Business
The debt silver bullet? Ending corporate welfare
From the Canadian Taxpayers Federation
By Jay Goldberg
Canadians are worried about government debt and axing corporate welfare is the closest thing to a silver bullet politicians have to solve the problem.
Canada’s politicians spent $89 billion handing out taxpayer cash to corporations in 2021, the last year for which figures are available, according to the Fraser Institute.
To get a handle on swelling government debt at both the federal and provincial levels, it’s time to put corporate welfare on the chopping block.
And those who think taxpayers don’t care about government debt are sorely mistaken.
A recent Leger poll shows 81 per cent of Ontarians are concerned about the debt dive the province has taken over the past decade.
No doubt Canadian taxpayers are just as alarmed about the doubling of Canada’s federal debt during Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s nine years running Parliament Hill.
When an individual has a debt problem, the first step is to stop digging. The same is true of governments.
This year, just two of Canada’s 10 provinces are running balanced budgets. And Ottawa is nowhere close.
But look at the corporate welfare numbers and a path to solving Canada’s run-away government debt problem begins to emerge.
Take Ontario.
Ontario’s politicians have racked up $145 billion in new debt over the past decade, including more than $80 billion over the past six years under Premier Doug Ford.
Thanks to years of mismanagement, Ontario taxpayers will spend $13.9 billion on debt interest payments this year. That’s more than the province spends on post-secondary education.
And this year’s deficit is a whopping $9.8 billion.
Ontarians are concerned. And rightly so.
But take a quick gander at the Fraser Institute’s report and a path toward balance becomes clear.
The Ford government spent $22.1 billion in taxpayer handouts to corporations in 2021.
If this year’s handouts are even half of what they were in 2021, the Ford government could wipe out its deficit and produce a surplus by eliminating corporate welfare alone.
It’s unfair to place more and more debt at the feet of our children and grandchildren to give wealthy companies handouts.
It’s also unfair to pick winners and losers. The Ford government is taxing hardworking Ontarians, as well as small businesses, and handing billions over to wealthy corporations that don’t need taxpayer help.
Over the past few years, the Ford government has teamed up with the Trudeau Liberals to give billions to wealthy companies like Honda, Volkswagen, the Ford Motor Company, Stellantis, and many others.
Each year, Ottawa and Queen’s Park ran big deficits while handing out taxpayer cash to wealthy companies like candy. In many cases, taxpayers are paying millions of dollars for every job created.
Corporate welfare is fueling government debt. And it’s time for it to stop.
Not only is corporate welfare insanely costly, but it simply doesn’t work.
Between 2011 and 2021, the Ontario government spent $100 billion on corporate welfare. Yet inflation-adjusted economic growth in Ontario was below one per cent, on average, during that decade.
If handing out billions to create jobs and grow the economy worked, surely, we’d have the evidence by now.
Queen’s Park isn’t the only place where the budget could be turned around if corporate welfare were a thing of the past.
The Trudeau government also spent $47 billion on corporate welfare in 2021, which roughly equates to its budget deficit this year.
If 2024 corporate welfare numbers are in line with 2021, the Trudeau government could balance its budget in one fell swoop.
Taxpayers are rightly concerned about growing government debt across the country. Ending handouts to wealthy companies is an obvious solution to the debt binge.
After all, you cannot borrow and subsidize your way to prosperity.
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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