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Time to cut government fat(cats)!

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News release from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation

You’re not just paying for more government bureaucrats than ever.

You’re also paying for more government executives than ever to oversee those bureaucrats as they fail to deliver for you.

The federal government’s c-suite has ballooned by 42 per cent since Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took power. And those executives are paid up to $255,607 every year, on top of the bonuses and benefits they rake in.

And speaking of overpaid government executives…

CBC President Catherine Tait might take a bonus and severance pay out when she leaves the state broadcaster in the new year.

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

Franco.


Time to cut the fat(cats)!

Forget Springfield, Ohio, we’ve got a problem with cats of a different sort in Ottawa – government fat cats.

Everywhere you look – from the Prime Minister’s Office to the Crown corporations to the departments – the cost and size of the bureaucracy is up.

Take the federal c-suite, which has increased by 42 per cent under the watch of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

There were 6,414 executives in the federal government when Trudeau took power.

Fast forward to today, and that number has jumped to 9,155.

That means Trudeau isn’t just ballooning the size of government in general, he’s also swelling the ranks of its most expensive bureaucrats.

Records obtained by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation reveal growth among every class of executive under Trudeau.

The salaries for those executives range from $134,827 to $255,607 per year, not including benefits or bonuses.

And you better believe those executives are taking bonuses.

About 90 per cent of federal executives get a bonus each year, according to additional records obtained by the CTF.

In fact, Trudeau dished out $202 million in bonuses in 2022, with the average bonus among executives being $18,252.

All told, compensation for federal executives was $1.95 billion that year, which represented a 41 per cent increase over 2015.

The size of the entire federal bureaucracy has also increased by 42 per cent under Trudeau, with more than 108,000 new bureaucrats added to the taxpayer dole.

Spending on federal bureaucrats hit a record high last year, at $67.4 billion, representing a 68 per cent increase since 2016.

Meanwhile, spending on consultants has also reached a record high, with expenditures for 2023 sitting at $21.6 billion.

So let’s get this straight.

Trudeau ballooned the government c-suite by 42 per cent.

He’s added 108,000 new bureaucrats.

He’s spending 68 per cent more on those bureaucrats, while also dropping more money on outside consultants than any prime minister in Canadian history.

And yet, despite all this new staff, all this outside help, and all this spending, government departments still can’t hit 50 per cent of their performance targets each year.

How is that even possible?

Can someone – anyone – explain what the heck is going on?

Because only one thing is for certain: taxpayers are getting screwed.

CBC President Catherine Tait won’t rule out bonus, severance

The president of everyone’s favourite state broadcaster – Catherine Tait – was back in Ottawa this week to answer questions about CBC bonuses.

During her testimony at the House of Commons Heritage Committee, Tait was asked by Conservative MP Damien Kurek if she would commit to not taking a severance pay out or a bonus when her term at the CBC ends in January 2025.

“I consider that to be a personal matter,” Tait said.

Does that sound like a “personal matter” to you? We certainly don’t think so.

Tait taking a taxpayer-funded bonus or severance pay out, on top of her six-figure, taxpayer-funded salary, is the furthest thing in the world from a “personal matter.”

It’s your money, so you have every right to know.

Canada falls behind on tax competitiveness

The results are in and they’re not good…

The Tax Foundation’s 2024 International Tax Competitiveness Index was released this week. The report compares tax systems for the 38 countries that belong to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.

And the report shows that Canada has fallen behind many of our peers on tax competitiveness.

Canada ranked 17th on overall tax competitiveness, two spots worse than last year.

Canada ranked 31st on individual tax competitiveness.

Canada ranked 26th on business tax competitiveness.

Canada ranked 25th on property tax competitiveness.

The report also noted that Canada’s capital gain tax is “well above” the OECD average.

VIDEO: Here’s why Trudeau’s carbon tax is a scam

The Trudeau government is running a $7-million ad campaign to try to spin Canadians on the carbon tax.

The CTF is fighting back with a campaign of our own.

In the video below, CTF Federal Director Franco Terrazzano refutes Trudeau’s favourite talking points with cold hard facts and explains why the carbon tax is a scam.

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PBO report shows cost of bureaucracy up 73 per cent under Trudeau

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From the Canadian Taxpayers Federation

By Franco Terrazzano

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.”

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Can’t afford Rent? Groceries for your kids? Trudeau says suck it up and pay the tax!

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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.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau sits down for a conversation with Michael Scheldrick, co-founder of the anti-poverty group Global Citizen, on the sidelines of the G20 Leaders’ Summit Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

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