The Canadian Taxpayers Federation yesterday held its 23rd annual Teddy Waste Awards ceremony in a special virtual presentation, celebrating the best of the worst in government waste uncovered in the past year.

With the Trudeau government’s deficit approaching $400 billion due to emergency pandemic spending, it goes without saying that will need to start looking for places to actually save money.

Heritage Minister Stephen Guilbeault’s recent introduction of legislation that would impose a Netflix tax on Canadians is a blockbuster in all the wrong ways. It will do nothing to protect or improve Canadian culture, which is doing just fine. It will fail miserably in trying to regulate Canadians’ viewing habits. And, perhaps worst of all, it will end up gouging regular Canadians who just want to watch good TV of their own choosing.

Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland speaks during a news conference in Ottawa on Sept. 24, 2020. Photo: David Kawai/Bloomberg Considering the shape of Canada’s economy, you might assume Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland’s recent speech to the Toronto Global Forum would have contained some grim bits. But there was no sign of sobering statistics. She didn’t mention […]

The Alberta Federation of Labour (AFL) recently launched a campaign to encourage Albertans to boycott businesses that support the United Conservative Party (UCP), which won the 2019 Alberta provincial election in a landslide.
The AFL has established a website which lists businesses who made political donations to the UCP, and is asking Albertans to avoid patronizing these businesses. The boycott campaign is predicated on the fact that the UCP government is looking for ways to streamline public spending at a time when the province is in serious financial difficulty. Considering that about 80 per cent of Albertans work in the private sector and would therefore benefit from more sensible budgetary policies, the unions are actually advocating against the interests of most workers in the province.

Whenever Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wants to solve a problem, his solution can’t be to hit families and businesses struggling to get by with even more costs. Yet, that’s exactly the approach Trudeau is taking with his second carbon tax.
As Postmedia columnist John Ivison reported, the Trudeau government is getting ready to introduce a second carbon tax through a regulatory regime called the clean fuel standard, which will “require all supplies of fossil fuel to reduce carbon content.” If companies can’t meet the fuel requirement, they’ll have to pay a whopping $350 per tonne carbon tax.

As Preston Manning used to say the last time the federal deficit was so big, when you’re in a hole the first thing to do is stop digging. Very soon now, the Trudeau government needs to put down its very large shovel.
Getting Canada’s $343 billion federal deficit under control will be a daunting task. Winding down emergency program spending represents the biggest chunk of money, but, at least in theory, it is also probably the easiest to do. Temporary measures justified because the economy was closed will no longer be necessary now that it’s reopening.

As we struggle to contain COVID-19, virtually everyone is paying the price while the economy faces an unprecedented storm. Many members of Parliament are sharing in that sacrifice by donating their automatic pay raise to charity. The rest need to not only follow that example, but go one step further by taking a pay cut.

It has been a good couple of weeks for Bombardier.
That might sound strange, given that last week the company announced it was selling off its commercial aircraft business and this week it did the same with its troubled train division, both with a view to focusing its efforts on its private jet unit. But it’s also a clear sign the company is finally behaving like — gasp! — a normal business and doing a normal business thing: realizing parts of its operation are not very profitable and selling them off to focus on what is.

For Canadians who endured an election that often felt like a stomach flu, here’s something to make everyone feel better: the overwhelming majority of MPs agree we need an income tax cut.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised to save the average family about $600 every year by increasing the basic personal income tax exemption from $12,000 to $15,000. Except for the high-income earners he leaves out, it’s a broad-based and truly helpful break for Canadian families. In his first press conference following the election, Trudeau confirmed the tax cut is coming.