Juno News - January 17, 2026“New World Order,” but same Liberal crises
Episode Stats
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Summary
Mark Carney is supposedly forming a new world order with China. What does that mean for Canada and China? And what does it mean for the rest of the world? And why is this a good or bad thing?
Transcript
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Hi, Juneau News. Alexander Brown here, host of Not Sorry. I'm a writer, director, campaigner,
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director of the National Citizens Coalition. Thanks for being here. And while you are here,
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junownews.com slash not sorry for 20% off. Gee, it's the clip heard around the country. The
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ramifications will be long lasting. And you're going to be hearing a lot from Juneau News on
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this topic in the days and weeks ahead. Mark Carney is supposedly forming a new world order
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with China. Take a look. We're heartened by the leadership of President Xi Jinping and the speed
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with which our relationship has progressed in recent months. This sets the stage for these
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important discussions on a wide range of issues where we can be strategic partners, from energy
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to agriculture, to people to people ties, to multilateralism, to issues on security.
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And I believe the progress that we have made in the partnership sets us up well for the new
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world order. But this is obviously incredibly concerning. When pushed further on what he
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meant by this, Carney reached deep into his bag of chat GPT corporate speak to share anything but a
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Yesterday when you met with Premier Li, one of the things you said in the public remarks was
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this partnership with Canada and China, this new partnership sets us up well for the new world
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order. What did you mean by that? What is the new world order?
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Well, it's a great question, Brian, because I think the world is still determining what that
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order is going to be. Like the architecture, the multilateral system that has been developing these
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is being eroded, to use a polite term, undercut, use another term. So the question is, what gets built
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And if the end of this week isn't crazy enough, our friends at the Canadian Constitution
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Foundation, they just helped secure a banner ruling and common sense victory for all Canadians
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who believe in freedom. As the federal court of appeal has upheld the ruling that the Trudeau
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government unlawfully invoked the Emergencies Act in 2022. This landmark victory protects Canadians
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charter rights and civil liberties and sends a clear message. Emergency powers have limits.
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They did abuse them. And yet, and to cast your mind back to those less than balmy,
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holy dystopian weeks across the nation's highways and overpasses and down Wellington Street, let us
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not forget that Mark Carney wrote an op-ed in support of the charter violating crackdown,
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claiming those of you at your wits end under nonsensical mandates, which all have been proven
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wrong, were seditionists, not protesters, seditionists. So are we really seeing change from our federal
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government? Canada's masters of the status quo sure seem to be up to more of the same, if not worse.
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These strike me as warning signs. The House resumes sitting on January 26th. It's soon
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approaching. Conservative convention in Calgary soon approaching just around the corner. And if you find
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yourself there, do say hi. But for all the claims to the contrary from the federal liberals, there's a whole
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lot to litigate right now and so much to hold to account. We have the carny liberals now cozying up
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to China under the excuse of elbows up. Make no mistake, this is an escalation long in the making.
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This week, Anita Anand asked Canadians to begin collaborating with the PRC. It's the kind of
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language that the PRC uses. Now we're cutting deals beyond the trade we're already engaged in.
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And all despite Canada's claims not one year ago that the Chinese government was responsible for
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genocide. And during the debates, Carney claimed China was Canada's largest geopolitical threat.
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How quickly that changed. This has all seemingly been a game. Distract and radicalize your base
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against reform and seemingly double down on some of the worst Trudeau trends of the last 10 years.
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Even recently, the disgraced Mark Miller, in part responsible for generational indigenous and
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immigration crises, has admitted the liberal state broadcaster serves a primary role in social
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cohesion, another PRC term. In a Blacklock's report, Miller's heritage department has been found to be
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relying on the CBC to enhance its messaging and blames foreign powers for driving division on the
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home front. When a decade plus of deliberate policy self-sabotage and liberal allowed foreign
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interference has surely been just as damaging, if not far more. Even the prospects for the realization
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of Alberta and Ottawa's MOU, that situation is looking murky. As Carney met this past week with
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Coastal First Nations, an American founded Rockefeller Brothers Fund funded degrowth branch plant of an NGO,
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which was assembled and has assembled only a handful of groups who continue to cash in on Canada's
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refusal to bring energy to market. That Carney pretended this was a legitimate assembly of actual
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Coastal First Nations, that they're protecting this narrative, is giving many pause, and it just
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seems like they're looking for the same old excuses to avoid changing their ways or returning Canada
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to the country it is again capable of being, once was, could be again. Heck, those carbon taxes,
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supposedly gone, have only now been hidden from the general public, and it's costing Canadians
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seven cents per liter in 2026. We're talking to Franco Terrazzano today, federal director of the
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Canadian Taxpayers Federation. He's a busy man these days on both the carbon tax, truth-telling file,
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and the CTF has additional news on Canada's increasingly bloated bureaucracy. Despite more claims,
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the size of government is shrinking. So let's talk warning signs. False starts, sleight of hand,
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and first, a word from our sponsor. I want to give a quick word from our sponsor, Albertans Against
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No-Fault Insurance. So did you know that the Alberta government is overhauling its auto insurance system?
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Under a new model called Care First, coming to effect in 2027, most Albertans injured in car accidents
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will no longer be able to sue the at-fault driver. Instead, decisions about your care and compensation
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will be made by the insurance company, not your doctor, not the courts. Critics say this system
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puts insurance companies first and removes key rights from victims and their families.
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Franco Terrazzano joins us, federal director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation,
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the face that runs the place. Thanks for joining us.
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Hey, it's my pleasure. This is going to be fun.
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Yeah, and boy, what a crazy week. Franco, there's two great reports that you put out this week that I
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want to get to, but I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the latest on China. There are concerned
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commenters who feel we're flirting with some trouble here, deepening ties, particularly maybe
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from a security perspective. We obviously have canola tariffs and things of the sort to sort out
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and negotiate back from. Where are you at on this potential strategic pivot to China? And as an
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advocate for the taxpayer, for the little guy, do you have any initial questions or concerns about
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where we might be at right now? Yeah, I do have a lot of questions,
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especially how we got into this mess. And look, I just want to right off the top, like I'm not an
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expert when it comes to security or foreign policy, right? Like that's just not really my bag. But look,
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I do have questions around how we got into this, right? So I can't really weigh into security issues
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involving importing the EVs from China, for example. But here's what I do know, right? Like the government,
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the federal government got us in this mess. And I really feel bad for the farmers in Western Canada
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who have been hammered by the Chinese retaliatory tariffs on like canola, for example. But here's
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here's one other question that I have, right? And I think it's a fundamental question all taxpayers
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should be asking. Like, is the federal government is part of the rationale for the tariffs on the
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Chinese EV? Is it in part to protect the truckload of corporate welfare that both the federal
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government and provincial governments like Ontario's Premier Doug Ford put into the wasteful
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EV battery factories, right? And folks, you'll remember that the federal government, the provincial
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government Ontario is dropping billions of dollars, giving bucks of cash to these multinational
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corporations like Volkswagen, Stellantis, and Honda to build EV battery factories in Canada, right?
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That is pure corporate welfare. So a big question that I have that got us into this mess in the first
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place is, are these governments just trying to protect the awful corporate welfare that should
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never have happened in the first place? Completely agree. And we can't give these cars away to begin
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with. Even Doug Ford's comments today on Friday, I can appreciate that he's now frustrated with Mark
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Carney, but all he seems to care about is protecting these EV subsidies. And I know as somebody who runs a
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third party, the National Citizens Coalition, and from talking to taxpayers and supporters, I know who I'd
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rather side with. It's farmers in Saskatchewan than it is these foreign companies we've given these
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subsidies and battery plants too. Franco, you've been a busy man this week. I'm an optimist by nature. I
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don't love some of the dooming we see in our sphere sometimes. But you had two CTF reports this week that
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poke some holes in the federal government's claims that it's changing. On the hidden carbon tax front,
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you know, the PBO shows that this carbon tax embedded in federal fuel regulations will add up to
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$0.07 per liter to gasoline prices in 2026. Tell us more about this report.
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Well, look, first of all, I just want to give credit to the ordinary Canadians, right, who forced
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the liberals to back down on their favorite tax, right? What was it three seconds ago that liberal
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MPs were were clapping like seals about their consumer carbon tax and ordinary Canadians were like,
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no way you want to keep your cushy political job, you better get rid of this consumer carbon tax.
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But the problem is, is Ottawa is still making life more expensive with these hidden carbon taxes.
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And one of them is a holdover from the Trudeau era, right? This hidden carbon tax buried in fuel
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regulations that increasingly make life more expensive. And it's not just that it makes life
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more expensive, right? This hidden carbon tax will cost average families hundreds of dollars,
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and it will blow a multi billion dollar hole in Canada's economy. And I know we're talking about,
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you know, everything going on in the world right now. So I have to bring the elephant up in the room,
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right? And that's the United States. Guess what, regardless of who is in the White House,
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whether it's a Democrat, whether it's a Republican, whether it's President Trump,
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nobody in the White House is imposing national carbon taxes. Okay, so what happens to our economy,
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when our federal government hammers our consumers and businesses with carbon taxes?
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Yeah. And when, for example, like Venezuela gets heavy crude operations fully back online,
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like if we think that there's going to be a hidden tax on that, like, we're absolutely kidding
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ourselves. Like if we want to actually compete with the world, this is, we can't keep just,
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now we're just doing this, you know, this cup game where we're moving it around and hoping the public
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doesn't notice it. And I mean, for our listeners who might not be aware as well, it's like, just
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because it's, you know, it's gone from one line item, is it not being passed along by companies too,
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or having to pay this? Is it not still working its way down the line to your pocketbook?
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Yeah, of course it is. And look, these aren't even my numbers, right? These numbers come from the
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government's own independent nonpartisan budget watchdog showing that look like, like the,
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this hidden carbon tax, and this is just one of them, the fuel regulations will add up to seven
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cents a liter of gas, right? To the price of gasoline. And by 2030, you're talking about like
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17 cents per liter of gas. And you know, I don't want to be the rain cloud. I know I don't want to
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be the rain cloud, but folks, uh, there's also another hidden carbon tax, the industrial carbon tax,
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right? And like, come on, like when you carbon tax refineries, that makes Canadians gasoline more
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expensive. When you carbon tax utilities, that makes Canadians home heating bills more expensive.
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And when the government hammers fertilizer plants with carbon taxes, well, that drives up costs for
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farmers and it makes Canadians food more expensive. Yeah. And all of 20 minutes ago, we were told that,
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you know, this was, uh, you know, it was no big deal. It's not going to cost you X, Y, Z. It's,
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it's, you know, the, the science is unassailable. And, and yet if you look at the, the numbers here,
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like this hit just the one, not even the second carbon tax you're talking about could cost the
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average Canadian household between $384 and 1,157 by 2030. I know I don't have that on hand.
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I know that others don't have that on hand. And it, another one of your reports I wanted to highlight is
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on this supposedly shrinking, uh, federal bureaucracy front, you know, you're the rain cloud again. And
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it's, it's, I know you don't mean to, we're trying to be positive, but you know, you said, I think you
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said, uh, you know, coming out of the holidays, it's time to put Ottawa on a diet. Um, tell us
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more about this report on the size and cost of government bureaucracy and, and how it's ballooned
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over the last decade. Well, I'll be positive here for a second. I am positive that taxpayers are getting
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soaked. Okay. And I'm positive taxpayers are getting soaked. Like, look, um, the federal bureaucracy,
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uh, it's costing us now more than $71 billion a year, right? Uh, the federal bureaucracy consumes
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more than half of the government's day-to-day spending. So look like there is absolutely no
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way to fix the federal finances, uh, without firing bureaucrats, right? Uh, the, the time for
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attrition, small cuts here or there, it's gone, it's gone. Um, and, and over 10 years, the cost of the
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federal bureaucracy increased 80%, an 80% increase in the cost of bureaucracy. And you got to ask
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yourself, like, are you getting anywhere close to 80% better services from the federal government?
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I was going to say, are you getting 1% better services from the federal government?
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And you know, uh, let me just like paint this picture, right? Because let's talk about the CRA,
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for example. Okay. The CRA is one of the most bloated, most incompetent government organizations
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I've ever heard of over the last 10 years, they added 13,000 extra government bureaucrats.
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Okay. Now you would think that with 13,000 extra paper pushers, somebody in the CRA would
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be able to pick up the phone, but you would be wrong, right? The auditor general, uh, report showed
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what, uh, the CRA, you call the CRA, you only get a live agent on the call, like a third of the time.
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And if you do get someone on the phone, uh, what they're giving the correct tax information,
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personal tax information, just 17% of the time. Yeah. Yeah. We're getting soaked.
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We are getting soaked. And so by your estimation, then does the, the 2025 budget go far enough to
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address this because they're, they're saying, you know, oh, we might, you know, there might be some
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attrition. Uh, you know, there's some folks in Carney's riding who are feeling misled because they
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didn't exactly campaign on that. But, but from what they're signaling, we're not yet seeing in the data,
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like, is that encouraging in any way, or is it not going far enough?
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I mean, not, no. Um, it's, it's certainly not going far enough. I mean, look, like
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the government added a hundred thousand extra employees since 2016. And like, it's not like
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there was a bureaucrat shortage in Ottawa before 2016, right? Like, like, like, come on. And now you
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have Carney promising in the future that they'll cut down the number of employees. They'll save money in
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the future, right? You know, you hear the government promise to go on a diet starting Monday, but then
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Monday never comes. But even if Carney were to live up to these promises of future savings, um, look,
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all Carney is really willing to do is bring Ottawa's bureaucracy back down to the level that it was
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during the heart of Trudeau's pandemic spending spree. So it's not making the bureaucracy more affordable.
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It's record high to record high. It's, it's, I was speaking before, uh, immigration committee
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recently, and I was sort of having to inform them that they were patting themselves on the back. I'm
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like, you're pulling it down from record high to record high. Like that's still not delivering for
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a record amount of youth unemployed. That's still, we still have this great infrastructure crunch.
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Yeah. On this report on, on all of this, like, I love your quote about, you know, we all put on weight,
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you know, uh, around the holidays, but this is, uh, we got to get on the diet here because I'm seeing
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1.5 billion in bonuses awarded since 2015. Have we got any, you know, any bang for our buck there?
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There's also 40% of federal employees are earning six figure salaries. Like 40% of Canadians are not
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earning six figure salaries. Like what's a, what's a way that you would want to further see improving
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that sort of bureaucratic efficiency. Like, is there, is there something beyond just, you know,
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getting out the hatchet and cutting away at that number or, or, you know, flattening that curve?
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Well, look, I do think, I think you actually do just have to significantly cut. Um, that also goes
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to look, it's not just cutting, uh, employee, like cutting the number of employees or departments.
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You're also just going to have to get the government out of stuff that it shouldn't be involved with.
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Right. Like for example, uh, ending the CBC, right? Like things of that nature where it's not just
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about shrinking departments is also just about being like, Hey, what is the government doing
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that it shouldn't be doing? Well, there's no reason that taxpayers should be forced to pay for a media
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corporation for, for example. Right. And look, you mentioned the bonuses and this one's so irritating
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because they're, they're giving themselves bonuses for showing up to work twice a week with their shoes
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tied, right? Like here's the best example, arrive scam. Everyone remembers arrive scam,
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a simple app lot, uh, launched for what 80,000 bucks and then ballooning all the way up to 60 million.
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The government executives working on arrived a scam. They took $340,000 in bonuses.
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Like what are we doing folks? And like, uh, we work with like digital whiz kids too,
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in our line who could have like put that thing together for 10 grand. Like, who are we, who are
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we quit kidding here? And now these folks are, are fighting and petitioning to not go back to work.
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And so we've got to save costs somewhere. We have to, we have to, gee, just start cutting it and
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cutting it and cutting it. And so Franco, thanks for these terrific reports. I'm going to link to
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them in a, in our show notes and appreciate your work. Hey, I really appreciate just having the
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chance to have the chance to have this conversation. Thanks so much.