00:00:00.000Welcome to The Fighter here on Juneau News. I'm your host, Chris Sims. I'm the Alberta Director
00:00:10.520for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, and we fight for lower taxes, less waste, and more
00:00:15.840accountable government. That is so critical. You know why? Well, because close to half of what you
00:00:22.680earn is taken from you by the state, by various levels of government, close to half. Put it this
00:00:30.960way. Say you're paid on a regular basis a salary every two weeks and you have the usual deductions
00:00:37.560that come off of your paycheck. Imagine what lands in your account every two weeks. Okay,
00:00:43.140you got that amount? Almost double it. Yeah, almost double the amount that you're paid.
00:00:50.580What could you do with that money? Could you afford to pay down your line of credit? Could
00:00:58.060you afford to fix your car? Could you save up to maybe pay for schooling or maybe even have a
00:01:04.380down payment on the house? Could you buy more nutritious food for your kids? There's so much
00:01:09.020stuff you could do if you almost doubled your money. That is the amount of money the government
00:01:16.800takes from you. Yeah. And this is where it really starts digging the salt into the wound.
00:01:24.400The government takes too much of your money because they're wasting your money. How so?
00:01:31.320Well, of course, we've got the big ticket items. We've got billions of dollars being planned for
00:01:36.560a train nobody asked for with this Alto thing going on. We've got the few million dollars here
00:01:42.420and there that are wasted on dumb things like the Arrive Can app that never worked. And then we've
00:01:48.260got the stuff that just slowly bleeds government coffers dry, like a tick parasite on the skin
00:01:56.340of taxpayers. I'm talking about government grants. Government grants handled out like a big ladle out
00:02:05.140of a cauldron. Here, here, here. Everybody gets a grant. The kind of stuff that you are being
00:02:12.040forced to spend money on will either make you laugh or cry. How weird is it? Well, you're going
00:02:20.020to need a time machine to find out how any of this makes sense. Let's find out. Joining me now
00:02:27.980is my good friend and federal director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, Franco Terrazzano.
00:02:33.180Franco, I think this is the debut of your new studio in Ottawa. Looking good, sir.
00:02:37.960Yeah, it looks not bad. Hey, a good friend of mine, she who shall not be named, did it for me. So hey, congratulations to the person who made this look good.
00:02:47.500Well, I'll pass that along to her. Okay, Franco, there is stupid amounts of spending happening in Ottawa. I wanted to kick this off because quite often we'll hear, oh, well, where do you want to cut spending first?0.99
00:03:00.620you know food for war widows or you know gruel for orphans uh no how about we stop spending money0.77
00:03:06.720on super stupid things uh you guys there in ottawa you've been going through the list of the0.97
00:03:12.100social sciences and research the shirk the shirk funding that is handed out every year what kind0.99
00:03:18.160of stuff is the fed spending money on yeah i mean to your to your point right if the federal government
00:03:22.920is spending 30 000 bucks for uh temple brewers like people who make beer in ancient mesopotamia
00:03:30.520then yeah i think the federal government has some fat that it can cut right and and look this social
00:03:36.420sciences humanities research council folks is essentially a slush fund so some academics uh
00:03:42.620can fund their pet projects create these reports that let's just be honest barely anybody will ever
00:03:47.880read now here's the thing it's not just like it's a couple thousand dollars here a couple thousand
00:03:52.560dollars there no the social sciences and humanities research council cost taxpayers
00:03:57.180more than a billion dollars every single year now chris i know you and i we we rail against
00:04:03.380the state broadcaster every all the time right defund the cbc defund the cbc but the social
00:04:09.960sciences humanities research council i mean it costs taxpayers about the same amount of money
00:04:14.640the cbc costs taxpayers every year i did not know this like i knew they were giving a grants here
00:04:21.260and there to phd students i had no idea a billion dollars more than a billion dollars is going to
00:04:26.840cost taxpayers about 1.4 billion dollars this year, Chris. So, I mean, look, that's also the
00:04:32.020cost of a brand new hospital, right? But instead of that, hey, look, we get to spend 78,000 bucks
00:04:38.240studying the state of the dance floor in Canada. Now, Chris, this brings me to my next point,
00:04:44.020okay? The government claims that the Social Sciences Humanities Research Council is funding
00:04:49.440the research on the issues that, quote, matter most to Canadians. Wow. Okay. We just need to
00:04:57.000back up for a second. At the beginning, you said Mesopotamian brewers. You're talking about
00:05:03.620like ancient Iraq between the Tigris and Euphrates. What? Yeah. So, okay. So this is great,
00:05:10.280right? As I said, the government claims that this type of research funding is looking at the issues
00:05:15.540that quote matter most to Canadians. That's according to the government, government's own
00:05:19.220own words. Well, you be the judge folks. Okay. It's been over 30 grand, uh, studying struggling
00:05:26.960temple brewers like beer makers in sixth century BCE Mesopotamia. Okay. Like, okay. Uh, Chris,0.60
00:05:39.140it spent 70 grand on a study about the quote sounds of horror cinema. Okay. You want to know
00:05:47.560real horror show? Like a real horror show. Okay. I'm a little sick right now. Chris is trying to
00:05:53.400take advantage of that. Like, you know, scary, you know, the sounds of scary movies. I mean,
00:05:57.920the biggest scary movie of all is, is how much the federal government is wasting, uh, taxpayers
00:06:03.220is money let me give you another example okay 88 grand uh studying arctic climate comics
00:06:11.940okay like comic books or comedians that's a good question i actually do not know
00:06:16.740um another one here okay uh 99 000 bucks studying water governance water governance
00:06:26.660through choral storytelling it's honestly hard to say the names of these studies
00:06:35.460okay okay so wait a minute can we go back to the dance floor for a second
00:06:40.020okay what why why are we spending taxpayers money again folks this is not private money
00:06:46.980this is your money there picture them taking your wallet out of your pocket and taking money out of
00:06:51.620it for this stuff okay what are we spending money on the dance floor yeah it's it's 78 000 bucks and
00:06:57.500it's a study about the state of of the dance floor in canada um now like folks all as well like this
00:07:04.640is all just the grants for this year okay they've been wasting money through the social sciences
00:07:10.080humanities research council on these let's call them niche studies for a very long time right
00:07:15.880like this is the same uh let's call it a slush fund that spent 105 000 bucks studying the birth
00:07:21.200life and death of the grocery of a grocery cart 105 grand uh chris is the same one that spent 20
00:07:28.020grand studying the gender politics in peruvian rock music also they it spends uh almost 18 000
00:07:35.360bucks on a study about quote casual sex among young adults living in jasper
00:07:41.240so hook up culture at ski lodges yeah i mean man think about the perverse incentive now that every
00:07:49.820frat boy knows you can get paid doing that by the government or okay i can't remember if it's0.97
00:07:56.340the shirt because we've covered so much stupid waste in our years here franco um i can't remember0.99
00:08:01.540if it was the shirk that spent money to discover whether or not outer space is sexist oh that was0.99
00:08:06.720the department of national defense oh sorry yeah yeah yeah super serious yeah no okay let me let
00:08:14.100me talk about another angle here because we've talked about uh some of this waste and and really
00:08:18.400it's about holding the government accountable to its own standards, right? Sure. Okay. So like,
00:08:23.520it's not even the Canadian Taxpayers Federation standards, or here's some people watching Juno
00:08:27.260News or, or whatever the standards it's, it's holding government accountable to their own
00:08:31.060standards. Again, the government claims that this funding is, is funding the research on the issues
00:08:36.820that matter most to Canadians. Okay. But many of the topics that it's funding actually have nothing
00:08:42.120to do with Canada. Okay. So we've gone through, and this is just for some of the grants this year,
00:08:47.4002026 okay we found 50 research projects focused on topics in other countries okay costing about
00:08:58.040four million dollars let me give you some examples i already talked about the 30 000 bucks studying
00:09:03.160these temple beer makers in ancient mesopotamia uh there's also 93 000 chris spent uh making an
00:09:10.740a digital edition of a 1908 book about uh sri lankan art what okay 93 grand more than what
00:09:19.660the average canadian worker makes in a year and you know what this also goes back to a point that
00:09:24.440you made chris it's like look if you want to fund studies about like making a sri lankan book into
00:09:31.700a digital copy fair enough fill your boots right but just because nobody will voluntarily pay
00:09:37.120voluntarily pay for it doesn't mean that you should force taxpayers to pay for that
00:09:41.080here's another one chris 65 grand on a study about western style sweets in modern japan
00:09:48.260what does that mean like a hotel suite no like sweets like yummy candy like a like a sweet tooth
00:09:56.200okay i suddenly thought maybe it was functional i don't know for like layout of people's houses
00:10:03.000you're talking about sugar yeah is what you're talking oh yeah okay yeah the good stuff okay
00:10:07.120okay and we're spending money on this yeah i mean but here's the thing too right like you know let
00:10:14.260me play devil's advocate to myself because you know i i've i've done some media on this and some
00:10:20.040people are like well like don't you think that researchers should just get funding for the sake
00:10:23.560of research itself well no i don't think just because you call something research doesn't mean
00:10:30.300you should get a blank check from taxpayers but also remember folks you know maybe that claim
00:10:35.660would make more sense if you're talking about the natural sciences, right? Like funding, like
00:10:40.640funding, uh, cancer research for example, or even funding like research into, into climate, right?
00:10:48.740Not, not, not research into Arctic climate comics, but perhaps research into Arctic climate,
00:10:55.380right? And you know, how, how things are impacted, uh, by this or that, like,
00:11:00.100how to prevent flooding, for example, how to get rid of forest fires, I don't know,
00:11:04.060but not not you know a study about the arctic climate comics okay or or here's another one this
00:11:10.220one will boil people's bloods i can't believe i waited so long but look at this 43 000 bucks
00:11:16.060to study the quote contested meaning of justin trudeau's speeches what yeah so we just had a
00:11:24.540what you know pay a decade worth of speeches from trudeau in the prime minister's office
00:11:29.100and now we're spending 43 grand to study the quote contested meaning of his official speeches
00:11:33.980when he was the prime minister look like this is when i said like this really appears to just be
00:11:39.820you know a way to give taxpayers money to academics who can't get money uh you can't get
00:11:45.820somebody to voluntary uh pay for this research like this is what i'm talking about
00:11:51.500this saturday british colombians have a chance to vote for safer neighborhoods
00:11:56.460to vote for health care that works to vote for repealing drippa to vote for sanity in our
00:12:02.540classrooms to vote for jobs to vote for tax relief to vote out david eby and the ndp
00:12:10.700it's time for strong serious leadership this saturday vote conservative
00:12:21.740okay in case people were under a rock uh for the last 10 years we already endured frankly enough
00:12:29.820from former prime former prime minister justin trudeau um he doubled the debt he imposed a
00:12:34.780massive carbon tax on all of us the emergencies act was ridiculous there's so much stuff i could
00:12:39.660go over there it was terrible um he launched this gun confiscation like costing us billions
00:12:46.060and billions of dollars and as he said the budget would balance itself and he uh forgive him because
00:12:52.060he didn't think of monetary policy yeah i actually believe that last part yeah exactly
00:12:56.460yeah i i do believe the last part but we all suffered for it i do not want taxpayers to have
00:13:04.880to spend one more smooth nickel on that guy and we're spending forty thousand dollars to
00:13:12.120reconstruct the meanings of maybe his speeches is that what we're doing yeah well yeah like i said
00:13:17.700and look folks like this is 1.4 billion dollars uh a year like it's an annual cost and chris
00:13:23.660maybe we wrap it up with kind of looking to the future here right because uh as everyone who's
00:13:29.340watching knows that like mps are back in ottawa the circus is back in town and one of the big
00:13:34.300things that's going to be happening this fall is the federal budget right because the federal budget
00:13:39.620is is is now in the fall so we're going to be getting it in the next month maybe two months
00:13:43.920but anyways uh before christmas is when we're expecting the federal budget and like look the
00:13:48.820government is borrowing like $65 billion this year. Okay. Massive amounts of waste, crazy amount
00:13:54.660of borrowing. And because of all this debt, look, interest charges on the debt are now costing each
00:13:59.260Canadian 1400 bucks this year. Okay. So essentially the Canadian government is taking more than a
00:14:05.380thousand bucks from each Canadian. And instead of that money going to like healthcare or, you know,
00:14:10.800the roads, that money is just going to pay interest on the debt. And Chris, to your first question
00:14:16.340right off the top is like, well, where is the government going to cut? Well, this is just one
00:14:21.080example of where government should be cutting the fat. And let me just say something, okay?
00:14:27.060It's not like we're just taking aim at research for the sake of taking aim at research. Clearly,
00:14:32.220some of this stuff is not the issues that matter most to Canadians, like the government claims.
00:14:37.560But the second thing, Chris, is that this is duplicating a ton of government spending.
00:14:42.200okay yeah the federal government already spends 18 billion dollars a year on the canada social
00:14:47.900transfer which is a transfer to the provinces in part to fund post-secondary university education
00:14:53.820not only that but provincial governments are already spending billions of dollars themselves
00:14:59.100on university and post-secondary right in alberta uh post-secondary university education the the
00:15:05.140provincial government spends about seven billion a year on it okay so this social sciences and
00:15:10.680Research Council, this slush fund is on top of all of that. Yes. Yes. I'll add to that,
00:15:16.600actually. On top of all of that that you just mentioned, there's also the Canada Council for
00:15:20.680the Arts, which hands out tons of taxpayers' money. I mean, by like the truck ladle full
00:15:25.520amounts of taxpayers' money. There's the National Film Board does the same stupid stuff. Provincially,1.00
00:15:30.540they do the same stupid stuff. So it's through the CBC. They do the same stupid stuff. And I don't1.00
00:15:35.900know if you want to call it stupid, I will. Spending $105,000 on the documentary of the1.00
00:15:41.020lifetimes of a grocery cart, totally stupid spending. We should not be doing that. I really1.00
00:15:45.760wanted you to put a point on it here, Franco, because you're right there in downtown Ottawa.
00:15:49.400You're in the belly of the beast. Everybody's back in town. The legislature's back open.
00:15:53.720House of Commons is in full swing. You're gearing up for that budget. I just wanted to stress,
00:15:59.560folks, they're taking so much of your money and they're wasting so much of your money.
00:16:04.660and we have un-money we are in debt right now like where are we with the federal debt what's
00:16:11.260it standing at right now and i need you to stress like picture this folks all this money they're
00:16:16.040spending picture it with interest picture being slapped onto a high interest credit card just go
00:16:22.060over the debt with us one more time franco well the debt uh look the government is more than 1.3
00:16:27.100trillion dollars in debt it'll be at about 1.4 trillion dollars by the end of this budget year
00:16:32.320the debt, okay? Now, folks, you know, I know people want their kids or grandkids to have a
00:16:38.300better financial future than what, you know, you had, right? That's kind of the dream for parents
00:16:43.200and for grandparents, for their kids and grandkids. But a baby born today is already on the hook for
00:16:47.940about $30,000 in federal government debt alone, right? Money that they're going to have to pay
00:16:53.480back if these politicians don't finally save some money. But it's not just future generations that
00:16:58.640are burdened by this unfair borrowing spree okay the federal debt interest charges are costing
00:17:05.660taxpayers more than a billion dollars every single week well what's a billion dollars you know that's
00:17:11.980that's the cost of building a brand new hospital every week but instead of that money going to that
00:17:17.040hospital every week that money's being wasted going to the bond fund managers on bay street
00:17:20.920to pay interest on the federal government's credit card or you know one more way to think
00:17:25.660about it. Think about this the next time you're standing in that checkout line. Every single
00:17:29.940dollar you pay in federal sales tax is going to pay interest on the debt. So enough is enough.
00:17:36.200These members of parliament that are back in Ottawa right now need to put down the credit
00:17:40.340card and pick up some scissors. Excellent. Franco, folks can find more details on all
00:17:47.000of this spending on our website, taxpayer.com. Taxpayer.com. We've got a great petition there.
00:17:52.320It's to cut wasteful government spending, probably my favorite one right now, because there is way too much waste in Ottawa.
00:17:58.940And folks, you're paying too much tax because these politicians, bureaucrats, are wasting too much of your money.
00:18:05.060Franco Terrazzano, Federal Director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. Thank you, my friend.
00:18:10.980Folks, you heard it here first here on The Fighter on Juneau News.
00:18:14.500Be sure to head on over to taxpayer.com, sign the petition to cut wasteful spending.
00:18:20.680And again, I just wanted to get into this real quick before I say bye. This show, we try to highlight things like wasteful government spending because we know that viewers from this show are getting pushback. They'll get pushback from family members. They'll get pushback from colleagues at work saying, oh, well, you know, Carney's just fine or, oh, everything is just fine. Oh, didn't you see what Trump did the other day? Guys, focus.
00:18:46.640use these examples in order to start the conversation about smaller, more accountable
00:18:54.720government and cutting wasteful government spending. Because I wouldn't be able to find
00:19:01.320anyone if I walked up to them on the street and said, excuse me, can I have $105,000 so I can make
00:19:09.220a video documentary about the life and times of a grocery cart?
00:19:15.780Example that Franco just gave. You might find beer brewing in ancient Mesopotamia fascinating,
00:19:23.540but do you find it so fascinating that more than $30,000 of your tax dollars
00:19:30.260should be handed out to study it? Again, while we are in a critical moment of debt,
00:19:37.300at the end of this year, we are going to be $1.4 trillion in debt. So that is un-money that we have
00:19:46.920right now. All of the money that they're spending on this nonsense, on the dance floor, or comic
00:19:52.860books in the Arctic, or whatever other nonsense they're doing, add interest. To give you an idea
00:19:59.400of how big a trillion is, because we're going to be $1.4 trillion in debt, it would take you
00:20:05.34030,000 years to count to 1 trillion if you started right now. That's more than the debt that we're in
00:20:13.880right now. It's crazy. Thank you so much once again to the Taxpayers Federation for all the work that
00:20:19.260they do over there. Thank you to the Juno News subscribers, to the Juno News viewers. You're
00:20:25.600going to hear the detailed explanations of all of these investigative reports, including one that
00:20:31.780our investigative journalist Jen Hodgson just did that Franco just talked about. So be sure to do
00:20:37.280the right thing. Click on this video, like it, subscribe to the YouTube channel, and go all the
00:20:43.560way. Go support Juno News because guess what? This is real journalism. It's not funded by the
00:20:49.380government. It's independent media. Be sure to show this show to people who need to know.