The on-going debate about whether Canada is in a recession or not is moot when one learns that working Canadians are finding refuge living in trailers parked in highway 401 carpool lots. The camper trailers parked long-term in Kitchener-Waterloo carpool lots are a sobering sign of the affordability crisis in Canada – and they present a disturbing picture when juxtaposed with a half dozen recent shameless snapshots of the Carney government’s largesse.
A fish rots from the head down
The Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) revealed to Canadians the details of in-flight catering menus on Prime Minister Mark Carney’s international flights and, unbelievably, three trips for the prime minister’s sojourns around Europe in 2025 cost taxpayers $195,400 in food and fine wine. The multi-course menus included lamb rump, veal escalope, red wine braised beef with pearl onion and edamame ragu, beef tenderloin with bordelaise sauce, Scottish salmon fillet, Italian, Spanish and European selection of charcuterie, and a luxury Normandy butter cup. Franco Terrazzano, CTF federal director, puts the meals’ outrageous costs into perspective, “Carney spent more money on airplane food during three trips than the average family will spend on groceries in a decade.” Terrazzano would later post on X, “This is gross. We need a culture change in Ottawa.”
Consider that last November the prime minister talked of sacrifices that would have to be made and he told Canadians, “We will have to do less of some of the things we want to do.” Well, the age-old adage is “a fish rots from the head down”; with the prime minister’s 2025 in-flight catering bill topping $524,000, it is obvious Ottawa’s rot starts with Carney.
12 million grocery rebate cheques – prime minister: “Our plan is working”
Carney and his wife jetted from Ottawa to Brampton last week to visit a discount grocery store and announce the “Canada Groceries and Essentials Benefit.” The prime minister explained that 12 million Canadians would be receiving a one-time “bonus” government cheque in addition to having their GST credits bumped up 25 per cent. The prime minister stated, “It’s a significant amount of money, cheques up to $534 for a family of four to help with the pressures and cost of living.” (Government documents show that with the GST credits, a family of four can receive up to $790 in 2026). Carney seemed rather pleased with his government’s generosity, posting on X: “Our plan is working – and we’re just getting started.”
But, in reality, the rebate will likely not pay for much more than a family’s one week trek up and down the grocery aisles. Throughout Canada, food banks are overwhelmed as Canadians are struggling with the highest food inflation in the G7 countries. TD Economics reports grocery prices have soared by an overall average of roughly 30 per cent over the last six years, with what was once staple food items like coffee and tea rising by more than 55 per cent, eggs up more than 40 per cent, and beef more than 60 per cent.
There was much criticism in social media with the Brampton photo op and the Carneys’ fascination with being in a discount grocery store. There was the repeated observation that $534 would not be enough to cover the prime minister’s own in-flight meals for a single day.
Alto high-speed rail – a bureaucratic boondoggle
The Alto high speed rail engine has not even left the station and the government’s $90-billion “major project of national interest” (a.k.a. “The Laurentian Bullet”) has already become a bureaucratic boondoggle. In the fall budget the government allotted a total of $3.9 billion for “planning” the project over the next six years – a process that is to be led by the Liberals’ favourite engineering firm AtkinsRealis (formerly SNC-Lavalin). In 2030 Alto will commence to lay track between Montreal and Ottawa and the initial construction is to include a new 10-km tunnel in Montreal, costing somewhere between $5 to $9 billion.
This week independent news source Blacklock’s Reporter broke Alto’s latest, sorry news to Canadian taxpayers:
- The corporation spent $265.9 million in less than a fiscal year
- The head office has a president, 13 vice presidents, 44 directors, and seven managers for a total of 216 employees
- In less than a year Alto spent nearly $1.6 million on advertising its high-speed rail service (something that is at least a decade away)
He said, she said on the government deficit
Finance minister François-Philippe Champagne was playing fast and loose with the deficit figures in Ottawa’s April fiscal update, so says the new Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) Annette Ryan. Champagne told Canadians there would be a $66.9 billion deficit for this 2025-26 fiscal year. In the PBO report released last week, Ryan said there is a 99 per cent chance the finance department is going to miss its rosy projections – and she forecasts the deficit will be $72 billion. Champagne asserts he stands by his projections. Ryan has not blinked. But then, what does a few billion dollars matter (said facetiously)? Conservative MP Melissa Lantsman observed, “Canadians certainly deserve a government that manages their money like it matters and not use Canadians as a credit card to bolster programs which don’t work and Canadians don’t need.” CTF federal director Franco Terrazzano states, “The government’s borrowing continues to spiral out of control because government spending continues to spiral out of control and that needs to stop.”
As it is this fiscal year, the PBO stated the Carney government will borrow $7 billion more than Champagne said it would just a little over a month ago. The PBO informed Canadians that the debt interest charges this year will cost taxpayers $59 billion – and that is more than what the federal government expends on health transfers ($57 billion) or what it collects through the GST ($53 billion). Yes, the billions of dollars will and do add up.
The National Capital: “Fat Cat City”
The National Capital exists within its own economic bubble, insulated from the economic realities of the rest of Canada. It has not been nicknamed “Fat Cat City” for nothing. The federal government – its departments and agencies – is Ottawa’s largest employer with about 150,000 public servants (and tens of thousands of retired bureaucrats who are living in the city). Now consider there are 21 deputy ministers in the federal bureaucracy with base salaries ranging from $248,400 to $490,000 annually. There are more than 400 assistant deputy ministers in the federal bureaucracy with salaries ranging from $198,000 to $260,000. The average federal government employee makes $143,271 in annual pay and benefits, and that is two times the average working Canadian – more than an average household income. That total increased 5.1 per cent last year, according to the federal budget office report.
Now compare Ottawa’s bureaucrat pay to the $67,500 paid annually (an average) to a Canadian worker, or the average $107,000 household income in this land (StatsCan data). Verily, there is plenty of purring to be heard throughout Ottawa.
Ottawa’s spending is taxing on Canadians
The Fraser Institute reported that June 9 this year is Canadians’ Tax Freedom Day, having estimated that the average tax-paying Canadian pays approximately 43.5 per cent of their income to the government. Argumentatively, this is palatable if only there was not so much waste and misspent dollars by the federal government. And there are endless examples: $1.066 billion to host FIFA games, $5,149.11 per month (tax-free) paid to support each and every refugee – and hundreds of millions of dollars to pay for the healthcare of illegal refugees, $30 billion projected costs for Carney’s carbon capture pet-project (that no private investor will touch), $7 billion to a bankrupt Northvolt battery plant, $1.4 billion a year to CBC, a highly questionable $200-million lease for a space launch pad in rural Nova Scotia… This Ottawa spending is taxing on Canadians. It’s infuriating for many, tiring for most.
Everything from the prime minister’s lavish in-flight menus to the finance minister misreporting billions of dollars in the fiscal updates, points to how tone deaf and seemingly insensitive this Carney government is to the difficult economic realities playing out across the country – at our families’ kitchen tables and, sadly, in Canada’s carpool lots.
Chris George is an advocate, government relations advisor, and writer/copy editor. As president of a public relations firm established in 1994, Chris provides discreet counsel, tactical advice and management skills to CEOs/Presidents, Boards of Directors and senior executive teams in executing public and government relations campaigns and managing issues. Prior to this PR/GR career, Chris spent seven years on Parliament Hill on staffs of Cabinet Ministers and MPs. He has served in senior campaign positions for electoral and advocacy campaigns at every level of government. Today, Chris resides in Almonte, Ontario where he and his wife manage www.cgacommunications.com. Contact Chris at chrisg.george@gmail.com.
