Economy
Trudeau’s bureaucrat hiring spree is out of control

From the Canadian Taxpayers Federation
Author: Franco Terrazzano
Bureaucrats love to think of themselves as “public servants,” but who is really serving who around here?
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau added another 10,525 bureaucrats to the taxpayer payroll last year. Since becoming prime minister, Trudeau has added more than 108,000 new federal bureaucrats.
That’s a 42 per cent increase in the federal bureaucracy in less than a decade.
Ask yourself, are you getting 42 per cent better services from the federal government? Unless your paycheque comes from taxpayers, the answer is a big fat NO.
While Trudeau’s bureaucracy grew by 42 per cent, Canada’s population grew by 14 per cent.
That means there would be 72,491 fewer federal paper pushers had Trudeau kept growth in the bureaucracy in line with population growth.
It’s not just the size of the bureaucracy that’s ballooning – the cost is too.
The total cost of the federal payroll hit $67 billion last year, a record high. That’s a 68 per cent increase over 2016.
Trudeau gave federal bureaucrats more than one million pay raises in the last four years alone.
Since taking office, Trudeau also rubberstamped about $1.4 billion in taxpayer-funded bonuses to bureaucrats working in federal departments.
The bonuses were paid out despite the Parliamentary Budget Officer finding “less than 50 per cent of [performance] targets are consistently met.”
Then there’s the bonuses at failing Crown corporations.
CBC dished out $15 million in bonuses last year, while their President and CEO Catherine Tait whined about “chronic underfunding” and begged the government for more taxpayer cash. The CBC takes more than $1 billion from taxpayers every year.
The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation dished out $102 million in bonuses over the last four years, while Canadians couldn’t afford to buy a home. The bonuses rained down, despite the CMHC repeatedly claiming it’s “driven by one goal: housing affordability for all.”
The Bank of Canada dished out more than $60 million in bonuses over the last three years, even though it failed to do its one and only job: keep inflation low and around two per cent.
The average annual compensation for a full-time federal bureaucrat is $125,300, when pay, pension and perks are accounted for, according to the PBO.
There are now more than 110,000 federal bureaucrats taking home a six-figure base salary – an increase of 154 per cent since Trudeau took power.
Meanwhile, data from Statistics Canada suggests the average annual salary among all full-time workers in Canada was less than $70,000 in 2023.
Here’s why all this matters:
First, it’s an issue of fairness. The last few years have spelled hardship for Canadians who don’t work for the government, but do pay the bills.
Countless Canadians were sent to the ranks of the unemployed, lost their business and struggled to afford rising rents and costly grocery trips.
They’re paying higher taxes so more highly-paid bureaucrats can take bigger paycheques.
Second, more than half of the federal government’s day-to-day spending is consumed by the bureaucracy. That means any government that wants to fix the budget dumpster fire must shrink the bureaucracy.
Let’s recap:
Taxpayers paid for 108,000 new federal bureaucrats. Taxpayers paid for more than one million pay raises over the last four years. Taxpayers paid for more than $1 billion in bonuses.
And bureaucrats barely meet even half of their performance targets – targets they set for themselves.
It’s clear Trudeau’s bureaucratic bloat isn’t serving taxpayers. It’s time to find a pin and pop Ottawa’s ballooning bureaucracy.
This column was first published in the Western Standard on July 202, 2024.
Business
Trump: China’s tariffs to “come down substantially” after negotiations with Xi

MxM News
Quick Hit:
President Trump said the 145% tariff rate on Chinese imports will drop significantly once a deal is struck with Chinese President Xi Jinping, expressing confidence that a new agreement is on the horizon.
Key Details:
- Trump said the current 145% tariff rate on China “won’t be anywhere near that high” after negotiations.
- He pointed to his relationship with Xi Jinping as a reason for optimism.
- The White House said it is preparing the groundwork for a deal, and Treasury officials expect a “de-escalation” of the trade war.
Diving Deeper:
President Donald Trump on Tuesday told reporters that the steep tariff rate currently imposed on Chinese imports will come down substantially after his administration finalizes a new trade deal with Chinese President Xi Jinping. While the current level stands at 145%, Trump made clear that number was temporary and would be adjusted following talks with Beijing.
“145 percent is very high. It won’t be that high, it’s not going to be that high … it won’t be anywhere near that high,” Trump said from the Oval Office, signaling a shift once a bilateral agreement is reached. “It will come down substantially, but it won’t be zero.”
The tariff, which Trump previously described as “reciprocal,” was maintained on China even after he delayed similar penalties on other trading partners. Those were cut to 10% and paused for 90 days to allow room for further negotiation.
“We’re going to be very nice. They’re going to be very nice, and we’ll see what happens. But ultimately, they have to make a deal because otherwise they’re not going to be able to deal in the United States,” Trump said, reinforcing his view that the U.S. holds the leverage.
Trump’s remarks come as markets remain wary of ongoing trade tensions, though the White House signaled progress, saying it is “setting the stage for a deal with China.” The president cited his personal rapport with Xi Jinping as a key factor in his confidence that an agreement can be reached.
“China was taking us for a ride, and it’s not going to happen,” Trump said. “They would make billions a year off us and build up their military with our money. That’s over. But we’ll still be good to China, and I think we’ll work together.”
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent also said Tuesday that he expects a cooling of trade hostilities between the two nations, according to several reports from a private meeting with investors.
As the 90-day pause on other reciprocal tariffs nears its end, Trump emphasized that his team is prepared to finalize deals quickly. “We’ve been in talks with many, many world leaders,” he said, expressing confidence that talks will “go pretty quickly.”
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt added that the administration has received 18 formal proposals from other countries engaged in trade negotiations, another sign that momentum is building behind Trump’s broader push to restructure global trade in favor of American workers and businesses.
(Li Xueren/Xinhua via AP)
2025 Federal Election
Next federal government should end corporate welfare for forced EV transition

From the Fraser Institute
By Tegan Hill and Jake Fuss
Corporate welfare simply shifts jobs and investment away from other firms and industries—which are more productive, as they don’t require government funding to be economically viable—to the governments’ preferred industries and firms, circumventing the preferences of consumers and investors. And since politicians spend other people’s money, they have little incentive to be careful investors.
General Motors recently announced the temporary closure of its electric vehicle (EV) manufacturing plant in Ontario, laying off 500 people because its new EV isn’t selling. The plant will shut down for six months despite hundreds of millions in government subsides financed by taxpayers. This is just one more example of corporate welfare—when governments subsidize favoured industries and companies—and it’s time for the provinces and the next federal government to eliminate it.
Between the federal government and Ontario government, GM received about $500 million to help fund its EV transition. But this is just one example of corporate welfare in the auto sector. Stellantis and Volkswagen will receive about $28 billion in government subsidies while Honda is promised $5 billion.
More broadly, from 2007 to 2019, the last pre-COVID year of data, the federal government spent an estimated $84.6 billion (adjusted for inflation) on corporate welfare while provincial and local governments spent another $302.9 billion. And crucially, these numbers exclude other forms of government support such as loan guarantees, direct investments and regulatory privileges, so the actual cost of corporate welfare during this period was much higher.
Of course, politicians claim that corporate welfare benefits workers. Yet according to a significant body of research, corporate welfare fails to generate widespread economic benefit. Think of it this way—if the businesses that received subsidies were viable to begin with, they wouldn’t need government support. So unprofitable companies are kept in business through governments’ support, which can prevent resources, including investment and workers, from moving to profitable companies, hurting overall economic growth.
Put differently, rather than fuelling economic growth, corporate welfare simply shifts jobs and investment away from other firms and industries—which are more productive, as they don’t require government funding to be economically viable—to the governments’ preferred industries and firms, circumventing the preferences of consumers and investors. And since politicians spend other people’s money, they have little incentive to be careful investors.
Governments also must impose higher tax rates on everyone else to pay for corporate welfare. In turn, higher tax rates discourage entrepreneurship and business investment—again, which fuels economic growth. And the higher the tax rates, the more economic activity they discourage.
GM’s EV plant shut down once again proves that when governments try to engineer the economy with corporate welfare, workers will ultimately lose. It’s time for the provinces and the next federal government—whoever it may be—to finally put an end to this costly and ineffective policy approach.
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