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Economy

Trudeau drops $220,000 on airplane food

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5 minute read

News release from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation

You ever get the feeling the government is running a secret contest to see who can order up the most expensive meals while flying around the world?

Well if they are, we’ve got a new winner: The Right Honourable Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

After Governor General Mary Simon spent $100,000 on airplane food, Trudeau said, ‘Hold my beef Wellington’ and doubled the taxpayer tab.

All that and more in this week’s Taxpayer Waste Watch.

Bon apétit.

Franco.


Fine China, fancy feasts and a $220,000 taxpayer tab

Welcome to Air Trudeau, where the cares are free, the juice is freshly squeezed, the meals are served on fine China and the bill is sent to you.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his entourage spent $223,000 of your money on airplane food during a six-day tour of the Indo-Pacific region last fall, according to government records dug up by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

Eating that much could wear a silver spoon right out.

To put things in perspective: that’s enough money to cover a month of groceries for 165 Canadian families, or buy 13,937 glasses of Bev Oda’s favourite orange juice.

But the bill gets big when this is the grocery list:

Beef brisket and parsley mashed potatoes with truffle oil. Pan fried beef tenderloin with port wine reduction sauce. Braised lamb shanks with steamed broccoli and boiled baby potatoes. Strawberry shortcake and baked cheesecake with pistachio brittle.

Sounds just like the meals you get on Air Canada or WestJet, right?

The records indicate staff were told Trudeau’s meals (and ONLY Trudeau’s meals) must be appropriately garnished and served on China dishware.

Pro-tip for the prime minister:

Have you seen your polling numbers lately? It might be tough to connect with the middle class while chowing down on braised lamb shanks, topped with a sprig of parsley and served on fine China.

Snacks offered onboard Air Trudeau included cured meats and artisanal cheeses, veggies and dip, and fresh papaya, pineapple, dragon fruit, watermelon and berries. And the juice served was noted as being “freshly-squeezed.”

A special request was put in for the plane to be stocked with Trudeau’s favourite brand of premium alkaline spring water, and staff picked up $900 worth of pop and chips before take-off. Trudeau and his entourage also spent $300 on movies and magazines.

Well we already know the prime minister doesn’t read his briefing notes, so it’s good he had the latest editions of the Jacobin and Mad Magazine to keep him occupied – it was a long flight, after all.

All told, the trip cost you $1.9 million and counting.

Trudeau has now claimed the top spot on our leaderboard for the most extravagant taxpayer-funded travel expenses, surpassing Governor General Mary Simon’s legendary March 2022 performance, when she gobbled up $100,000 worth of airplane food.

After details of Simon’s airplane extravaganza went public (courtesy of your friends at the CTF), a parliamentary committee summoned high-ranking bureaucrats to answer for the outrageous tab.

The bureaucrats pinkie promised to change the rules and stop frivolous spending.

Well clearly those efforts are going swimmingly…

The government set out to lower costs.

Then Trudeau doubled them.

Poilievre grills Trudeau about airplane feast in House of Commons 

Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre grilled Trudeau about his $223,000 worth of airplane food expenses in the House of Commons.

 

Trudeau’s EV corporate welfare worse than you think

Federal and provincial governments are ponying up billions more in electric vehicle battery subsidies than the corporations themselves are spending to build their own factories.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer released a report this week showing just how bad taxpayers are being taken to the cleaners on these corporate welfare deals.

Governments promised $52 billion to these corporations. The corporations are only spending $46 billion.

Does that sounds like a good deal to you?

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Economy

Ottawa’s new ‘climate disclosures’ another investment killer

Published on

From the Fraser Institute

By Matthew Lau

The Trudeau government has demonstrated consistently that its policies—including higher capital gains taxes and a hostile regulatory environment—are entirely at odds with what investors want to see. Corporate head offices are fleeing Canada and business investment has declined  significantly since the Trudeau Liberals came to power.

According to the Trudeau government’s emissions reduction plan, “putting a price on pollution is widely recognized as the most efficient means to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.” Fair enough, but a reasonable person might wonder why the same politicians who insist a price mechanism (i.e. carbon tax) is the most efficient policy recently announced relatively inefficient measures such “sustainable investment guidelines” and “mandatory climate disclosures” for large private companies.

The government claims that imposing mandatory climate disclosures will “attract more private capital into Canada’s largest corporations and ensure Canadian businesses can continue to effectively compete as the world races towards net-zero.” That is nonsense. How would politicians Ottawa know better than business owners about how their businesses should attract capital? If making climate disclosures were a good way to help businesses attract capital, the businesses that want to attract capital would make such disclosures voluntarily. There would be no need for a government mandate.

The government has not yet launched the regulatory process for the climate disclosures, so we don’t know exactly how onerous it will be, but one thing is for sure—the disclosures will be expensive and unnecessary, imposing useless costs onto businesses and investors without any measurable benefit, further discouraging investment in Canada. Again, if the disclosures were useful and worthwhile to investors, businesses seeking to attract investment would make them voluntarily.

Even the government’s own announcement casts doubt that increasing business investment is the likely outcome of mandatory climate disclosures. While the government says it’s “sending a clear signal to corporate boards and shareholders, at home and around the world, that Canada is their trusted partner for putting private capital to work in the race to net-zero,” most investors are not looking to put private capital to work to combat climate change. Most investors want to put their capital to work to earn a good financial return, after adjusting for the risk of the investment.

This latest announcement should come as no surprise. The Trudeau government has demonstrated consistently that its policies—including higher capital gains taxes and a hostile regulatory environment—are entirely at odds with what investors want to see. Corporate head offices are fleeing Canada and business investment has declined significantly since the Trudeau Liberals came to power. Capital per worker in Canada is declining due to weak business investment since 2015, and new capital per-Canadian worker in 2024 is barely half of what it is in the United States.

It’s also fair to ask, in the face of these onerous polices—where are the environmental benefits? The government says its climate disclosures are needed for Canada to progress to net-zero emissions and “uphold the Paris climate target of limiting global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels,” but its net-zero targets are neither feasible nor realistic and the economics literature does not support the 1.5 degrees target.

Finally, when announcing the new climate disclosures, Trudeau Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault said they are an important stepping stone to a cleaner economy, which is a “major economic opportunity.” Yet even the Canada Energy Regulator (a federal agency) projects net-zero policies would reduce real GDP per capita, increase inflation of consumer prices and reduce residential space (in other words, reduce living standards).

A major economic opportunity that will increase business investment? Surely not—mandatory climate disclosures will only further reduce our standard of living and impose useless costs onto business and investors, with the sure effect of reducing investment.

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Business

Premiers fight to lower gas taxes as Trudeau hikes pump costs

Published on

From the Canadian Taxpayers Federation

By Jay Goldberg 

Thirty-nine hundred dollars – that’s how much the typical two-car Ontario family is spending on gas taxes at the pump this year.

You read that right. That’s not the overall fuel bill. That’s just taxes.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau keeps increasing your gas bill, while Premier Doug Ford is lowering it.

Ford’s latest gas tax cut extension is music to taxpayers’ ears. Ford’s 6.4 cent per litre gas tax cut, temporarily introduced in July 2022, is here to stay until at least next June.

Because of the cut, a two-car family has saved more than $1,000 so far. And that’s welcome news for Ontario taxpayers, because Trudeau is planning yet another carbon tax hike next April.

Trudeau has raised the overall tax burden at the pumps every April for the past five years. Next spring, he plans to raise gas taxes by another three cents per litre, bringing the overall gas tax burden for Ontarians to almost 60 cents per litre.

While Trudeau keeps hiking costs for taxpayers at the pumps, premiers of all stripes have been stepping up to the plate to blunt the impact of his punitive carbon tax.

Obviously, Ford has stepped up to the plate and has lowered gas taxes. But he’s not alone.

In Manitoba, NDP Premier Wab Kinew fully suspended the province’s 14 cent per litre gas tax for a year. And in Newfoundland, Liberal Premier Andrew Furey cut the gas tax by 8.05 cents per litre for nearly two-and-a-half years.

It’s a tale of two approaches: the Trudeau government keeps making life more expensive at the pumps, while premiers of all stripes are fighting to get costs down.

Families still have to get to work, get the kids to school and make it to hockey practice. And they can’t afford increasingly high gas taxes. Common sense premiers seem to get it, while Ottawa has its head in the clouds.

When Ford announced his gas tax cut extension, he took aim at the Liberal carbon tax mandated by the Trudeau government in Ottawa.

Ford noted the carbon tax is set to rise to 20.9 cents per litre next April, “bumping up the cost of everything once again and it’s absolutely ridiculous.”

“Our government will always fight against it,” Ford said.

But there’s some good news for taxpayers: reprieve may be on the horizon.

Federal Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre’s promises to axe the carbon tax as soon as he takes office.

With a federal election scheduled for next fall, the federal carbon tax’s days may very well be numbered.

Scrapping the carbon tax would make a huge difference in the lives of everyday Canadians.

Right now, the carbon tax costs 17.6 cents per litre. For a family filling up two cars once a week, that’s nearly $24 a week in carbon taxes at the pump.

Scrapping the carbon tax could save families more than $1,200 a year at the pumps. Plus, there would be savings on the cost of home heating, food, and virtually everything else.

While the Trudeau government likes to argue that the carbon tax rebates make up for all these additional costs, the Parliamentary Budget Officer says it’s not so.

The PBO has shown that the typical Ontario family will lose nearly $400 this year due to the carbon tax, even after the rebates.

That’s why premiers like Ford, Kinew and Furey have stepped up to the plate.

Canadians pay far too much at the pumps in taxes. While Trudeau hikes the carbon tax year after year, provincial leaders like Ford are keeping costs down and delivering meaningful relief for struggling families.

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