Business
Trudeau government spends millions producing podcasts
From the Canadian Taxpayers Federation
By Ryan Thorpe
Take the Eh Sayers Podcast from Statistics Canada, which has 21 episodes since January 2021. Episode topics have ranged from gender identity to climate change and misinformation to systemic racism.
The podcast has racked up 229 “estimated” subscribers, according to records.
To date, the podcast has cost $971,417.
Dozens of federal departments and agencies have launched podcasts in recent years, with the cost to taxpayers rising to millions of dollars once salary expenses are factored in.
That’s according to government documents, as well as access-to-information records, obtained by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
“Canadians need the government delivering passports, not podcasts,” said Franco Terrazzano, CTF Federal Director. “Can anyone explain why taxpayers are paying for government bureaucrats to spend a bunch of money on podcasts nobody listens to?
“This isn’t providing taxpayers value for money, these podcasts are make-work projects for government bureaucrats we don’t need.”
Take the Eh Sayers Podcast from Statistics Canada, which has 21 episodes since January 2021. Episode topics have ranged from gender identity to climate change and misinformation to systemic racism.
The podcast has racked up 229 “estimated” subscribers, according to records.
To date, the podcast has cost $971,417, meaning taxpayers are on the hook for $4,241 for every subscriber. The podcast averages 1,414 downloads per episode and has 39 reviews on Apple.
There have been anywhere from three to five full-time Statistics Canada employees assigned to the podcast, according to the records.
An August 2023 episode on gender identity begins with a “drag story time” reading from “drag king” Cyril Cinder.
During a December 2023 episode on misinformation, the host and guest talk about the problem with giving “both sides of an issue equal time or consideration.”
An earlier episode, from December 2021, focuses on “the arts and crafts movement across Canada, its renaissance and its necessity.”
“If Statistics Canada bureaucrats want to produce podcasts on gender ideology, climate change or misinformation they can fill their boots on their own time with their own dime,” Terrazzano said. “If you want proof there are too many bureaucrats in Ottawa with too much time and tax dollars on their hands, look no further than these podcasts.”
Or take CCI and CHIN: In Our Words, from Canadian Heritage, that seeks to “preserve” the history of the department “through interviews with current and former staff members.”
Between September 2019 and September 2021, when it was discontinued, the podcast released seven episodes. It has 17 reviews on Apple.
That podcast cost taxpayers $155,736, which works out to a cost of more than $22,000 per episode.
The costs included $9,000 for “podcast training and consulting,” $2,000 for equipment and $115,000 in salary expenses for the full-time staff assigned to it.
The First Sixteen podcast, from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, explores the “freshest ideas in agriculture and food.” It racked up $30,000 in expenses, on top of the salary costs for the full-time employee who works on it.
Healthy Canadians podcast, from the Public Health Agency of Canada, has four full-time employees assigned to it.
The average compensation for each full-time federal employee is $125,300 when pay, pension, paid time off, shift premiums and other benefits are considered, according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer.
Healthy Canadians also racked up $67,000 in expenses (over and above salary costs), including $34,000 spent on “podcast strategy, editorial planning and employee training.”
Business Unusual, a pandemic-era podcast produced by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, had 13 employees working on it, including two deputy ministers and two executives.
Government records released in November 2023 in response to an order paper question from Conservative MP Rob Moore reveal at least $1.7 million in podcast costs.
But that figure undercounts the true cost to taxpayers, because in most cases the departments did not include salary expenses for staff working on the podcasts.
In every case where salary expenses were included, it was the largest portion of costs.
“No wonder the government is more than $1 trillion in debt when it’s scheming up useless make-work projects for bureaucrats that accomplish nothing more than burning through tax dollars,” Terrazzano said. “With massive deficits and soaring debt, these taxpayer-funded podcasts should be the first thing on the chopping block.”
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.
-
Business1 day ago
Carbon tax bureaucracy costs taxpayers $800 million
-
Brownstone Institute1 day ago
The Most Devastating Report So Far
-
ESG22 hours ago
Can’t afford Rent? Groceries for your kids? Trudeau says suck it up and pay the tax!
-
Daily Caller21 hours ago
Los Angeles Passes ‘Sanctuary City’ Ordinance In Wake Of Trump’s Deportation Plan
-
John Stossel20 hours ago
Green Energy Needs Minerals, Yet America Blocks New Mines
-
COVID-192 days ago
Dr. McCullough praises RFK Jr., urges him to pull COVID shots from the market
-
Business2 days ago
Ottawa’s avalanche of spending hasn’t helped First Nations
-
MAiD1 day ago
Over 40% of people euthanized in Ontario lived in poorest parts of the province: government data