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.
2025 Federal Election
Carney needs to cancel gun ban and buyback

Gage Haubrich
The Canadian Taxpayers Federation is calling on Liberal Leader Mark Carney to stop the gun ban and buyback after he announced he would continue with the scheme.
“Carney needs to scrap this plan and stop wasting taxpayer’s money on it,” said Gage Haubrich, CTF Prairie Director. “Planning to spend potentially billions of dollars on a program that is not going to make Canadians safer is a waste of money.
“Carney needs to be cancelling this wasteful plan, not doubling down on it.”
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is promising to get rid of Ottawa’s gun bans.
The government said the buyback would cost taxpayers $200 million in 2019. Only buying back the guns could cost up to $756 million, according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer. Government documents show that the buyback is now likely to cost almost $2 billion.
The banned gun list includes more than 2,000 different types of firearms.
Every year since the gun ban was announced in 2020, violent gun crime in Canada has increased.
New Zealand conducted a similar, but more extensive, gun ban and buyback in 2019. New Zealand had 1,216 violent firearm offenses in 2023. That’s 349 more offences than the year before the buyback.
Experts also agree that the buyback won’t make Canadians any safer.
The National Police Federation, the union representing the RCMP, says Ottawa’s buyback “diverts extremely important personnel, resources, and funding away from addressing the more immediate and growing threat of criminal use of illegal firearms.”
“Buyback programs are largely ineffective at reducing gun violence, in large part because the people who participate in such programs are not likely to use those guns to commit violence,” said University of Toronto professor Jooyoung Lee
“Experts say that this gun ban and buyback won’t do anything to make Canadians safer,” Haubrich said. “Carney needs to listen to the experts and commit to cancelling this scheme before it costs taxpayers any more money.”
2025 Federal Election
Mark Carney vows to provide sterilizing puberty blockers to children ‘without exception’

From LifeSiteNews
Transgender surgeries and drugs have been linked to permanent physical and psychological damage, including cardiovascular diseases, loss of bone density, cancer, strokes and blood clots, infertility, and suicidality.
Prime Minister Mark Carney has promised to continue the Liberal legacy of pushing sterilizing puberty blockers on children “without exception.”
During an April 8 press conference in Alberta, Carney doubled down on his dedication to furthering the LGBT agenda by committing to protect the so-called “fundamental right” to irreversible drugs and surgeries for gender-confused Canadians.
“Access to health care is a fundamental right,” Carney told reporters about 28 minutes into the presser.
Media questioned if he would include LGBT “rights” under the Canada Health Act considering recently passed Alberta legislation which prevents minors from taking irreversible puberty blockers or undergoing gender “reassignment” surgeries.
Carney repeated that he would defend the “fundamental right” to accessing “gender-transitioning” drugs and surgeries “without exception.”
“Canada is a mosaic, people can be who they are, they can love who they love… Access to health care in Canada is not a business, it is a fundamental right, and we will defend it for all Canadians, without exception,” he said.
LifeSiteNews has compiled a list of medical professions and experts who warn against “transgender” surgeries, warning of irreversible changes and lifelong side effects.
In fact, in addition to asserting a false reality that one’s sex can be changed, transgender surgeries and drugs have been linked to permanent physical and psychological damage, including cardiovascular diseases, loss of bone density, cancer, strokes and blood clots, infertility, and suicidality.
There is also overwhelming evidence that those who undergo “gender transitioning” are more likely to commit suicide than those who are not given irreversible surgery. A Swedish study found that those who underwent “gender reassignment” surgery ended up with a 19.2 times greater risk of suicide.
Regardless of scientific evidence that gender-transitioning methods are dangerous, Carney appears intent on continuing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s radical LGBT agenda.
During his first week in office, Carney directed a total of $2,118,000 to LGBT groups in Ontario and Quebec to address “systemic barriers to equality” and to “challenge discrimination in all its forms.”
Furthermore, Carney’s eldest daughter, Sasha, identifies as non-binary and went to the U.K.’s infamous Tavistock gender clinic. The 24-year-old Yale graduate is now a writer who has publicly advocated for transgender procedures.
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