Business
Conservatives grill CBC CEO for billing taxpayers $6,000 during France vacation
From LifeSiteNews
Conservative MPs have blasted the state-funded Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s CEO after she billed taxpayers $6,000 during a vacation to France.
During an October 21 Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage meeting, Conservative MPs grilled the CBC’s Catherine Tait over her $5,869 France vacation which she claimed qualified as work since it was during the Paris Olympics.
“There were no hotel rooms in Paris that were available at a lower price than that,” Tait told the Commons heritage committee after records obtained by the National Post revealed that she stayed at the luxury Hotel du Collectionneur at $1,000 per night.
CBC CEO admits to billing taxpayers $6,000 for her time in Paris, while on a personal vacation in France.
She thinks she gets to decide when taxpayers are on the hook and when they're not. And we should just trust her.
This is abuse of taxpayer dollars.
Defund the CBC. pic.twitter.com/qr3cDRI1kC
— Jamil Jivani (@jamiljivani) October 21, 2024
“This was the official hotel for the Games. I was there with other delegates. I benefited from all the services, for example the shuttle that took us to the opening of the Games,” she continued.
Tait continued to explain that she was in France for vacation, but interrupted her vacation to cover the Olympics which took place as the same time.
“I was on a personal trip to France and I did not bill the taxpayer for my flight or travel from Canada,” she said.
“What did you bill the taxpayer for?” Conservative MP Jamil Jivani questioned.
“The hotel and the train to get to Paris,” replied Tait.
“Where did your personal trip end and your taxpayer billing begin?” he pressed.
“As part of my job, being at the opening of the Olympics was absolutely expected of me so I interrupted my holiday and took the four days to go to the Olympics,” Tait insisted.
According to her schedule, Tait attended a reception at the Louvre Museum, two meetings with non-CBC staff, three meetings with CBC staff, and attended the opening ceremony. Tait also attended the fencing, swimming and beach volleyball competitions, although it is unclear if these were in a work or recreational capacity.
Tait later claimed that questions surrounding her spending “is a clear effort on the part of members of this committee to vilify and to discredit me and to discredit the organization.”
MP Damien Kurek pointed out that Tait is one of the highest paid public employees in Canada.
“You make more than the Prime Minister,” said Kurek, noting that the prime minister currently earns $406,200 without any yearly bonus.
“You just spent $1,000 a night for a hotel room in Paris during the Olympics,” he continued. “We are in a situation where you are coming to the conclusion of your term being paid more than the Prime Minister of this country.”
Tait’s spending of taxpayer dollars comes as the outlet’s TV advertising revenue dropped nearly 10 percent last year, which the CBC admitted they do not expect to regain in the foreseeable future.
While the CBC’s overall revenue dropped 4.3 percent in 2024, funding from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government increased 13 percent from $1.2 billion to $1.4 billion.
Additionally, in August, documents revealed that Tait doled out $18 million in bonuses after eliminating hundreds of jobs to cut costs.
Regardless of their low viewership, the CBC continues to receive massive subsidies from the Liberal government. Many independent media outlets and Conservative Party politicians, including leader Pierre Poilievre, have accused the outlet of bias and partisanship because of this dependency on government.
Despite these concerns, the Trudeau government has only poured money into the outlet. Beginning in 2019, Parliament changed the Income Tax Act to give yearly rebates of 25 percent for each news employee in cabinet-approved media outlets earning up to $55,000 a year, to a maximum of $13,750.
The Canadian Heritage Department since admitted that the payouts are not sufficient to keep legacy media outlets running, and even recommended that the rebates be doubled to a maximum of $29,750 annually.
Last November, Trudeau again announced increased payouts for legacy media outlets, payouts which coincidence with the lead-up to the 2025 election. The subsidies are expected to cost taxpayers $129 million over the next five years.
Similarly, Trudeau’s 2024 budget outlined $42 million in increased funding for the CBC for 2024-25.
Business
PBO report shows cost of bureaucracy up 73 per cent under Trudeau
From the Canadian Taxpayers Federation
The Canadian Taxpayers Federation is calling on the federal government to rein in the bureaucracy following today’s Parliamentary Budget Officer report showing the bureaucracy costs taxpayers $69.5 billion.
“The cost of the federal bureaucracy increased by 73 per cent since 2016, but it’s a good bet most Canadians aren’t seeing anywhere close to 73 per cent better services from the government,” said Franco Terrazzano, CTF Federal Director. “Taxpayers are getting soaked because the size and cost of the federal bureaucracy is out of control.”
Today’s PBO report estimates the federal bureaucracy cost taxpayers $69.5 billion in 2023-24. In 2016-17, the cost of the bureaucracy was $40.2 billion. That’s an increase of 72.9 per cent.
The most recent data shows the cost continues to rise quickly.
“Spending on personnel in the first five months of 2024-25 is up 8.0 per cent over the same period last year,” according to the PBO.
“I have noticed a marked increase in the number of public servants since 2016 and a proportional increase in spending,” said Parliamentary Budget Officer Yves Giroux. “But we haven’t seen similar improvements when it comes to service.”
The Trudeau government added 108,793 bureaucrats since 2016 – a 42 per cent increase. Canada’s population grew by 14 per cent during the same period. Had the bureaucracy only increased with population growth, there would be 72,491 fewer federal employees today.
The government awarded more than one million pay raises to bureaucrats in the last four years, according to access-to-information records obtained by the CTF. The government also rubberstamped $406 million in bonuses last year.
“The government added tens of thousands of extra bureaucrats, rubberstamped hundreds of millions in bonuses and awarded more than one million pay raises and all taxpayers seem to get out of it is higher taxes and more debt,” Terrazzano said. “For the government to balance the budget and provide tax relief, it will need to cut the size and cost of Ottawa’s bloated bureaucracy.”
ESG
Can’t afford Rent? Groceries for your kids? Trudeau says suck it up and pay the tax!
Watch Canada’s Prime Minister tell an anti-poverty group, your ability to buy “groceries for my kids” is less important than sacrificing to pay his carbon tax.
In case you still thought there might be even the tiniest chance Justin Trudeau might come around.. well this settles it. He is as they say, ‘beyond the pale’.
Sure we’ve pieced this together over the last number of years, but it’s still SHOCKING to see him say it directly, proclaim it proudly. This week Trudeau received applause from an audience of the intellectually suffering at something called the “Global Citizen Now” panel discussion on the sidelines of the G20 Leaders’ Summit in Rio.
Much appreciation for the first short video below to Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre who shared his ferocious reaction to Trudeau’s anti-human comments, challenging the current PM to call an immediate election.
Or course there will be no quick election call. To Justin, it’s more important to cling to the undercarriage of a taxpayer funded jet so he can fly the globe stunning audiences unfortunately already stunned by their utter terror of losing the planet.
In their horror at their inability to turn the switch off and let us all freeze/starve to death this winter, they applaud lovingly for their intellectual leader/sock model as he describes how hard it is to convince angry, hungry people they really need to suck it up.
If only he read a history book.. any history book.. apologies, any book at all. Truly even spending some time with the literary version of an Al Gore video rant would at lest keep JT occupied so he couldn’t speak for a few moments. I’m pretty sure every time he opens his mouth, the temperature in Canada rises as millions of frustrated hotheads (hello there) explode, spewing steam high up into the upper atmosphere where water particles do much more damage to our planet than the final exhaling of a non grocery-eating-planet-loving-Canadian.
Watch Pierre Poilievre’s video and assuage the ensuing headache by mapping out your route to a polling booth. If this doesn’t sell a couple of those ‘Axe the Tax’ shirts for the Poilievre team, well.. enjoy your stroll to the foodbank.
Here’s a link to his entire discussion. If you have a strong stomach and 20 minutes of your life to donate to a higher cause… No silly, not the intended cause of the anti-poverty group… But to the intellectual cause of understanding just how twisted the logic has become for those who fly around the world to wine and dine, only to break long enough to tell us they think it’s perfectly fine if we can’t buy groceries for our kids.
By the way, please save a bit of your shock and disappointment for the hapless host of the ‘anti-poverty’ Global Citizen. This was apparently on the sidelines of a G20 Summit. I would expect this drivel to be called out at a respectable middle school debate. Apparently the ‘anti-poverty’ Global Citizen people aren’t overly concerned with poverty. Do we need to say that not being able to afford groceries is in fact THE definition of poverty? Or course not. It would be much easier for them to change their name to Former Global Citizens.
You were warned.
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