Juno News - Feds won’t say if corporate welfare is working

00:00:00.000 you're tuned in to the andrew lawton show

00:00:05.920 i'd be remiss to not point out it's not canadian but this story in germany that came up i do you

00:00:14.420 know germany's transport minister his name is volking vissing uh volking vissing now i'm not

00:00:20.120 a follower of the german transport minister so i don't know too much about him but i don't need

00:00:24.600 to know much more because there is a climate policy fight underway in germany right now and as

00:00:30.140 one stage in this fight this is what the german government has promised an indefinite driving ban

00:00:36.480 on weekends the uh politician uh mr vissing says uh it forces us to consider a considerable legal

00:00:45.260 and factual uncertainties because they're trying to get their climate through a plan through and they

00:00:48.840 don't know if it's going to go he says that they need to reduce traffic to help meet their climate

00:00:54.240 goals and they can only do that through measures such as a quote comprehensive and indefinite

00:01:00.620 driving ban on saturdays and sundays unquote this would be an amendment to the emissions reduction

00:01:07.980 bylaw it would look at all sectors together and if the government is not meeting its emission

00:01:12.700 reduction target they have to do drastic extreme action like for example driving banning you from

00:01:18.260 driving your cars on the weekend now this is particularly extreme i don't know if it's going to go

00:01:23.860 through or not we saw last year or two years ago the french government banned domestic air travel

00:01:29.660 and it's so fascinating to me that a couple of years ago when you had some people popping up and

00:01:34.520 saying well you know we saw what they did in the covid realm uh maybe they're going to give us climate

00:01:38.580 lockdowns and everyone said oh you're a conspiracy theorist you're never going to have you know movement

00:01:43.240 restrictions because of climate and then all of a sudden you have domestic air travel being outlawed in

00:01:48.720 france you have in the case of germany the government floating the idea of not being able

00:01:54.000 to drive your car on saturdays and sundays not being able to drive on the weekend so this is going

00:02:01.800 to be i think an incredibly dangerous development now again when 15 minute cities people were coming

00:02:07.180 up to me for a few weeks last year and just asking me 15 minute cities what are you going to do what

00:02:11.640 are you going to do and i said hold on i if we're talking about just zoning and urban planning and trying

00:02:16.260 to make communities walkable i don't really have an issue if we're talking about things that will

00:02:20.520 fundamentally restrict mobility i would have an issue with it and again even from that position

00:02:25.960 people are saying you're being consumed no one's trying to restrict mobility for climate and then

00:02:30.320 well here we go here we have the game set match right there well uh let's talk about all of the

00:02:35.780 things that we can expect on this front and more with our good friend chris sims from the canadian

00:02:40.580 taxpayers federation we caught up with her in person last week back to our regularly scheduled

00:02:45.380 program now chris always good to talk to you do you have a good time at the conference last week

00:02:49.940 yes it was lovely to see you in person and i was front row center when you were speaking to premier

00:02:55.440 daniel smith i i like so just a little aside people often do an awful lot of work at these

00:03:00.600 conferences and they'll prepare themselves they'll prepare their remarks and they usually don't have

00:03:05.100 a picture from it and so i always try to if i can take a nice picture of whoever is speaking

00:03:10.840 and just send it to them because it's always nice to have a memento and it was nice uh seeing you

00:03:16.180 interviewed the premier about this one little note there what you were mentioning with with the german

00:03:20.620 minister you're absolutely right uh i'm of the same thinking of uh the government is often trying to

00:03:28.420 restrict your mobility uh there's usually a war on the car so to speak especially in urban centers

00:03:34.080 and well in uk this has become like an all-out war where you have the government putting up these

00:03:38.800 uh high emission zone cameras and then people going around and like taking them down it was actually

00:03:43.680 quite a thing for a while yeah exactly and remember that all started with toll roads that you could only

00:03:49.100 get into the downtown core and at first it was you know so for road maintenance and then it was for

00:03:54.480 emissions and now they've got these crazy cameras everywhere it always seems to escalate until you force

00:04:00.580 the government to stop the escalation and i need to point this out with that german minister recommending

00:04:05.560 this this is a minister in the government of a g7 country musing aloud about not allowing his free

00:04:15.360 citizens to drive their own privately owned cars this is not some weird organization that is giving

00:04:23.380 some advice to the government here or there on the back of a napkin no this this was the minister

00:04:28.300 in germany a very serious player country so i did want to flag that and really highlight it

00:04:34.160 um that we're getting there yeah we had no if i can jump in on that chris you're absolutely right and

00:04:39.300 and we've seen governments for example do things like you can only water your lawn every other day

00:04:44.060 depending on where you live and these sorts of restrictions and again like anything else it's that

00:04:48.060 old i hate quoting al gore but it's the old frog in the pot of boiling water thing of these little

00:04:53.160 incremental encroachments on your liberty don't seem all that big and you know if the government

00:04:57.940 has the authority to restrict your ability to drive on the weekend they also have the ability

00:05:03.020 to restrict your ability to drive on weekdays and that's the whole point here is that it will never

00:05:07.960 stop at that because they especially when they tie it to emissions reductions if they aren't meeting

00:05:12.400 their emissions reduction goals the rest of you plebs need to do it and you better believe there's going 1.00

00:05:16.740 to be some essential worker carve out where the minister himself can go around in his uh you know

00:05:21.740 motorcade or whatever but you and i can't that's exactly right there's a pivotal moment in atlas

00:05:27.680 shrugged where the 20th century motor company which is the great novel of course by ayn rand

00:05:32.180 the 20th century motor company has been taken over by these crazy statists and people have to plead 1.00

00:05:38.840 their case every year please this is how many children i have please this is how big my house is

00:05:44.700 this is what i need to be able to you know afford everything and so i can see ministers and ministries

00:05:51.000 being set up to do this who is now essential why do you need to drive your car where exactly are you

00:05:56.620 driving your car what kind of groceries are you hauling in it like see where this goes real real fast

00:06:02.660 and so this is why again we always sound the alarm whenever government wants to get bigger

00:06:08.320 uh sheila gun reed uh our mutual friend said that she wants government to be small enough to drown it

00:06:14.000 in a teacup and this is why because regardless of you know if you like to vote green or if you like

00:06:20.340 to plant flowers or if you like to drive your big rig um the government will control your life if you

00:06:26.140 let it so thank you very much for flagging that that was new because we were so busy at the conference

00:06:30.480 i didn't even see that on friday speaking of the conference and you mentioned my fireside chat with

00:06:35.580 premier danielle smith i i was looking at you out of the corner of my eye when i asked i think my first

00:06:40.400 question which people will see in a few moments which was about the gas tax and i mean obviously

00:06:45.040 people on on this show will see the answer in a moment but i just wanted to give you a sense of

00:06:49.320 what you thought of her response to that because i know this has been something you've been pounding

00:06:52.760 on for a little while now and i hadn't really heard her address head on uh yeah i think they were

00:06:58.300 your first four questions actually were along this line so good on you uh normally i do a wind up but

00:07:04.900 they like ate into my time so i had to like just come out swinging but nice to see you premier by

00:07:11.000 the way about this yeah tax increase uh but it's true and you know premier smith uh she's a big girl 1.00

00:07:16.280 she's been in this game for a long time and she knows that her government increased the fuel tax so

00:07:21.100 it was really good that you asked her that what i found interesting and to be clear a big fan of

00:07:26.840 premier daniel smith she's done a million very good things for alberta primarily and i keep harping on

00:07:31.080 this keeping spending below the rate of inflation plus population growth that sounds really nerdy and

00:07:37.120 wonky so the government is not getting the credit it needs for this if they stick to this kind of

00:07:43.200 spending restraint for the next generation we will have hundreds of billions of dollars saved so

00:07:49.940 they're doing that very well but you're right they did fully increase their fuel tax so for folks

00:07:56.040 outside of alberta we typically have a provincial fuel tax on both gasoline and diesel

00:08:00.500 that is 13 cents per liter a few years back then premier jason kenney said you know what i'm going

00:08:06.480 to reduce it every now and then based on the price of a barrel of oil premier smith was elected leader

00:08:12.020 within the party and thus premier she looked around realized everything was unaffordable said you know

00:08:16.940 what i'm going to decouple it really from the price of a barrel of oil and reduce it anyway so we had

00:08:22.980 zero provincial fuel tax for an entire year in alberta and it was great we had the lowest gas prices in

00:08:28.780 the entire country that's not so anymore manitoba is eating our lunch ndp premier wab canoe has had it down to

00:08:36.520 zero now since january 1st so we're paying 13 cents per liter back up again and in manitoba they're paying

00:08:43.800 zero cents per liter for the provincial fuel tax i hear what she's saying when she says things like uh we need the

00:08:51.060 funds because governments will always say that they need the funds uh she also uh said that they

00:08:56.700 need it and i'm paraphrasing her that they need it for road maintenance what i found very interesting

00:09:02.140 about that is that the ucp government said in their budget document andrew that they don't use it for

00:09:09.060 road maintenance it's i found this really surprising so it's right in the page where they're announcing

00:09:14.640 their 200 per year car electric car tax and they leave this little sentence in there saying

00:09:21.300 we do not allocate the provincial fuel tax to road maintenance but we still see this as an issue of

00:09:27.860 fairness for people who drive electric vehicles that was such a strange admission so and then of course

00:09:33.980 i don't obviously the premier doesn't sit there and write the budget document herself but i think she 0.76

00:09:38.540 made the same assumption that a lot of us do is that it does go to road maintenance but her own

00:09:43.580 government says that it's not so i don't think this fight is over i think if the government is

00:09:49.060 able to do their next quarterly budget update and review and see the books and if they're in a surplus

00:09:54.760 situation it would be very very very good of them to reduce that fuel tax back down again because now

00:10:00.860 hey a little secret just for you and all of your viewers ottawa when i when we were just there a couple

00:10:07.040 of days ago it had slightly cheaper gas prices i couldn't believe it wow yeah that's with

00:10:13.520 uh hst instead of just gst and in general i think the fact that it's always more in ontario especially

00:10:19.880 yeah so it was around if i'm guessing i think it was around 152 153 in ottawa i'm here in lethbridge

00:10:27.580 back again and it's 162 like i've never seen it like this before so yeah it's uh people are kind

00:10:33.800 of grinding their teeth at the pumps right now uh one thing i wanted to ask you about here is

00:10:38.160 corporate welfare which has been well i mean typically it's been like the number one uh

00:10:43.400 contributor to the quebec gdp for many years but a corporate welfare it's been under the microscope

00:10:48.200 by the federal conservatives but not historically i mean stephen harper still was guilty of this in a

00:10:53.680 number of cases there was a fascinating story you flagged for me that the federal government isn't

00:10:58.880 saying if companies will keep their job creating promises so all of these big lofty goals they put out

00:11:05.480 here about you give us this money we're going to create this many jobs once they get the checks 0.95

00:11:10.080 once they get the subsidy so we don't actually know if uh you know volkswagen stelantis ford if

00:11:15.060 all of these companies that have made these big promises will actually deliver on the jobs

00:11:18.760 that they've said will be tied to this money bingo and so i don't know if i remembered to introduce you

00:11:24.840 to our inter investigative journalist ryan thorpe he's an excellent reporter and he's with the

00:11:29.900 canadian taxpayers federation very mild-mannered though so he wouldn't have approached you and

00:11:34.000 and introduced himself i believe i ran into him in one of the hospitality suites ah he was probably

00:11:38.400 maybe it was franco that introduced me but yeah i did meet him he would have been right next to

00:11:42.480 franco at the time so we act as his interpreter his extrovert interpreter um he did so much legwork

00:11:48.400 on this and i really wanted to give him a shout out for this because he went through all sorts of

00:11:53.120 spreadsheets and so what i found i almost laughed so you're right you set it up you imagine no matter

00:11:59.440 the color of the jersey that the the politician's wearing they do the big ribbon cutting and they

00:12:04.720 kiss the babies and they say this is delivering this many jobs because we're handing taxpayers

00:12:09.280 money out to fill in the blank ford or a solar company or loblaws or whatever it is it doesn't

00:12:15.200 matter corporate welfare the only little problem there is that they're not keeping the receipts

00:12:20.560 and the way it was described in the article is that okay say you get back the data from the

00:12:25.040 government saying uh this is how much money it got the company got this is how many jobs were promised

00:12:30.960 and then there's a column there for jobs actually created and almost always it's zero

00:12:38.720 and we're like okay this is you know a little bit too good to be true as far as juiciness goes

00:12:43.840 so it can't possibly be zero like there are human beings working in these places once they're set up

00:12:48.640 but this is the kicker they made it all zero because they're not required to keep track of it

00:12:55.600 not one bit they could hire three or they could hire 300 doesn't matter but it's taxpayers money

00:13:02.800 so this was astonishing to a lot of people in the office that they have no requirements to keep the

00:13:08.880 receipts on how many jobs are actually delivered once the cameras go home and the ribbons have been cut

00:13:15.840 well quite something and it's insane too because you know you would never if you were in the private

00:13:20.480 sector and you were signing a contract with someone i mean what do you do i give you this money you

00:13:24.560 give me this service part of the the only justification for corporate welfare at all

00:13:29.040 like the only one is job creation that's the only way to justify now nine times out of ten you could

00:13:34.400 look at this and say it would have been cheaper for you to actually just hand out the money on the

00:13:37.600 street to people then uh put it in because it's enriching volkswagen stallances and all of these

00:13:41.840 things but but if they're not even required to fundamentally track the metric that the money is

00:13:47.360 based on what the heck's the point of it all exactly it's just shoveling it out the door and

00:13:52.240 it's to win favors and patronage that's all it is and it's disgusting no matter which party's doing it

00:13:58.400 and you're right it doesn't seem to matter which government which party's in power this happens at

00:14:02.560 the provincial level as well right we see corporate we see corporate welfare at both federal and provincial

00:14:08.000 levels and for anybody who is cringing at that term right they think that it's derogatory to say corporate

00:14:14.480 welfare it was almost positive it was stephen lewis a very famous left-wing person who coined the term

00:14:22.880 corporate welfare so most folks in this game are using that term and again we almost never see any

00:14:29.680 good return on investment and to your point if we saw person for person dollar for dollar we'd still

00:14:36.800 oppose it because we think companies should be the ones paying for this sort of thing and not taxpayers

00:14:41.440 because we taxpayers have no say but at least then there'd be receipts but there's not even any

00:14:47.360 receipts these these columns were apparently zero in all of the spreadsheets that they were handing

00:14:52.160 back to us wow that's crazy good stuff on this great work to ryan and to your whole team there

00:14:57.360 chris sims we'll talk to you next week thanks so much for coming on you bet thanks for listening to

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Juno News - April 21, 2024

Feds won’t say if corporate welfare is working

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