NDP, Liberals and Conservatives all helped themselves to the wage subsidy meant for struggling businesses
Politicians are good at preaching, but they’re not so good at practicing what they preach. Case in point: the federal wage subsidy. Federal politicians have been moralizing about the evils of business executives taking bonuses while collecting the pandemic wage subsidy, but their silence on their own party taking the subsidy is deafening. At the…
$424 million(!) being added to the debt every single day
By Franco Terrazzano and Jay Goldberg Canadian Taxpayers Federation If the federal government’s fiscal policy stays on its current trajectory, Canada’s trillion-dollar debt will be a major drain on taxpayers’ wallets for generations to come. In this election, voters will need to closely examine parties’ plans to plug that drain. Unfortunately, the current Liberal plan…
A huge portion of the high cost of living is being driven by government policy
By Franco Terrazzano and Jay Goldberg Canadian Taxpayers Federation Political parties are trying their best to convince Canadians they can make life more affordable. But if politicians want us to believe them, they need to look in the mirror. That’s because making life more affordable really means tackling the damage government does through regulation, high…
More deficits mean more debt that your kids and grandkids will need to pay back
The Parliamentary Budget Officer has finally answered the burning question: will Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s budget balance itself? The answer: yes, it will – but not for another almost 50 years. According to data published by the PBO, under status quo policies the federal government will balance its budget again in the year 2070. By…
Ottawa’s public service has swelled by roughly 10,000 bureaucrats per year under Trudeau
COVID-19 has shone a light on a fundamental divide within Canada: the growing government bureaucracy and those forced to pay for it. This contrast is illustrated by Statistics Canada’s latest jobs report. The private sector, including the self-employed, has shed 520,400 jobs since COVID-19 hit us, while the number of government jobs across the country…
We have to start demanding that politicians start making some tough choices
Fifty-seven thousand dollars. That’s the average amount each Canadian will owe in provincial and federal government debt by the end of the year. It’s not just the rich or big corporations that will be mopping up this budget mess if politicians don’t take some air out of their bloated budgets. Politicians are already starting to…
Even the National Police Federation, Canada’s largest police union, believes the buyback will do little to curb criminality
By Franco Terrazzano and Kevin Lacey Canadian Taxpayers Federation Here we go again. Ottawa’s budget watchdog is on the trail of another big taxpayer boondoggle in the making with the federal government’s latest gun policy. First, a Liberal government introduced the gun registry in the 1990s. That was supposed to cost $2 million, but, by…
There’s only so many times that you can superglue the same broken mug back together, and there’s only so much debt a country can pile up before there are serious consequences. COVID-19 subsidies were always supposed to be temporary and now it’s time for the feds to set a concrete end date to all this…
Canadian politicians like Chrystia Freeland see tax competition as a “race to the bottom.” But for the rest of us, a global tax cartel will mean an inevitable march toward higher tax bills and more pork for companies with access to politicians. Freeland agreed to the American-led proposal for a global minimum business tax of…
When a new governor general takes the controls as head of state, the routine waste of money at that office needs to stop
It’s a rare event when the stars align in the cosmos of Ottawa to create the perfect opportunity for politicians to save taxpayers some money. That phenomenon is happening now. Ottawa is facing a black hole of debt. It needs to save money, and that signal needs to come from the top. When a new…
It’s unfair to make Albertans struggling through the pandemic to pay for bigger salaries for post-secondary employees
Many bureaucrats and professors have been collecting bigger paycheques during the pandemic, which means bigger bills for struggling families and students at the worst possible time. More than 11,500 university and college employees received a pay raise in 2020, which cost taxpayers and students $29 million, according to freedom of information requests obtained by the…
When you got straight A’s on a report card, it’s a good bet you rushed home from the school bus to show your mom and dad. Maybe they even stuck it on the fridge. But if that report card was covered with F’s, you probably weren’t that eager to bring it up at dinner time.…
The Trudeau government is throwing freedom of expression under the bus so the entertainment and culture lobby can pocket more dough. The proposed law, Bill C-10, opens the door for unelected bureaucrats to put online content under their microscope. These ramifications led Peter Menzies, former vice-chair of Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications, to refer to the…
As the federal government’s debt soars by $424 million per day, Canadians need to be on guard for the Trojan horse of politics: higher taxes on the wealthy and businesses. These taxes won’t balance the budget. But they will make it easier for politicians to get their tax hikes through the city gates. And once…
Babies born on budget day 2021 had more than $28,000 of debt the moment they opened their eyes
By Franco Terrazzano Canadian Taxpayers Federation and Kris Rondolo Generation Screwed Canadian babies born on federal budget day 2021 had more than $28,000 of debt the moment they opened their eyes. That’s each Canadian’s share of the federal government’s $1-trillion debt. And it’s going up. By the time those little ones blow out their candles…
Politicians are good at preaching, but they’re not so good at practicing what they preach. Case in point: the federal wage subsidy. Federal politicians have been moralizing about the evils of business executives taking bonuses while collecting the pandemic wage subsidy, but their silence on their own party taking the subsidy is deafening. At the…
