Toronto Metropolitan University announced it will be walking back plans to allocate 75% of available spots at its new medical school for “equity-deserving admissions pathways.”
Plus, the NDP Manitoba government is slashing educational standards for teachers.
And Canadian taxpayers are paying even more for expenses incurred by the Prime Minister’s Office under the Trudeau government.
Tune into The Daily Brief with Lindsay Shepherd and Noah Jarvis!
Oprah Winfrey couldn’t help Kamala Harris. Or J-Lo. Or Beyoncé. Or Cardi B. Or the self-described top Democratic American couple, Barack and Michelle Obama.
Or the variety of disconnected celebrities who tried to manipulate the American people from the sanctity of their walled Hollywood homes.
Or $1 billion in donations — the obscene millions and millions of which went to pay the celebrities. That included a reported $1 million to multi-billionaire Oprah to hold a town hall with Harris and $11 million to Beyonce.
Never mind that ordinary people, with nowhere near the disposable income of these celebrities, donated to help Harris win.
Woke politics and the out-of-touch Democratic machine — from the media to pollsters to tired politicians who won’t go away, to academics and the highly manipulated Liberal left — suffered a crushing defeat in the U.S. presidential election this past week.
It wasn’t even close. President-Elect Donald Trump was returned to office for his second term by sweeping all the swing states, the popular vote, a majority in the Senate and the House.
Not two assassination attempts or neverending lawfare could stop Trump.
I suspected, despite the never ending pollsters that claimed it was too close to call, it really wasn’t close.
It was akin to the (Toronto mayor) Rob Ford effect in 2010 when many lean-in voters supported him but were afraid to say so.
I saw the crowds that turned up to Trump’s many rallies. The leftist media also gave it away by being so hysterical in the weeks before the election.
The American people — or at least more than half of them — said they’d had enough of the nonsense perpetuated by a party that has shifted to the radical left with their policies that aim to defund the police, allow transgendered athletes in women’s sports, pander to illegal migrants, ignore safety and sanction profligate spending.
Like Obama before them, Joe Biden and Harris were shamefully weak on global affairs, signaling to the terrorists in Iran that they had carte Blanche to pursue their Jew hatred and their mission of eradicating the Jewish state.
This is perhaps a strong predictor of what’s to come in Canada as we get closer to our own election next year.
CBC will do everything to prop up Justin Trudeau and the Liberal cabal of incompetent cabinet ministers — considering how much money they get.
Perhaps it will be worse with the legacy media, considering they have gotten handouts to keep alive and know Conservative leader Pierre Polievre will end all that.
I suspect Trudeau will continue to try to scare Canadians into comparing Poilievre to Trump and use abortion and racism as a wedge.
The unions will of course chime in.
Lucky for us, we don’t have many late night hosts or comics to attack the Conservatives. Still, I can only surmise that Mary Walsh/Marg Delahunty will be yanked out of retirement to do her anti-Poilievre schtick.
It’s amazing how similar woke politics here in Canada are similar to the United States.
The similarities between the leftist outcry here in Canada and south of the border are also remarkably similar with diehard Trump haters weighing in here – perhaps to gaslight Canadians about what’s to come.
Still nothing can compare to the lunacy in the United States.
Between talk show hosts crying on the air and the not-so-funny comics with Saturday Night Live doing a sophomoric segment on how much they like Trump, the childishness and petulance are astounding.
Nothing can beat the people melting down on TikTok, Gwen Walz (Democratic VP hopeful Tim Walz’s wife) shrieking in Minnesota about not giving up the fight, women wearing blue bracelets (in honour of Kamala) and shaving their heads and telling men who voted for Trump they won’t have sex with them.
Some professors at Ivy League schools like Harvard and U Penn even gave their students the day off and offered milk and cookies to them to cope with Trump’s win.
It is beyond absurd.
They’re not just sore losers.
But these antics show just how much a cross-section of America has been manipulated by the Democratically-aligned media, inept pollsters and politicians into thinking Trump will ruin America as we know it.
They didn’t care how or why Trump won.
It was all a farce. It’s all a charade. All projection.
Now the dust has settled and people are going on with their lives – except for those crazed Democratic women who are still ranting on social media.
I’m going to bet by Inauguration Day, we will see change for the better.
I hope, first and foremost, for peace in the Middle East.
A pro-Israel media watchdog is calling out Canada’s state broadcaster for publishing an article they say “minimized” the violent pogrom by anti-Israeli activists against Jewish soccer fans in Amsterdam.
The article, which was written by Reuters and published on CBC, referred to crowds of anti-Israel activists who hunted fans of the Israeli Maccabi Tel Aviv soccer in an organized attack as “Dutch youth.” The article neglected to detail much of the violence and even quoted a spokesperson for Hamas, a listed terrorist organization, who warned that attacks were inevitable due to Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza.
The headline published on the CBC differed from the one found on Reuters.
The CBC’s headline read, “Dutch PM ‘ashamed’ by Amsterdam attacks on Israeli soccer fans.” The original article, however, read, “Amsterdam bans protests after ‘antisemitic squads’ attack Israeli soccer fans.”
A spokesperson for the CBC did not answer True North’s question about why the state broadcaster decided to change the headline.
The CBC told True North that the perceived lack of appropriate balance in the article is due to the CBC’s complete coverage of all aspects of the stories it publishes.
“CBC News reports on stories with 360-degree context, helping the audience understand the facts and opinions driving any situation,” Chuck Thompson, the Head of Public Affairs at the CBC, said. “We are not part of this story, which we will continue to cover.”
However, a pro-Israel media watchdog says the state broadcaster’s coverage of the violent events does not capture what really happened on the ground.
“The headline is a grotesque inversion of reality, given that the pogroms were clearly orchestrated and organized well in advance,” said Mike Fegelman, the Executive director of HonestReporting Canada.
The article showed an image of the attackers and Maccabi soccer fans with the caption, “Israeli football supporters and Dutch youth clash near Amsterdam Central station on Friday in this image obtained from a social media video.”
Many Dutch locals have claimed online that the attackers were primarily Muslim and of Moroccan heritage. Anti-Israel activists allege that a Moroccan taxi driver was attacked by Maccabi fans the night before the attacks.
The article did not note incidents of Jews being forced to show their passports to prove they weren’t Israeli, being kicked on the ground by multiple men while laying still, chased and beaten in alleyways, hit by vehicles, hunted down in their hotels, or forced to jump into canals and told to say “Free Palestine.”
Though it did quote the Mayor of Amsterdam, Femke Halsema, who said Maccabi fans were “attacked, abused, and pelted with fireworks by “antisemitic hit-and-run squads; explained that there were five soccer fans treated in the hospital, 20 to 30 people with light injuries and 62 suspects arrested.
The author describes one event of “a group of men running near Amsterdam central station, chasing and assaulting other men” without identifying who was attacking who.
“By sanitizing these Islamic terrorists, CBC is misleading the taxpayers and minimizing the deadly threat they pose,” Fegelman told True North.
Anti-Israel activists rioted again on Monday. One video on X shows the protestors shooting a firework which exploded inside the vehicle while they yelled, “Cancer Jews.”
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh also came under fire for his response to the events in Amsterdam.
Singh posted on X that he strongly condemned the violence, saying nobody should be targeted based on their nationalist, religion, ethnicity or belief, but followed the statements by saying anti-Arab chants were wrong.
“Anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and Anti-Palestinian racism must be fought,” he said.
The NDP Leader was criticized by the Centre For Isreal and Jewish affairs for “both-siding” the anti-Jewish violence.
CIJA said instead of just “clearly condemning” the pre-organized pogrom against Jews, Singh “shifted the focus” from the antisemitic attack to talking about “Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism.”
“By “both-siding” this horrific act of anti-Jewish violence, Singh risks legitimizing similar attacks and paving the way for a pogrom to occur here at home,” CIJA posted to X. “Revolting.”
Canada’s rental market has seen a national cost decrease for the first time in over three years, driven by new rental supply and slower population growth.
The 1.2% annual decrease brings average asking rents for all residential property types in Canada to $2,152 a month. Average rents for houses or townhouses decreased 5.3%, followed by condos which saw a 3.8% decrease, and apartments, which saw a 1.7% increase.
Rent decreases were most notable in Canada’s most expensive provinces, like Ontario and British Columbia, which saw 6% and 3% decreases, respectively. Conversely, Canada’s least expensive provinces saw rent increases, led by Saskatchewan with a 17% rise.
Associate Director of Communications for Rentals.ca, Giacomo Ladas, told True North that the national rent decrease can be attributed to three factors. Firstly, he said that new completions have reached their highest level in decades. Also, he said that population growth has slowed notably and played a large factor, especially with international students.
A previous Desjardins report highlighted that only one in ten university students were able to access a residence bed. An estimated 1.2 million students were renting in communities outside of the institutions, while the number of international students living in “unsuitable housing” ranged from 25% to 63%.
He also said that the affordability crisis has played a role, as the labour market has softened, wages have stagnated, and inflation remains high, rents have subsequently moderated.
“Interprovincial migration is still here, and people are just moving out of Ontario and British Columbia in search of more affordable rents across the country,” said Ladas.
He added that major cities which generally host more international students have seen larger decreases, notably Vancouver and Toronto which are key international destinations.
The previous month’s decrease was also attributed to fewer international students.
Interprovincial migration affecting rent decreases in the most expensive areas and increases in the cheapest are nothing new either.
Ladas previously touted Saskatchewan as “the last-ditch effort of affordable living in Canada,” a trend which he said is continuing.
While Oct. was the first decrease since July 2021, average asking rent for all property types has been steadily decreasing since May 2024, which saw a 9.3% increase.
The rate of increase slowed each month from May to Oct., dropping from 9.3% in May to 7.0% in June, 5.9% in July, 3.3% in Aug., and 2.1% in Sep., before reaching -1.2% in Oct.
Ladas said that May is usually when prices skyrocket.
He said that further softening is expected over the winter months, which would be par for the course. However, he expects demand, and therefore cost, to skyrocket next spring.
Ladas added that interest rate cuts have played a role, allowing more people to stop renting and purchase their own place. Even more importantly, he said the cuts have made it cheaper for developers to build purpose-built rentals.
Across the country, shared accommodation listings saw a 12% monthly and 58% yearly increase.
“October was marked by an outsized increase in shared room rentals primarily in single-family homes,” reads the report.
Ladas said that the listing and demand for two and three bedroom apartments has surged on Rentals.ca. He attributes the increase to the fact that people are expecting to live in and rent these apartments for a longer period of time because they don’t expect homeownership to be a possibility in the near future.
A teacher’s union in Ontario is calling for the resignation of a group of trustees after they spent $50,000 on a trip to Italy over the summer to procure artwork for St. Padre Pio Secondary School in Brantford.
In an open letter to the Brant Haldimand Norfolk unit of the Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association, acting president Carlo Fortino called for the resignation of the four trustees. They are being accused of using public funds to pay for a trip to South Tyrol to purchase $100,000 worth of art planned for installation in the school’s chapel.
Brant Haldimand Norfolk Catholic District School Board trustees Rick Petrella, Dan Dignard, Bill Chopp and Mark Watson were listed in the letter.
“Recent revelations surrounding your inappropriate spending practices as trustees have significantly eroded confidence in your ability to make sound, responsible decisions that reflect the needs and values of our school community,” wrote Fortino in the letter published on Thursday.
“These actions have not only raised serious questions about your leadership but have also weakened the essential trust that our members, students, parents, other educators and staff have in you.”
Fortino told The Expositor in an interview that the decision was “carefully considered and discussed amongst the union executive.”
The union, which represents around 1,000 local elementary and secondary school teachers across the province, condemned the trustees’ actions as they became public but “gave them the chance to do the honourable thing” and resign.
Minister of Education Jill Dunlop said the ministry and the public “expressed clear concerns for the misuse of taxpayers’ dollars,” earlier this month and called for a review of the school board.
“Who’s minding the hen house?” asked Fortino. “Is it the union’s job to clean up the trustees? How much longer can we wait?”
The trustee’s trip to Italy came shortly after the school board approved changes to its trustee expense policy, which included an upgrade from economy to business class for travel outside North America.
Other changes involved booking above the standard hotel room rate, the elimination of maximum rates for meals and an allowance of claims for alcohol in certain cases.
However, many of these changes have since been walked back amid public outcry.
According to a statement from Petrella, the trustees plan to repay all their expenses to the board and donations have been set up to pay for the artwork.
Their expenses included a $1,600 dinner at a gourmet hotel and spa for the four trustees and transportation costs totalled $31,500, including $28,200 for flights.
Hotel costs came to nearly $16,000.
Union members were “pretty incensed” by the lavish spending, noted Fortino.
Matters were made worse when Petrella cited the school board’s positive financial standing as a factor in deciding to travel to Europe.
The board’s operating budget for 2024-2025 was set at $180-million and has an accumulated surplus of $33 million, which Petrella said allows for the board “to invest and do things maybe some other boards can’t.”
Among the artworks purchased were life-sized, hand-painted wood statues of St. Padre Pio and the Virgin Mary, a large crucifix, and sculptures depicting the 14 Stations of the Cross.
“Some of our membership felt demoralized,” said Fortino. “We are in need of more resources. We have infrastructure that could be fixed.”
For example, the board is short of early childhood educators and some teachers are still waiting for audio/visual equipment to be repaired.
“You shouldn’t be sitting on that kind of (surplus) money. You should be reinvesting it in students and staff in the board,” said Fortino.
While he hasn’t received a response from the board in response to the union’s call for the trustees’ resignations, his letter said the trustees’ stepping down will “allow for a fresh start within our board and community.”
Canadian taxpayers could face billions in losses from a potential sale of the Trans Mountain Pipeline.
According to a report from the Parliamentary Budget Officer issued on Friday, the analysis reveals that the pipeline, whose cost recently ballooned from $21.4 billion to $34.2 billion, is now valued below its total assets, meaning a sale could fall significantly short of recouping taxpayer investments.
“Whether the Government records a profit or a loss on the eventual sale of the Trans Mountain Pipeline system will depend on what someone is willing to pay for it,” reads the report. “This can depend on a wide range of factors, such as the number of potential buyers, their cost in raising the required capital, when and how it will be sold, market conditions at the time of sale, whether it will be an arms-length transaction, and/or whether certain groups will be prioritized in the sale.”
Based on the Trans Mountain Corporation’s balance sheet from Dec. 31, 2023, if the $26.9 billion in the pipeline’s liabilities were sold, $5.6 billion would remain after accounting for the $35.2 billion in assets. However, this would not be enough to account for the $8.3 billion of shareholder equity, leaving a $2.7 billion shortfall.
“TMC would have to write off the balance of the equity and record a loss,” reads the report.
The PBO values the Trans Mountain Pipeline to be worth between $29.6 billion and $33.4 billion, depending on whether 20-year contracts are renewed or the pipeline reverts to a cost-of-service model.
“However, there is also uncertainty in some of the underlying assumptions on pipeline utilization, tolls and discount rate, all of which can impact the valuation,” reads the report.
Thomas Gunton, a professor at Simon Fraser University, submitted a case study of the Trans Mountain Pipeline to the International Institute for Sustainable Development.
In the report, he concluded that taxpayers stand to lose between $8.7 billion and $18.8 billion, equivalent to between $581 and $1,248 per household.
“These estimates differ due to variability in assumptions regarding the future quantity of oil transported and operation costs,” he said.
However, he said the cost can be entirely recovered by increasing tolls and applying a tax to oil shipments going forward.
The Trans Mountain Pipeline began exporting oil in May at a cost of $34.2 billion, nearly fivefold the initial cost estimate of $7.4 billion in 2017.
The Liberals initially bought the pipeline for $4.5 billion. The pipeline had been delayed at 97% completion for about half a year due to overregulation.
Provincial politicians across the country are sprinting away from carbon taxes as fast as they can. But Liberal Leader Zach Churchill seems to be spinning in circles at the starting line.
Churchill claims he wants to scrap Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s carbon tax. In reality, he just wants to swap it for a provincial carbon tax dressed up as a cap-and-trade scheme.
Make no mistake: a tax is a tax, no matter what you call it.
Whether you’re at the pumps or the grocery store, any plan to keep carbon taxes is going to hurt your wallet. Churchill’s proposal will do little to ease high living costs in the province.
It’s true that former premier Stephen McNeil’s old cap-and-trade carbon tax system only raised gasoline prices by two cents per litre. But that wasn’t high enough for Ottawa, so the federal government imposed its carbon tax backstop. Any new provincial carbon tax will raise fuel prices higher than before.
In fact, the Churchill Liberals have admitted they want to copy Quebec’s carbon tax system. Iain Rankin, the current Liberal environment and climate critic and former premier, went so far as to call the Quebec program “successful.”
But the Quebec scheme currently costs taxpayers an extra 12.5 cents per litre of gasoline at the pumps. And that will rise further in the years ahead.
This means if Churchill’s plan was implemented in Nova Scotia today, taxpayers would still be expected to pay nearly $40 in taxes alone on a 64-litre fill up.
This is a bit less than the $45 in taxes Nova Scotians now pay under the federal carbon tax. But it’s not much of a break when people are struggling with rising costs.
What Nova Scotians deserve is a complete end to carbon taxes.
Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Houston wants the carbon tax scrapped and he doesn’t want to replace it with a provincial tax.
If Nova Scotia got rid of the federal carbon tax, gas taxes would drop by almost 25 cents per litre. That’s more than $15 off every 64-litre fill up. It would save taxpayers an extra $10 per fill up compared to Churchill’s plan.
Instead of pushing a carbon tax under another name, Churchill should listen to the growing number of provincial politicians, of all stripes, who realize these taxes aren’t worth the cost.
B.C. NDP Premier David Eby promised to scrap their provincial carbon tax if Ottawa removes the national one.
Newfoundland and Labrador Liberal Premier Andrew Furey has been a vocal critic of the federal carbon tax.
“It’s not right for the people of the province right now,” Furey told reporters. “That’s not to say that we don’t believe in fighting climate change. We certainly do, but this policy is wrong.”
With fuel prices going up due to the carbon tax, everything else follows. Every product on local store shelves got there by truck. When fuel costs spike, businesses must raise their prices to cover it. This raises costs across the local economy. It makes life more expensive for everyday Nova Scotians, and not just at the gas pumps.
While there is a current exemption to applying the carbon tax to home heating fuel, only 32 per cent of Nova Scotians see relief. That means 68 per cent of Nova Scotians are left out in the cold.
And for those lucky 32 per cent, the exemption is only temporary and will expire in April 2027. This means that unless the federal carbon tax is scrapped, it will eventually drive up the cost of heating all homes in Nova Scotia.
The bottom line is simple: provincial residents need relief from high costs, not higher taxes disguised as something else. It’s time for the Churchill Liberals to listen to taxpayers and scrap any plan to introduce more carbon taxes in Nova Scotia.
Devin Drover is the Atlantic Director and General Counsel of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
Despite underperforming the national average for student outcomes, Manitoba’s NDP government is slashing educational standards for teachers in math, science, English or French, history, and geography.
In late October, the Manitoba government quietly made amendments to the Teaching Certificates and Qualifications Regulation. The regulatory change would no longer require Manitoba teachers to receive 6 credit hours in math, 6 credit hours in a physical or biological science, 6 credit hours in English or French, or 6 credit hours in history and/or geography.
Manitoba’s Progressive Conservatives have slammed the government for a regulatory change that they say will result in the province further plunging in its educational outcomes relative to the rest of the country.
At a press conference, Anna Stokke, a mathematics professor at the University of Manitoba, said that the regulatory change is “unacceptable” and will harm students.
“The people who are going to suffer here are the children,” said Stokke.
“The government’s talking about removing barriers? Well they’re removing barriers for adults to enter the teacher education program with literally no math skills and they are going to create barriers for the students that they teach.”
In question period on Wednesday, the NDP’s acting Minister of Education Tracy Schmidt justified the claim by pointing to the province’s teacher shortage and is proud of the government’s regulatory change.
“The truth of the matter is, is that after seven and a half years of a failed Heather Stefanson government, where teachers and educators were driven out of the system by cuts to operational funding, in some parts of our province, we are seeing a teacher shortage,” said Schmidt.
“So these regulatory changes that we have made, that we are very, very proud of, are actually going to bring us in line with most other jurisdictions across Canada, and are going to remove barriers to allow more educators to come into our system to serve some of these amazing students that are here with us today.”
Critics of the regulatory change to lower standards for teachers are concerned that the already low-performing province will see an even greater drop in educational outcomes for students.
The OECD’s 2018 Programme for International Student Assessment found that among fellow Canadian provinces, Manitoba students have the worst educational results in math and science, and are the second worst in reading, right behind New Brunswick.
The 2022 PISA assessment reaffirmed the earlier findings, stating that Manitoban students perform below the Canadian average in math, science, and reading.
In question period, PC MLA Grant Jackson pointed out that original educational requirements for teachers were in line with British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario and some Maritime provinces, while Quebec has even stronger requirements for teachers.
According to PISA’s 2018 study, Alberta, Ontario, Quebec, and British Columbia perform above or around the national average in math, science, and reading, with Quebec performing far above the national average in educational outcomes in math.
Canada’s financial crimes watchdog has flagged thousands of suspected cases of criminal money laundering operations involving legal professionals.
Members within Canada’s law societies hold a unique window into how to aid criminals seeking to launder money gained from their criminal enterprises, according to a special report by Statistics Canada.
Around 2,400 suspicious transactions submitted to the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada between 2022 and 2023 reported “entities within Canada’s anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist financing regime referenced transactions involving legal professionals and/or law firms.”
“An analysis of FINTRAC data holdings demonstrates that the role of legal professionals in financial transactions is significant and high volumes of funds are potentially exposed,” reads the report.
“While the vast majority of legal professionals undertake legitimate transactions, suspicious transaction reporting submitted to FINTRAC indicates that many professional money laundering schemes may rely on the involvement of a legal professional.”
Members of the legal profession possess the necessary knowledge and skills useful to criminals who need to launder the proceeds of crime, while evading economic sanctions.
Canada is home to 14 law societies, established by the provinces and territories to regulate the Canadian legal profession in the best interest of the public, and to hold lawyers accountable to their rules.
These law societies conduct ongoing reviews, audit programs and investigate complaints received against members of the legal profession, which can ultimately lead to disciplinary hearings, fines, restrictions, suspensions and disbarment in the worst case.
However, “the established principles of solicitor-client privilege in common law systems and professional secrecy in Quebec that protect the communication of legal advice between certain legal professionals and clients may also be misused to shield information and shut down lines of inquiry by financial institutions relating to transaction details and source of funds.”
Additionally, outside of B.C., legal professionals are not obligated to maintain a compliance program, record keeping, know-your-client requirements, or reporting under Canada’s Anti-Money Laundering and Anti-Terrorist Financing Regime.
Instead, the legal profession is self-regulated and not under the supervision of FINTRAC, which is likely to attract money launderers and transnational organized crime groups “who seek to exploit the sector to move and mask illicit funds and activity.”
Legal professionals offer a variety of services that involve conducting monetary transactions held in trust accounts for their clients and creating legal entities such as corporations and trusts for real estate.
Lawyers themselves may also act as shareholders or directors in these proceedings.
For example, it’s very common to utilize the services of a lawyer in real estate dealings and there are a variety of ways that such transactions provide opportunities to move illicit proceeds quickly, like back-to-back successive sales of property, with or without a mortgage or by inflating the value of the property.
Additionally, illicit activity can involve concealing ownership through purchase with a false name, via intermediaries, or through a company and or trust.
Finally, engaging in mortgage fraud with antecedent laundering are all ways to advance money while remaining under the radar.
“The services that legal professionals provide give them a unique window into their clients’ business structure, arrangements, and practices,” reads the report.
“In 2022–23, an estimated 615,000 large cash transaction reports and electronic funds transfer reports involved legal professionals with combined transaction values totalling $110 billion, reflecting only a part of the sizable role legal professionals and law firms play in Canadian economic activity.”
Money laundering, sanction evasions and even terrorist activity financing have all been reported and well-documented within the legal community by the Financial Action Task Force and the Egmont Group of Financial Intelligence Units.
A 2018 joint assessment published by the FATF and the Egmont Group assessed how legal professionals can aid criminals in concealing their wealth and illicit assets, which revealed the important role of professional intermediaries in forming and operating corporate structures that enable the identity of their beneficiaries and controllers to remain anonymous.
The report found this to be a key feature of such schemes, especially in cases where the proceeds of crime were significant.
“Complicit legal professionals, as enablers and third-party money launderers separate from the proceeds-generating criminal activity, can offer a veneer of legitimacy and respectability to a financial transaction that may dissuade questioning or suspicion from financial institutions,” reads the report.
Canadian taxpayers are paying even more for expenses incurred by the Prime Minister’s Office under the Trudeau government.
According to access-to-information records obtained by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, the PMO’s cost is escalating.
After being adjusted for inflation the PMO has seen a 16% jump to staffing expenses since Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took office.
The PMO’s 103 staff members accounted for $10.5 million in combined salaries for the 2022-23 year, however, that figure only includes base salary, not benefits.
“The cost of running the PMO has increased under Trudeau, but it’s a good bet most Canadians don’t think they’re getting any better performance from the prime minister,” said federal director of the CTF Franco Terrazzano.
“If Trudeau can’t find savings right under his nose, how can taxpayers trust him to cut the fat across government?”
Annual spending on PMO salary costs are also up $3.2 million, compared to 2014-15 under former Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s administration.
It’s not surprising when one considers that the federal government has ballooned in both size and cost over all under Trudeau’s leadership.
According to government records, the number of federal bureaucrats has jumped up by 42% since the Liberals took office, with Canadian taxpayers now on the hook for an additional 108,000 new individual bureaucrats’ salaries.
Spending on federal employees hit a record high as well in 2022-23, marking a 68% increase since 2016 and costing $67.4 billion in taxpayer-money.
That doesn’t include the over $1 billion paid out in bonuses since 2015, or the $1,121,110 that was rubber stamped in pay raises since 2020.
The upper echelons of Trudeau’s senior executives and managers have also been well taken care of, with costs increasing by 42% under his watch.
Additionally, expenditures on consultants hit a record high for 2023-24, currently sitting at $21.6 billion.
“Everywhere you look – the PMO, the federal c-suite, the bureaucracy – the cost and size of government is out of control,” said Terrazzano.
“Trudeau must take air out of Ottawa’s ballooning bureaucracy and the place to start is his own office.”
