-time highs, blaming the pandemic for making it more difficult for political parties to fundraise.
Of course, Ford didn’t let logic or facts get in the way. The truth is Ontario’s political parties raised millions during the pandemic and didn’t need taxpayer handouts.
But now it appears Ford is finally seeing the light: Wynne’s political welfare regime is set to expire at the end of 2024.
Let there be no mistake: there is no valid argument in favour of keeping this taxpayer atrocity.
Ontario’s political parties will not go broke when the taxpayer taps turn off next year. In fact, they’re currently swimming in buckets of cash.
The province’s four major political parties – the Progressive Conservatives, Liberals, NDP and Greens – raised more than $14 million collectively in 2023, and currently have the same amount of money in the bank.
The PCs, Liberals and NDP all have at least $2.3 million in their bank accounts. Even the Green Party, which holds just one seat at Queen’s Park, is sitting on more than $500,000 in cash.
Clearly, Ontario’s political parties won’t go broke if they get off the taxpayer dole.
Even if Ontario’s political parties weren’t sitting on a massive war chest, the reality is they would adapt quickly to a new system reliant on small-dollar donations.
Former prime minister Stephen Harper ended the federal version of Wynne’s political welfare scheme over a decade ago. And corporate and union donations have been banned federally for two decades. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau hasn’t so much as tweaked those changes.
Since Harper put an end to federal political welfare, Canada’s political parties have flourished.
They’ve all gotten better at appealing to everyday Canadians to make small-dollar donations and they’re raised more money since the per-vote subsidy was scrapped than they did before.
That’s exactly what will happen when Ford kiboshes Ontario’s version of the per-vote subsidy at the end of the year. And that’s how it should be.
If political parties want to raise cash, they should do so by winning over taxpayers, not raiding their wallets.
The deadline is looming, but the fight here in Ontario is far from over.
Ford extended the life of the political welfare regime before and he could do it again.
That means taxpayers must stay vigilant.
If Ford sticks to his word, Ontario taxpayers will have one less monkey on their backs come 2025.
Let’s make sure that comes to pass.
Business
Taxpayer watchdog calls Trudeau ‘out of touch’ for prioritizing ‘climate change’ while families struggle
From LifeSiteNews
The prime minister told a G20 panel this week that fighting so-called ‘climate change’ should be more important to families than putting food on the table or paying rent.
Canada’s leading taxpayer watchdog blasted Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for being completely “out of touch” with everyday Canadians after the PM earlier this week suggested his climate “change” policies, including a punitive carbon tax, are more important for families than trying to stay financially afloat.
In speaking to LifeSiteNews, Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) federal director Franco Terrazzano said Trudeau’s recent comments show his government “continues to prove it’s out of touch with its carbon tax.”
“Canadians don’t support the carbon tax because we know it makes life more expensive and it doesn’t help the environment,” Terrazzano told LifeSiteNews.
Terrazzano’s comments come after Trudeau told a G20 panel earlier this week that fighting so-called “climate change” should be more important to families than putting food on the table or paying rent.
Speaking to the panel, Trudeau commented that it is “really, really easy” to “put climate change as a slightly lower priority” when one has “to be able to pay the rent this month” or “buy groceries” for their “kids,” but insisted that “we can’t do that around climate change.”
Terrazzano said that the Trudeau government’s carbon tax in reality “impacts nearly all aspects of life in Canada by making it more expensive to fuel up our cars, heat our homes and buy food.”
“The carbon tax also puts a huge hole in our economy that we can’t afford,” he said to LifeSiteNews, adding that if Trudeau really wanted to help Canadians and “prove it understands the struggles facing Canadians,” then it should “scrap the carbon tax to make life more affordable.”
On Thursday, Trudeau, who is facing abysmal polling numbers, announced he would introduce a temporary pause on the federal Goods and Services Tax (GST) for some goods.
Conservative Party of Canada leader Pierre Poilievre this afternoon said about Trudeau’s temporary tax holiday that if he is serious about helping Canadians, he would cut the carbon tax completely.
People’s Party of Canada (CPC) leader Maxime Bernier called the move by Trudeau a cheap trick to try and “bribe” Canadians, noting that it will not work.
“What a ridiculous gimmick. Bribing Canadians temporarily with borrowed money,” Bernier wrote.
“When the real solution is to stop growing the bureaucracy, cut wasteful spending, stop sending billions to Ukraine, eliminate subsidies to businesses and activist groups, stop creating new unsustainable and unconstitutional social programs, eliminate the deficit, and THEN, cut taxes for real. None of which he will do of course.”
As reported by LifeSiteNews, a survey found that nearly half of Canadians are just $200 away from financial ruin as the costs of housing, food and other necessities has gone up massively since Trudeau took power in 2015.
In addition to the increasing domestic carbon tax, LifeSiteNews reported last week that Minister of Environment Steven Guilbeault wants to create a new “global’ carbon tax applied to all goods shipped internationally that could further drive-up prices for families already struggling with inflated costs.
Not only is the carbon tax costing Canadian families hundreds of dollars annually, but Liberals also have admitted that the tax has only reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 1 percent.
COVID-19
Freedom Convoy protester Pat King found guilty on 5 of 9 charges
From LifeSiteNews
While Pat King has been labeled as one of the leaders of the Freedom Convoy by the mainstream media, he is largely considered by those who followed the event to be a tertiary actor.
A Canadian judge has found Pat King, a controversial figure connected to the Freedom Convoy, guilty of a total of five charges related to his involvement in the 2022 protests held in the nation’s capital which called for an end to COVID mandates.
An Ottawa judge found King guilty of two counts of disobeying a court order, one count of mischief, one count of counselling others to commit mischief, as well as one count of counselling others to obstruct police.
As reported by the Canadian Press, King was also found not guilty of four other charges, those being three counts of intimidation and one count of obstructing police.
King’s lawyers had argued that his involvement with the Freedom Convoy was peaceful in nature and did not warrant any of the charges laid against him.
Crown lawyers claimed that King was one of the main leaders of the Freedom Convoy who played a key role in the month-long protests that took place in January and February of 2022.
The Crown’s case relied heavily on videos posted to social media, which were shared by King throughout the protests.
While King has been labeled as one of the leaders of the Freedom Convoy by the mainstream media, he is largely considered by those who followed the event to be a tertiary actor.
For instance, True North’s Andrew Lawton, who wrote a book on the Freedom Convoy, wrote in 2022, “the media keeps calling Pat King the ringleader of the convoy, but in reality, organizers told him to get lost when they realized he was toxic.”
In 2022, King was granted bail after spending five months in jail for his involvement with the protests. He had to pay a $25,000 fine and was banned from speaking to other Freedom Convoy members and was placed under curfew.
In February 2022, during the height of the Freedom Convoy, King told protesters to “Hold the line, ladies and gentlemen,” and to “not back down, we got your backs.”
In late February that same year, King was denied bail by a judge. He was arrested on February 18 and was charged with various offenses, including mischief and counseling to commit mischief.
As it stands now, the Freedom Convoy’s actual main leaders, Tamara Lich and Chris Barber, are awaiting their fate in their trial for their involvement in the 2022 protests. As reported by LifeSiteNews, Lich and Barber face a possible 10-year prison sentence for their role in the 2022 Freedom Convoy.
As reported by LifeSiteNews, some protesters charged for participating the Freedom Convoy have seen their charges dropped.
In early 2022, thousands of Canadians from coast to coast came to Ottawa to demand an end to COVID mandates in all forms. Despite the peaceful nature of the protest, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government enacted the Emergencies Act on February 14. Trudeau revoked the EA on February 23.
The EA controversially allowed the government to freeze the bank accounts of protesters, conscript tow truck drivers, and arrest people for participating in assemblies the government deemed illegal.
COVID vaccine mandates, which also came from provincial governments with the support of the federal government, split Canadian society. The mRNA shots have been linked to a multitude of negative and often severe side effects in children.
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