Juno News - February 11, 2026


Conservative MP REFUSES $10K pay hike


Episode Stats

Length

21 minutes

Words per Minute

186.84547

Word Count

3,943

Sentence Count

5

Misogynist Sentences

4

Hate Speech Sentences

1


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Member of Parliament Mike Dawson Dawson refuses to take the automatic pay raise of $10,000 a year. The Tax Fighter army is here to fight for the little guy, and to stand up for everyday working Canadians.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 welcome to the fighter with chris sims i am chris sims i'm the alberta director for the canadian
00:00:11.040 taxpayers federation and oh my goodness do we ever have a big show for you we've actually got
00:00:15.840 breaking news okay as of right now tape time on parliament hill we have a member of parliament
00:00:23.400 a conservative member of parliament from new brunswick refusing his pay hike now you might be
00:00:31.260 thinking well he's just one guy what does it matter oh my goodness this matters okay if you get one
00:00:38.320 member of parliament standing up and saying you know what i'm a backbench mp i'm already making
00:00:44.240 around two hundred thousand dollars a year but you know what i remember what it's like to be a
00:00:49.160 working man or a working woman i was a drywaller for example i'm going to represent the men and
00:00:55.900 women of my riding and i'm going to say no no thanks i don't need an automatic ten thousand 1.00
00:01:02.040 dollar pay raise coming up on april 1st when you get one mp doing that all the other mps start looking
00:01:11.080 around within that caucus and within the other caucuses hey call out to the ndp new democrats
00:01:18.520 you just going to sit here and let a conservative member of parliament be the only one saying
00:01:22.840 i don't need a huge pay hike you're the party of the working man and woman right you're standing up
00:01:28.560 for the little guy now's your chance brothers and sisters stand right up right now and say you know
00:01:34.720 what i am going to be like mike dawson mike dawson a member of parliament from new brunswick
00:01:42.360 the guy saying no so this was a really big deal okay he penned an official letter on his parliament
00:01:49.700 hill stationary to the clerk okay of the house of commons now that sounds boring but it's really
00:01:55.540 important because the clerk is kind of like they're like the administrator okay of the house of commons
00:02:01.940 they know where all the money is going and the stuff's happening and where all the addresses of
00:02:06.620 the offices are all that stuff okay so to have a member of parliament directly and formally inform
00:02:12.920 the clerk of the house of commons i'm not taking this pay increase because i think it's wrong and i
00:02:20.080 was elected to represent the men and women of my riding okay and they're all struggling right now
00:02:25.400 so say no to my pay increase that's huge okay this isn't just kind of sort of saying you're going to
00:02:32.660 go on twitter and maybe donate it to charity at some point no no no this is way further okay and
00:02:38.900 this is where you come in folks before we get to our very excited and very special guest franco okay
00:02:43.920 do us a favor right now do us a couple favors first like this video please when you see it online okay
00:02:51.140 like it because that helps the algorithm wizards share it right away with people who need to know
00:02:56.940 because this is how you get to get a grassroots prairie fire going okay
00:03:00.100 and three email and phone mike dawson i promise you he's getting some gears right now okay from
00:03:10.660 within his own caucus because i'm sure there's a few members of parliament that are like hey who
00:03:14.940 doesn't want an extra 10 grand you know who am i to oppose an automatic pay increase i got other
00:03:19.680 things to do i'm busy with committee or whatever he's getting some gears right now okay and we want
00:03:25.860 him to feel the support of the tax fighter army okay we want him to feel the support of everyday
00:03:31.260 working canadians saying yes this is a good thing to do now i can hear some viewers right now saying
00:03:37.220 who cares it's you know one mp and you know ten thousand dollars isn't really big deal compared to
00:03:42.760 the whole budget no no no okay this is about principle it's about leadership and it's about a culture
00:03:50.140 change so if you can get one mp and then two mps and then a dozen mps all saying no to this pay hike
00:03:59.420 that's how beautiful things happen my friends that is how you see rollbacks on the bureaucracy that is
00:04:05.980 where you see big spending cuts that's where you see them saying you know what government doesn't need
00:04:11.340 to be blowing money on gender rice in vietnam anymore government doesn't need to spend a hundred thousand 1.00
00:04:17.300 dollars documenting the life and times of a grocery cart this is nonsense it is nonsense so
00:04:23.140 let's all stop our member of parliament pay hikes and that then trickles down to the bureaucracy within 0.99
00:04:30.420 that ecosystem that terrarium that is ottawa that is the capital then you get momentum going okay you get
00:04:38.260 that fiscal prudence mindset seeping back in you get journalists asking about it on parliament hill it
00:04:44.820 becomes a cool thing to stand up for taxpayers and to say no to a pay hike so good on mike dawson member
00:04:53.140 of parliament out of new brunswick he's the first one we've seen as of tape time stand up and say no
00:05:00.180 member of parliament pay increase okay so what's happening right now and most importantly how do we
00:05:06.420 make this catch on let's find out joining me now is federal director for the canadian taxpayers federation
00:05:13.380 and my good friend franco terrazano franco it is breaking news right now this is such a big deal uh
00:05:19.540 we've got a member of parliament saying no to this pay hike uh first impressions i mean what a hero
00:05:27.460 conservative mp mike dawson from new brunswick an absolute hero he just wrote uh to the house of
00:05:34.420 commons instructing the government that he wants to reject the upcoming april one member of parliament pay
00:05:40.580 raise and remember folks like every year these politicians pad their pockets with higher pay
00:05:45.860 every year on april one they give themselves a pay raise and this year we've got the conservative
00:05:50.500 member of parliament mike dawson from new brunswick saying enough is enough you know showing proving that
00:05:57.460 he is a true champion for taxpayers by rejecting the upcoming politician pay raise and look folks like
00:06:04.100 this is such a big step this is such a courageous act from mike dawson um and you know he might be
00:06:10.500 alone on this issue as of right yet while we're talking in the house of commons but folks we have to
00:06:15.380 show him that thousands and thousands of canadians are standing with him and we applaud his leadership
00:06:22.020 uh to reject the upcoming pay raise yeah that's a really big point uh as we're recording this it's the
00:06:27.460 middle of question period they've got a big caucus meeting on wednesday mornings that's always uh very
00:06:33.220 free freewheeling okay mps come up to the microphone and they say what they think to their colleagues
00:06:38.020 this is a really big deal and this was nothing to sneeze at right this was a big pay hike that
00:06:43.060 this member of parliament is saying no to yeah so this pay raise so april one every year mps give
00:06:48.180 themselves a raise right every april one all mps take a raise all the parties right so this year's
00:06:54.660 raise uh we estimate would range between an extra eight thousand eight hundred bucks all the way up to
00:07:00.100 an extra seventeen thousand six hundred dollars right so a massive raise so after the april one
00:07:05.300 pay raise folks let me just tell you what their salaries are going to be okay a backbench member
00:07:10.020 of parliament their salary will be about two hundred and eighteen thousand bucks a minister will be
00:07:15.540 collecting around three hundred and twenty two thousand bucks and the prime minister mark carney his
00:07:20.500 salary after the april one pay raise will jump up to about four hundred and thirty seven thousand dollars
00:07:26.420 absolutely gross that is such a crazy pay hike now can you describe for us we're hearing some
00:07:33.060 people saying oh well it's not my fault it's not in my power we have to take the automatic pay raise
00:07:37.940 what are we to do can you get into that a little bit franco yeah i mean look stopping a pay raise is
00:07:43.380 not supposed to be rocket science right like if mps don't know how to stop a pay raise they don't
00:07:49.460 deserve a pay raise right like let's be so for real okay uh so number one uh first of all this has
00:07:55.140 happened in the past where mps have stopped the pay raise right under the harper government
00:07:59.140 uh between 2010 and 2013 they stopped the automatic pay raises so uh it's we've seen it in the past
00:08:05.700 we've seen it done before but let's actually talk tactics how this would happen okay so first of all
00:08:10.980 if you're in the governing liberals just pass legislation and the end the pay raise very simple
00:08:17.380 very simple if you're an opposition member of parliament you know conservative uh bloc ndp i think
00:08:23.620 there's a green still there right you should be campaigning on this every single day and putting
00:08:30.100 pressure on the government to make sure that this pay raise doesn't happen every single day in the
00:08:35.380 house of commons you should be calling out the government every single day you should be tweeting
00:08:39.540 about it on social media even holding press conferences saying enough is enough politicians
00:08:44.740 should not be taking more money from taxpayers so anyone out there who thinks they're the smart guy
00:08:49.460 right pretending like oh they can't do it come on this isn't rocket science a b this has been done
00:08:56.180 before between 2010 and 2013 where they stopped the automatic pay raises and c all mps should be
00:09:02.500 pressuring the government every single day to do what's right and to stop the raises a couple of
00:09:07.300 things a they are legislatures which means lawmakers okay they're the rule makers they're the ones that
00:09:13.540 can go in and change the rules okay b they're a member of parliament parley to talk so better start
00:09:20.420 talking better say that you don't want this pay hike and also just how the sausage is made on
00:09:25.700 parliament hill there are entire departments responsible for this so it was really interesting
00:09:30.900 to see this member of parliament address his letter to the clerk okay that's basically the administrator
00:09:37.220 of the house of commons it's how things work on parliament hill also you could go to the treasury
00:09:42.180 and say you know what i don't want this taken out of the treasury and given into my account
00:09:47.220 put a stop to this like there's all sorts of levers that these members of parliament could
00:09:52.500 be pulling right now in order to take this kind of leadership right oh i mean look like like i said
00:09:58.900 this is not rocket science are you kidding me stopping a pay raise like like what this is the heart
00:10:04.020 like they're not curing cancer here they're just simply not padding their pockets with more of
00:10:08.100 taxpayers money okay and also too i've heard some mps also say oh don't worry we'll get the raise and
00:10:13.620 then we'll donate to charity okay well number one you're even a backbench mp their salary is about
00:10:19.940 210 000 bucks they can donate to local charities in their communities without taking more money from
00:10:24.820 taxpayers okay but the second thing folks is even if they were to donate that money to charity by taking
00:10:31.060 the member of parliament pay raise they will get higher pension payouts in retirement okay yep that's
00:10:38.900 an important thing to remember but here fundamentally there's two other things let's talk about the first
00:10:43.380 one give it some time to breathe we'll go into the second one okay the first point is that in a democracy
00:10:49.780 canadians are supposed to be the boss and when the boss says no pay raise that should mean no pay 0.96
00:10:55.620 raise well every single year we put out polling from leger a reputable national polling firm that
00:11:01.540 shows about 80 percent of canadians oppose the mp pay raise every single year so every single year
00:11:07.540 the boss says no and then members of parliament your elected representative ignores what you say and
00:11:14.660 stuffs their pocket with higher pay anyways yeah that's a huge one um i gotta say there is in his letter
00:11:21.940 okay i'm gonna see if i can actually pull it up here because i want to actually read out
00:11:25.300 exactly what he said yeah it's when he talks about representing working men and women of his
00:11:29.940 riding it really got me because he talked about being a drywaller and my brother's a drywaller
00:11:37.380 you know him you've met him um yeah real beauty um he works there in ottawa downtown drives back
00:11:43.780 home to our empire every day gets up at three in the morning every single friggin day um just to be
00:11:49.060 able to make rent okay for his family um to have this member of parliament remember what that's like
00:11:55.700 and say you know what i'm good 200 grand a year for a backbench mp that's good i don't need to dip
00:12:02.340 into this trough anymore i don't need to take this pay raise anymore just bravo absolute kudos bravo i
00:12:10.100 really hope that others in his caucus follow suit okay and just a note um i really hope that he doesn't
00:12:19.780 get any chirping if he gets any chirping this is just a note folks everybody watching this you staffers
00:12:25.700 if he gets any chirping in caucus we're gonna find out about it and guess what the tax fighter army we
00:12:32.020 want to know because we want members of parliament from all parties to be leaders like this and to
00:12:37.860 actually stand up for their constituents so uh you don't got nothing nice to say better keep your mouth
00:12:42.980 shut on this amen sister i love it i love it chris you said it so well i mean look i love the
00:12:50.180 leadership angle it's it really matters but also too there's a real policy implication of this okay
00:12:56.820 because here's the thing when mps pad their pockets with higher pay every year the bureaucrats demand the
00:13:03.700 same taxpayer treatment and this isn't theoretical we got our hands on demands from government union
00:13:09.620 bosses before they went on strike i believe it was in 2023 and those government union bosses pointed
00:13:15.940 to the annual salaries and a salary increase that mps give themselves every single year as a reason why
00:13:22.500 the bureaucrats should take more money from taxpayers okay so when politicians pad their pockets with higher 1.00
00:13:28.340 pay the bureaucrats also demand more money from canadian taxpayers and it is the bureaucracy that is soaking
00:13:34.340 canadian taxpayers right the federal government added a hundred thousand bureaucrats in the last 10 years
00:13:39.300 the cost of the bureaucracy went up 80 percent in 10 years meanwhile services are horrendous
00:13:46.100 okay so look it's it's not just a leadership is important but it's not just about leadership
00:13:51.940 mps need to stop stuffing their pockets with higher pay so they have the moral majority to force the
00:13:57.300 bureaucrats to take a cut and oh boy do the bureaucrats need to take a cut yeah we got about a hundred
00:14:02.900 thousand extra of them and their costs have gone crazy pants way up i just heard you on a podcast
00:14:07.940 pointing out what is it eighty percent eighty percent in ten years gross that is so gross um speaking
00:14:14.420 of over ten years i wanted to point this out not to pick a sore spot but correct me if i'm wrong but
00:14:20.100 all during the lockdowns right when people were losing their jobs when industries are being shut down
00:14:25.380 really bad times yep uh mps kept on taking those pay hikes didn't they every single year they took a
00:14:32.100 raise every single year they took thousands of dollars more okay the pandemic didn't stop them
00:14:38.580 from taking a pay raise lockdowns didn't stop them from taking a pay raise 40 year high inflation didn't
00:14:45.220 stop them from taking a pay raise a housing crisis didn't stop them from taking a pay raise a potential
00:14:51.460 tariff war trade dispute didn't stop them from taking a pay raise and folks only a couple months ago
00:14:58.900 prime minister mark carney told you to brace for sacrifices and oddly in a couple months from now
00:15:06.420 these politicians are getting ready to give themselves another raise gross i will point out
00:15:13.700 that during the lockdowns correct me if i'm wrong here man but uh new zealand yeah remember new zealand
00:15:20.180 during the lockdowns yeah they took a pay cut yeah big one i think jacinda ardern i think it was around
00:15:25.140 like 20 percent yeah that they announced yeah it was it was a big one yeah lots of us took pay cuts
00:15:30.260 okay let alone pay freezes all right and to see finally though you can if you can tell that we're
00:15:34.820 ecstatic that's because it's true okay franco uh you and your team especially there in ottawa you have
00:15:40.580 been hammering this home every single year and to your point that you said on the podcast you know bueller
00:15:45.540 bueller like there's been no takers we are so relieved to see mike dawson member of parliament he's from the
00:15:53.300 maritimes right new brunswick love it uh to see him stand up and do this um okay let's get into future
00:16:00.820 speculation are we hopeful the royal we are we hopeful that there will be another few mps i wish
00:16:06.980 everybody would other yeah i mean stand up and say no i hope so and i hope it happens fast folks and
00:16:13.460 let's talk about what we have to do as you know canadian citizens canadian taxpayers trying to push
00:16:18.340 ottawa in the right direction folks so so right now like if you have some time folks like seriously
00:16:23.300 send an email give them a call mike dawson from new brunswick a conservative member of parliament
00:16:27.780 and just say like look man thank you so much for what you did we've got your back it's so
00:16:31.780 important right now because look i don't know what's going on in the back rooms obviously like
00:16:35.620 i'm not privy to that but i bet you a couple of those politicians who want to pad their pockets
00:16:39.860 with higher pay are pretty upset with him you know i don't know what's going on but i can imagine
00:16:44.100 some of them might be giving him some grief right now and folks it's so important for us
00:16:48.180 immediately uh to show dawson that thousands and thousands of canadians are standing with him
00:16:53.780 and appreciate his leadership because what he is doing does take courage right to to be the person
00:16:59.620 who says look we shouldn't be getting a raise you know what i mean so that takes courage the next
00:17:04.180 thing that we got to do is we got to i think we got to push the other the leaders of the political
00:17:08.660 parties right i think that's where we got to go next get them to show leadership to say we're
00:17:13.700 all going to oppose it and we have to create that pressure to force the government to stop these
00:17:19.540 pay raises so i think that's kind of where we have to go next in this fight folks uh you can just go
00:17:25.620 it's free okay to phone and email your member of parliament it is free even to drop a letter in the
00:17:30.500 mail seriously if you want to write a handwritten note and send it to parliament hill you don't even
00:17:34.660 need to put a stamp on it okay and to franco's point okay i have worked in those halls okay i've
00:17:40.820 answered those phones um it's gonna be dicey for this mp for a little while okay he's gonna be
00:17:46.740 getting a bit of stink eye he's gonna be getting a bit of a runaround okay make sure that you call
00:17:52.020 that office you email that office mike dawson okay look it up on parl.gc.ca tell them hey man this is
00:17:59.220 how i'm struggling this is how much money i make good for you thank you for not taking this pay hike
00:18:04.580 because if you get that inbox filled it's going to give him the courage to stand up and keep doing
00:18:09.700 this and it's going to be contagious folks that courage will be contagious uh any last notes franco
00:18:14.500 i know you got to go no i mean folks we just have to keep the pressure up okay we have to keep the
00:18:20.500 pressure up you know go on social media have mike dawson's back push your member of parliament
00:18:26.180 right push the leaders of all the political parties say enough is enough like we got to share
00:18:31.540 this we got to keep building on the momentum clear momentum let's get a big victory on this because
00:18:36.820 again folks at the end of the day we got to push these politicians to stop padding their pockets with
00:18:41.460 higher pay and we got to push the bureaucracy then to also take a cut thank you so much franco and
00:18:46.980 folks to his point also to build on it this isn't just about the money okay this isn't just about the
00:18:52.100 thousands of dollars that this mp is saying no to and thank you so much franco for joining us today
00:18:56.740 this isn't just about the money for this one mp okay this is about principle okay this is indicative
00:19:03.380 of a behavior and a culture of entitlement on parliament hill in ottawa if we can get a critical
00:19:10.420 mass of members of parliament okay saying you know what enough is enough i don't need this pay increase
00:19:17.300 okay i'm saying no to this i'm going to the clerk i'm going to the treasury i'm speaking to the media
00:19:22.900 i'm going online i'm saying no to this pay increase that is a shift in the culture in ottawa
00:19:29.860 okay and that will send a strong message to the government to the bureaucracy to the privy council
00:19:37.140 okay that entire ecosystem that's in ottawa of time to stop this time to stop the gravy train time to
00:19:45.140 show leadership and then you get compounding savings it's not just the you know ten thousand dollars or
00:19:52.260 whatever for this one mp hopefully it's those tens of thousands of dollars for all the mps saying no
00:19:58.020 to the pay increase and then that has a beautiful ripple effect okay i promise you it does it changes
00:20:04.420 the culture in our capitals when this stuff happens so do us two favors okay go to the parliament hill
00:20:11.780 website it's parl.gc.ca click on mp find mike dawson send him a note okay that's number one and two you're
00:20:22.500 hearing this breaking news right now on juno news okay juno news is independent journalism it is not
00:20:28.660 funded by the government that's why the taxpayers federation we have our own show here it's so we
00:20:34.260 can muster the troops and bring up things like the tax fighter army okay because this is direct
00:20:40.020 grassroots democracy so thank you so much to juno news for broadcasting this clarion call okay and
00:20:46.820 this call out to you now now is the time tax fighter army now is the time to email and phone your mp
00:20:53.380 and saying hey be like mike refuse the hike