00:00:44.200That was in the before times when governments
00:00:46.740used to be scared to bill you for things like booze
00:00:51.720or mini golf or a disco party. Yeah, I'm getting into gross territory here because
00:00:58.960this is on the front page of the National Post. The Canadian Taxpayers Federation,
00:01:05.280okay, our investigative journalist, Jen, she dug up crazy, wasteful spending at the Senate.
00:01:13.220The Senate. Okay. So for folks who aren't huge political nerds, there are two houses
00:01:19.320in Parliament, in Ottawa. One of them is the House of Commons. That's where you see people
00:01:24.700like Prime Minister Mark Carney and opposition leader Pierre Polyev, and there's the Speaker,
00:01:29.520and the carpet is green, okay? It's actually supposed to represent the hills of England
00:01:34.140where the commoners used to gather in order to debate things, okay? And then, this is the one
00:01:39.760we're talking about here, okay? That's on the front page of the National Post. The other chamber
00:01:45.480is the red chamber. It actually has red carpet to represent the crown. It's often referred to
00:01:52.380also as the royal chamber, the Senate of Canada. Okay. So senators are appointed by the prime
00:02:00.000minister. They get to keep their jobs until they're more than 70 years old. They're paid
00:02:06.440close to $200,000 per year. You do not elect them. Okay. They even have their own version
00:02:14.640of question period that nobody has ever heard of other than political nerds. They don't broadcast
00:02:20.320it. It's just on audio. Like there's no cameras in the Senate's question period. You may not have
00:02:28.200even known that they did that. They even have their own committees. Yeah. Senates have their
00:02:32.920own committees and stuff. It just doesn't get attention. But boy, oh boy, are they ever lavishing
00:02:38.140themselves with attention on your dime. Yeah, so our investigative journalist uncovered crazy
00:02:46.140receipts. We're talking thousands of dollars spent on things like alcohol, food, I mean like fancy
00:02:55.340French cuisine dining, big meals at the Chateau Laurier, which is like literally like a castle
00:03:01.860in the middle of Ottawa. Things I find a little bit strange to picture, like discos. I thought
00:03:10.240disco went out in the 70s, but apparently it still exists and the senators are going there
00:03:15.420and you're paying for it. And mini golf. Okay, I have to stress, we are more than 1.2 trillion
00:03:25.060dollars in debt. We have un-money right now. Every smooth nickel that the government is spending
00:03:32.420now, right? They're adding on to the debt now. It's got interest attached to it when they add
00:03:39.860it to the debt. You're paying those interest payments as taxpayers. And in case you forgot,
00:03:46.380if you're a taxpayer, if you're working here in Canada, close to half of your income is taken by
00:03:53.920taxes. Various levels of government all added together. It's close to half. Do this little
00:04:00.340experiment. Imagine what lands in your bank account every two weeks. Say you're on a normal
00:04:05.780salary like a typical worker. Imagine what gets deposited into your checking account every two
00:04:11.560weeks. That's your pay. Picture it almost being double that amount. Picturing it? What could you
00:04:20.080do if you still had that money? Could you afford more nutritious food? Could you buy that gym
00:04:26.280membership? Could you pay for piano lessons for your kid? Could you pay down a credit card?
00:04:31.220Could you save up money for a decent apartment or maybe even a down payment on a house? Like,
00:04:35.620think about your salary almost being double. That is what government takes from you.
00:04:42.620So, when you hear about them spending your money on liquor and mini golf and discos and it's in an unelected chamber of senators whose names you don't even know, guys, this is why we are tax fighters.
00:05:03.180How are we supposed to push back on this and stop this terrible government waste?
00:05:11.640He is, of course, the federal director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation and my good friend.
00:05:16.820Franco, we actually have a permanent full-time investigative journalist, Jen, and she dug up crazy expenses at the Senate.
00:05:26.960Okay, and it actually made it on the front page of the National Post, which is super cool.
00:05:32.120So I'm really glad this is getting coverage.
00:05:34.400What are we spending money on and how much are we talking about here?
00:05:37.080Yeah, look, Jen, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, we caught these unelected senators milking their taxpayer funded expenses, right? So number one, folks, overall picture, expenses are supposed to be used sparingly. And for crucial work purposes, these unelected senators shouldn't be using their taxpayer funded expenses to hike their taxpayer funded perks. Okay, because that's sure what it smells like here.
00:06:01.700So Jen, she went in there, she looked at these hospitality expenses at the Senate going back
00:06:07.260six years, and two things really stood out. Number one is what they were expensing taxpayers for,
00:06:13.500okay? Thousands of dollars on booze. The Silver Senate expensing taxpayers thousands of dollars
00:06:20.740on booze. Expensing us for mini golf venues, bartenders, disco venues, and so, so, so much
00:06:33.380fine dining. But the second crazy thing here, Chris, is that in one year, individual senators
00:06:38.860hiked their hospitality expenses 67%. A 67% increase in one year alone. Holy smokes. Okay,
00:06:51.000that's a huge jump. I got to say, back in the day when former Prime Minister Stephen Harper was in
00:06:57.560office, he passed the Accountability Act, his government did. And back then, there was so much
00:07:02.480scrutiny, and rightly so. On cabinet ministers, everybody remembers the infamous $16 glass of
00:07:08.360warrants juice, uh, by then, by then cabinet minister Bev Oda, like people were really taking
00:07:14.600care of expenses and looking at them really harshly. We even had proactive disclosure all
00:07:19.180the time. But what I find interesting is you're saying it's a 67% increase since 2019.
00:07:25.840No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Even worse than that over one year in one year,
00:07:31.360in one year, individual, uh, Senate. So there's two things happening, right? So, uh, she looked
00:07:36.360at individual Senate expenses, like individual expenses from senators, they went up 67% in one
00:07:42.180year. And this is just hospitality expenses. Okay. But there's also Senate administration,
00:07:48.540right? And Senate house officers. Well, the Senate administration and Senate house officers
00:07:55.240more than doubled their hospitality expenses since 2019. So six years, but in one year,
00:08:01.660the individual Senate hospitality expenses shot up 67%. Oh, that's way worse than I thought. Okay.
00:08:08.460Sorry. Sorry to ask you a dumb question, but why are taxpayers paying for mini golf
00:08:15.140for the Senate? Yeah. No, great question. I'm not sure how practicing their putt-putt
00:08:20.440helps senators and their bureaucrats rubber stamp legislation. I have no idea. Look,
00:08:26.060but as I mentioned, right, here's what the Senate expense taxpayers for. Remember folks,
00:08:29.860this is your money. Okay. Booze, fine dining, mini golf, discos, gifts, flowers. And I said
00:08:35.840fine dining and I meant fine dining. Okay. So look, $20,000 expensed on nine excursions
00:08:44.400to an upscale restaurant serving French cuisine. I don't even want to try to pronounce its name,
00:08:50.300but 20 grand expense to taxpayers at this, you know, fine dining upscale restaurant.
00:08:56.200The crazy one to me, just because the name of the Senate, right, where the Senate is supposed to be the Chamber of Sober Second Thought.
00:09:05.900Well, over six years, the Senate expensed taxpayers for $27,000 on booze.
00:09:11.500Now, yeah, $27,000 on booze over six years.
00:09:15.520Look, I have no idea how the Senate is, how they're possibly exercising that sober second thought when they're dropping thousands of bucks on alcohol.
00:09:23.640Can I ask another dumb question? It used to be kind of taboo, I'll put it that way, or a no-no
00:09:35.620of when you're going out for business, especially within government, because I remember I worked on
00:09:41.240Parliament Hill. The idea of billing taxpayers for your booze was frowned upon. That was a big
00:09:47.640no, no. Why are they getting away with spending this kind of money on booze? Like I can understand,
00:09:55.020I guess maybe having to cover their lunch if they're having to work through lunch or something,
00:09:59.740but even then I'm pretty skeptical because they get paid a lot of money, but the booze,
00:10:05.360why are we paying for booze for senators and frankly bureaucrats? What's going on?
00:10:11.520Well, look, the problem is, is, is like, there's a lot of problems for sure. Right. But it's like,
00:10:17.260there's so many examples of of questionable expenses going on that it just makes you think
00:10:24.140like that they're just using it i mean what it looks like what it seems like obviously you can't
00:10:29.520tell what's in someone's mind but it sure seems like they're just essentially using taxpayer fund
00:10:33.680expenses to live the good life right on other people's dime because you know um
00:10:39.280chris you know what the chateau laurier is hey oh yeah right big beautiful castle like looking
00:10:47.240hotel right in downtown Ottawa, a couple blocks away from Parliament Hill. And you see numerous
00:10:53.280times of these quote unquote business meetings happening at the Chateau Laurier, where in some
00:10:59.580instances, hundreds of dollars being expensed to the taxpayer, right? Look, there was one instant
00:11:05.280where a senator expensed taxpayers $340 at the keg for a business meeting. You know, another $100
00:11:13.060expense to taxpayers for another business meeting right at a wine bar. There's so many examples of
00:11:20.560this. One senator expensed $600 for a business meeting, but the business meeting took place at
00:11:26.240an odd location, the Aga Khan Museum. Another senator, folks, expensed $1,100, again, on a
00:11:36.100single business meeting at the India gate restaurant. Um, and then it just goes on and
00:11:42.740on, right? Like set senators spent 790 bucks hiring bartenders for a single event. Um, they
00:11:49.780held three receptions at a disco venue. Okay. Costing tax. Yeah. They held three. Um, let me
00:11:57.160just read it here. Yes. They held three receptions at a disco venue costing taxpayers, 2100 bucks,
00:12:03.860more than $2,000. The Senate billed taxpayers 644 bucks at a mini golf venue for a single
00:12:11.240staff working session. Okay. Another example, Senate billing taxpayers 200 bucks trying to
00:12:19.020find their way out of, out of an escape room. I mentioned, you know, could we just lock the door?
00:12:24.380Sorry. Sorry. Like, could we make them knock it out? I mean, lock away the credit card or
00:12:31.120something, right? But you see what I'm saying, Chris, like just where there's so many of these
00:12:35.320examples where I don't know, like, how do you reach a conclusion other than it's just people
00:12:41.280trying to live off taxpayers money? Yeah, they're just blowing the money. You know, I have to stress
00:12:48.600governments have always wasted money. That is true. But this crazy culture of entitlement
00:12:54.820has just gone off the charts lately like back in the day folks might remember uh there were members
00:13:02.280of government that were getting grilled at committee for expensing like a pack of gum
00:13:07.320i think it was chiclets or something like it was a big deal because people were saying pay for this
00:13:13.380nonsense yourself if you want to go to a disco i can't believe i'm saying that out loud disco still
00:13:18.880exists and now i'm picturing senators discoing i know really troubling like sorry if anybody's
00:13:25.680ever seen like the old shows from the 90s of like girls gone wild now i'm just picturing like the
00:13:31.680senate gone wild and it's a really bad mental image and it's all on our dime so we've got djs
00:13:37.060discos mini golf booze escape rooms all on your dime uh franco how do we reform this like are
00:13:46.940you still going to give me another list of stuff they're spending on you can keep talking but well
00:13:50.600the only other thing that i want to say is is also on these gifts right like just gifts and now you
00:13:56.040don't have we don't have details yet on what the gifts were just because of the nature of the
00:13:59.720government's expense records but one senator senator yvonne boyer spent eight thousand dollars
00:14:04.740on gifts in six years like first of all who even wants a gift from a senator you know what i mean
00:14:11.580like who cares i don't even know who that senator is honestly like i know okay um senator bernadette
00:14:17.380clement uh spent three thousand three hundred bucks on gifts alone right so like it just goes
00:14:24.000on and on and and you asked me the big picture and i think that's that's a good question to ask
00:14:29.700and you you mentioned government entitlement pro uh problem right and it's 100 true and you know
00:14:36.660like members of parliament uh senators also take pay raises every single year on april one
00:14:41.940right and remember all these expenses come on top of of a senator's annual salary that's
00:14:47.140that's just shy the base salary for a senator is just shy of 185 000 bucks okay and again they get
00:14:54.580a raise every single year they take one uh this year's raise as of april one uh like not the raise
00:15:00.340but what their base salary will be will be about 193 000 bucks so like they already have these huge
00:15:06.420six-figure taxpayer-funded salaries um it's this huge government entitlement problem and chris really
00:15:12.900the issue starts at the top right look when when the cabinet when the prime minister is totally
00:15:18.580okay with borrowing tens of billions of dollars every single year running these massive deficits
00:15:23.300when the prime minister whether it's carney or trudeau blowing a crazy amount of money on things
00:15:28.340like airplane food for example well that that sets the tone throughout the rest of you know the the
00:15:34.100the House of Commons or the Senate and the bureaucracy that is party time on taxpayers'
00:15:39.140money and nobody's being held accountable, right?
00:15:41.260So what we need to see is we need to see real political leaders in Ottawa who are there
00:15:45.800who are supposed to be protecting the public purse and are saying enough is enough, putting
00:15:49.560an end to it, ending the pay raises, cutting back the perks, and actually holding people
00:15:54.060accountable for blowing other people's money.
00:24:12.780You have big business and a trade union coming together and saying the same thing, that the industrial carbon tax, carbon taxes are bad for Canada.
00:24:26.200I honestly can't remember the last time I saw big businesses and a trade union coming together to speak common sense together.