Juno News - Sex toys, bus blankets, and beef carpaccio – a year in government waste

00:00:00.000 Welcome to Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show.

00:00:05.380 This is the Andrew Lawton Show, brought to you by True North.

00:00:13.520 Hello and welcome to you all.

00:00:16.360 This is Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show, the Andrew Lawton Show here on True North.

00:00:21.240 On this Wednesday, December 27th, 2023, good to have you aboard the program.

00:00:26.880 It is the third day of Christmas, right?

00:00:30.420 So what are we?

00:00:31.320 First day of true love, get a partridge in a pear tree.

00:00:34.280 Okay, how do I not know this song now?

00:00:36.420 Three French hens.

00:00:38.680 Okay, so I hope you have opened up your three French hens. 0.90

00:00:42.720 We left them on your doorstep very lovingly.

00:00:45.500 They are not vegan, though.

00:00:47.080 That is the one downside of the three French hens. 0.99

00:00:49.480 But you know what?

00:00:49.860 They should make for a delicious post-Christmas dinner for you on this, the third day of Christmas.

00:00:55.020 As we've been doing in the course of this week and as we've done in years past, we like

00:00:59.680 to take a bigger picture view of a lot of the issues we cover on the show, whether it's

00:01:04.200 free speech or civil liberties or today the fight against government waste and a government

00:01:10.760 that seems to balloon and balloon and balloon.

00:01:14.540 Now, you may be in the post-Christmas hangover dealing with massive credit card debt, but I

00:01:19.600 assure you, even on this day at the end of December 2023, you are not as indebted as

00:01:24.900 the federal government is.

00:01:26.300 Well, I guess which means you are indebted because the federal government's debt is your

00:01:29.920 debt.

00:01:30.240 But that's part of what we're going to be talking about.

00:01:31.880 We've assembled a crack team of tax fighters that are no doubt familiar to you on this show

00:01:37.340 by now.

00:01:37.820 Chris Sims, who joins us every Monday, the Alberta Director for the Canadian Taxpayers

00:01:42.240 Federation and her federal counterpart, and also, I guess, her predecessor as Alberta Director,

00:01:48.260 Franco Terrazzano.

00:01:49.780 Chris, Franco, great to have you both on.

00:01:51.780 Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you.

00:01:54.340 Merry Christmas.

00:01:56.200 So let's, I figured we'd do this a couple of ways here because I do want to talk about

00:02:01.380 the bigger picture of how big government in Canada is.

00:02:04.400 But it's also, I think, important to look back at the last year and all of these little

00:02:09.440 stories of government waste that may have fallen by the wayside.

00:02:13.700 They've dropped off the radar because the thing about government waste, as anyone knows,

00:02:17.600 the price of an orange juice at the Savoy by now, $16, the little stuff is the big stuff.

00:02:24.100 And it's the little stuff where you often see that culture and attitude there.

00:02:28.560 So I wanted to put it to both of you.

00:02:30.060 I'll start with you, Chris.

00:02:30.860 Chris, what's the one that stands out over the year past of just how government is just

00:02:35.360 so much in its own world on waste?

00:02:38.780 Well, I'm fenced in here in Alberta, so I don't have the plethora of waste to pick from.

00:02:44.840 But boy, they can still waste our money here in the province of Alberta.

00:02:48.140 Let's take a look at the city of Edmonton.

00:02:49.960 This has got to be my favorite.

00:02:51.880 They blew around $60 million on electric buses that don't work because it's cold outside.

00:03:00.860 Now, I'm not sure if the bureaucrats at Edmonton City Hall didn't know that Edmonton is one

00:03:06.680 of the coldest capital cities on planet Earth.

00:03:10.620 Apparently, this slipped their mind.

00:03:13.600 But more than half of them, around three quarters of these buses, Andrew, are constantly in the

00:03:19.540 garage.

00:03:20.180 Why?

00:03:20.700 Because they don't work.

00:03:22.020 Because they're getting the chills.

00:03:23.620 My favorite little tidbit, though, is that apparently they spent $200,000 on blankies

00:03:31.120 to wrap the batteries in, and it still didn't work.

00:03:35.820 So I'm going to fight hard for this to win a Teddy Waste Award.

00:03:39.500 Every year, we do this annual thing where we hand out these golden pig statues to governments

00:03:45.000 that waste your money in a spectacular fashion.

00:03:47.340 This is definitely going to be my entry for the province of Alberta and the city of Edmonton.

00:03:51.120 I would suspect that the city of Edmonton does not spend $200,000 on giving homeless people

00:03:57.200 blankets, but they got $200,000 in blankets for buses.

00:04:03.380 Yeah.

00:04:03.900 All joking aside, that's pretty rough because a lot of people are living rough right now.

00:04:08.940 A lot of people-

00:04:09.120 And this is the city that, like elsewhere in Alberta, has power outlets at parking spots,

00:04:14.840 including probably a city hall so you can plug in your block heater on your car, and they

00:04:18.460 didn't realize that buses might not operate in the cold weather.

00:04:22.580 Yeah.

00:04:22.840 I once had to explain to a friend of mine who was visiting West Edmonton Mall who was from

00:04:27.000 the West Coast.

00:04:27.960 They saw those little electrical outlets.

00:04:30.200 They're like, oh, wow, they're plugging in electric cars.

00:04:33.780 Everyone drives a Prius in Alberta.

00:04:35.380 I had no idea.

00:04:36.540 No, dude.

00:04:37.260 That's to keep the car from freezing at the block engine level.

00:04:41.700 So that's to keep things from freezing up.

00:04:43.920 That's Edmonton.

00:04:44.600 This is the same city, by the way, that spent about $100 million on bike lanes.

00:04:50.680 Now, again, the city of Edmonton can have snow on the ground from September until May,

00:04:57.800 but they blew $100 million on bike lanes.

00:05:00.280 So they're just trying to outdo themselves here with the blanky batteries.

00:05:04.040 You have, obviously, a fair bit more material to work with, Franco.

00:05:08.620 So I won't just ask you to list the examples of waste, because I think I could just go and

00:05:12.620 have a coffee and come back in three days, and you'd still be going.

00:05:15.360 But what are a few of the standout examples to you?

00:05:18.400 You know, let me start with a bit of a win for taxpayers.

00:05:21.520 This might catch your listeners off guard.

00:05:23.300 A win for taxpayers, but we did get one.

00:05:25.420 It was the scrapping of the Mission Cultural Fund in 2013.

00:05:29.280 So this was a slush fund brought in around 2016 by Global Affairs Canada to essentially

00:05:35.420 throw your money all around the world on the most wasteful things.

00:05:39.720 Folks, honestly, I couldn't have come up with the wasteful spendings myself if I was trying

00:05:44.820 to be as funny as possible.

00:05:46.360 Now, one of the things that we discovered through this Mission Cultural Slush Fund was the federal

00:05:51.220 government spending more than $12,000 paying seniors in other countries to talk about their

00:05:58.780 sex lives in front of live audiences.

00:06:01.980 So folks, we weren't even paying seniors in Canada to talk about their sex lives.

00:06:06.980 We were outsourcing old people's sex stories out to other countries.

00:06:11.820 Now, this might almost sound too crazy to be true, but Andrew, thousands of dollars giving

00:06:18.320 seniors in other countries to go on stage to talk about their worst time, last time, first

00:06:23.880 time, best time, and it cost you folks about 12 grand.

00:06:27.800 Now, I see you wanting to butt in, Andrew, but let me just end with saying this.

00:06:31.780 You know, after we put out this story about a week or two later, Global Affairs Canada shut

00:06:37.080 down the whole slush fund.

00:06:39.660 I just, my issue is not with old people talking about sex. 1.00

00:06:45.980 I'm trying to figure out where is the benefit to Canada in this?

00:06:50.340 Like, how does it even, what's the involvement to Canada?

00:06:52.900 Is it like the one time they, you know, they got a little kinky with some poutine gravy and

00:06:57.020 that was the story they told?

00:06:58.460 Like, how did, like, where was the perceived benefit to Canadians?

00:07:02.400 Uh, you know, I, I just wish I was a fly on the wall with, I love it when you wear that

00:07:08.360 Canada goose jacket, Gladys.

00:07:10.200 Yeah.

00:07:10.700 But here's the thing, right?

00:07:11.620 Like the craziest part of this is like, when you know how these government bureaucrats like

00:07:15.480 make these decisions, I can imagine like 200 bureaucrats, a bunch of managers, managing

00:07:20.340 managers in the same boardroom.

00:07:22.180 Like how many people have to sign up on this before they're like, yup, $12,000 stamp of

00:07:28.260 approval.

00:07:28.880 Let's pay seniors in other countries to talk about their sex lives. 0.99

00:07:32.840 So when it's almost crazier to ask the question, like who thought this was a good use of Canadian

00:07:39.220 taxpayers money?

00:07:40.400 Now, if I can add one more thing, this isn't the first, uh, let's say kinky way the federal

00:07:45.540 government has wasted her tax money. 1.00

00:07:47.560 Back in like 2018, we actually spent 8,800 smackers on a sex toy show in Hamburg, Germany.

00:07:55.980 Oh no, don't say the name of it. 0.96

00:07:59.360 The name of it folks, whose jizz is this?

00:08:03.920 Merry Christmas.

00:08:05.380 I think we just lost our clean tag on Apple podcasts.

00:08:09.060 I, I, I have to check with Sean on that one.

00:08:11.680 Uh, okay.

00:08:12.780 Was that like a direct translation from German or was it an English title?

00:08:16.120 Well, that's a great question.

00:08:19.040 Uh, the one I do not have the answer to, nor do I want to have the answer to.

00:08:22.760 Again, were we exhibiting Canadian sex toys at least? 0.58

00:08:26.500 Well, it was like a Canadian artist apparently.

00:08:29.120 Um, but no, I mean, we're not even spending 8,800 bucks on sex toy shows here in Canada.

00:08:34.620 We're outsourcing it around the world.

00:08:37.500 I mean, at least combine the two, like just have the seniors talk about the German sex toys 0.52

00:08:42.120 they used and at least we save a couple of thousand dollars by just consolidating it into 0.85

00:08:47.360 one like kinky cultural export. 0.86

00:08:49.840 And one of the benefits is if we actually did it here at home, at least we would get to see

00:08:53.700 one of the politicians, maybe a cabinet minister standing in front of a podium talking about

00:08:58.620 all the jobs it would be creating here in Canada.

00:09:04.180 I have so many that I just don't want to use because I have these like lovely little older

00:09:09.180 ladies that listen to this show that come up to me and say they love how wholesome it

00:09:12.660 is.

00:09:13.100 So including, uh, including my girlfriend's mom, who's actually your biggest fan, Andrew.

00:09:18.320 Yeah, well, I met your, I met your lovely girlfriend and I was very, very honored to hear that.

00:09:23.920 Well, okay.

00:09:24.300 We will do the after hours edition in which we'll, we'll just let it all loose.

00:09:27.860 Like we did at a true North nation in Calgary, a couple of weeks back.

00:09:31.820 It's funny though, because there's the serious point behind all of this is that you have people

00:09:36.760 in these offices that much like the seniors on stage, just don't know how to say no.

00:09:41.520 And they, uh, just approve all of these expenditure requests.

00:09:45.900 And at a certain point, they don't even think of things that like a normal person would think

00:09:49.920 of like, oh, I don't know.

00:09:50.900 Are we getting value for money?

00:09:52.400 Are we getting anything for this?

00:09:53.540 Does this meet the stated purposes of what we're trying to do here?

00:09:56.960 And that's when you look at government waste, it takes place over time in which these things

00:10:02.140 to them do not trip any radars.

00:10:05.900 Well, Andrew, let me go one step further too, right?

00:10:09.180 A lot of the waste, especially the waste that we've covered in the past year kind of falls

00:10:13.620 under an umbrella of us versus them, right?

00:10:16.120 The Canadians back home struggling so much dearly, whether it's what the price of a hamburger

00:10:20.920 meat, whether it's the price of the pumps, just worried about fueling your car on the

00:10:24.160 way to work, or whether it's about like how many Canadians losing sleep, worried about losing

00:10:28.300 their homes as mortgage payments go up.

00:10:30.440 And at the same time, when Canadians are struggling at home, you see bureaucrats and politicians essentially

00:10:35.140 showering themselves, spending your money on the fanciest hotels, the sweetest rides and

00:10:42.080 the most exquisite cuisine, right?

00:10:44.120 So one of, let me just list some of the other examples of ways you had the governor general

00:10:48.460 spend less than a handful of days in Iceland and she dropped $71,000 on a limo service when

00:10:55.500 her hotel was like an eight minute walk away from the conference center, right?

00:10:59.700 The story broke that Trudeau spent $61,000 on a two day anti-poverty summit in Manhattan

00:11:07.840 on hotel rooms, right?

00:11:10.160 Like, look, I'm not an anti-poverty expert here, but I'm pretty sure you don't fight poverty

00:11:14.920 like by taking money away from struggling taxpayers and dropping $61,000 on fancy hotel rooms in

00:11:21.220 Manhattan.

00:11:21.880 And then the last example I'll give is the almost $100,000 that the governor general and

00:11:27.620 their band of bureaucrats spent on airplane food during a week-long trip to the Middle

00:11:33.360 East.

00:11:33.660 So all of this are examples of waste.

00:11:35.880 And I would say over this year, a lot of these waste stories are really put into this

00:11:40.480 bucket of us versus them, the struggling taxpayer versus the thriving federal government bureaucrats

00:11:46.620 and politicians.

00:11:47.760 No, I think you're right.

00:11:48.980 And by the way, you mentioned hamburger meat.

00:11:50.440 That was the original title for that show in Hamburg, Germany, but they ultimately changed

00:11:54.700 it to the one you recommended.

00:11:55.800 Sorry, I said, I said I wouldn't do it.

00:11:58.320 I did it.

00:11:58.880 No, you're so right there, Franco.

00:12:01.380 And I'll ask you about that, Chris, because that is really the common theme here is that

00:12:04.960 you have these two classes of people and the rules that we all in the private world and

00:12:10.080 the real world have to deal with are just not the rules or the attitudes that this bureaucratic

00:12:15.000 class has to.

00:12:16.360 And again, I mean, I'm convinced and I don't know many bureaucrats personally.

00:12:19.680 I've met them, though.

00:12:20.520 Well, I'm convinced that they don't handle their own finances at home the way that they

00:12:24.580 handle the finances of the taxpayers when they go to the office and they have that veto

00:12:29.000 pen or the approving pen.

00:12:30.800 And actually, I don't even think they do have veto pens anymore in all of these granting

00:12:35.020 issuers.

00:12:35.520 So, I mean, how do you get these two classes of people, Chris?

00:12:39.300 You get it because you expand the size of government.

00:12:43.900 Grover Norquist said it best when he said that government should be small enough that

00:12:47.740 you can drown it in the bathtub.

00:12:49.520 And he said that because if you continue to allow the size of government to grow, your bill

00:12:54.740 will continue to grow because they will never rein themselves in.

00:12:59.120 And so if you keep on adding tens of thousands of bureaucrats to the government payrolls, to

00:13:04.940 the taxpayer payrolls, the way that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has done since he's been in

00:13:09.400 power, you're going to wind up with these makers and takers.

00:13:14.180 You're going to wind up with this new elite class of government workers who largely work

00:13:19.080 within the Ottawa bubble, sometimes are farmed out to other departments across Canada, but

00:13:24.460 they're largely within that Ottawa bubble.

00:13:26.660 And they will become completely disconnected from average people.

00:13:30.500 We'll give you the example back to hamburger.

00:13:32.220 In all seriousness, when Franco and I were looking at the airplane food, some of the

00:13:37.220 stuff they were eating on those flights, we had to Google it.

00:13:40.880 Like, I didn't know what beef carpaccio was.

00:13:43.700 And there was some other beef on there, too.

00:13:45.500 We didn't know what it was.

00:13:46.840 So here we have average working people.

00:13:49.080 I see them at the grocery store looking at the hamburger, wondering if they can afford

00:13:53.980 it because it's certainly not on sale right now.

00:13:56.060 Yet they're funding this fancy stuff that the governor is blowing on a trip overseas, which

00:14:03.500 I will point out, even if you are a hardcore royalist, OK, the role of the governor general

00:14:10.100 is to be the crown's representative in Canada, within the geographic borders of Canada.

00:14:16.900 If the king or her late majesty, the queen in previous years wanted to do international

00:14:22.440 travel, that's something for the Brits to handle.

00:14:25.460 But here in Canada, there's absolutely no excuse for our governor general, who has to

00:14:30.860 sit at Rideau Hall and rubber stamp legislation, that's their role, to fly overseas.

00:14:35.620 And definitely there's no excuse for them to spend this kind of money.

00:14:39.320 And just, you know, Franco lives there right now.

00:14:42.000 And we joke and we say, you know, it's Mordor and he's doing God's work, working for taxpayers

00:14:46.620 in Ottawa.

00:14:47.500 But if you live in Ottawa long enough, you start noticing the big difference.

00:14:51.820 You'll be able to tell who is a government employee and who is not.

00:14:56.400 And I don't know if they've gotten rid of it.

00:14:58.120 I sure I guess they're not.

00:15:00.020 They haven't.

00:15:00.980 There used to be a thing that people used to refer to as the boat bonus.

00:15:04.380 OK, this is when your average rank and file.

00:15:06.900 I'm not talking deputy ministers.

00:15:08.200 Your average rank and file, typically manager level at a bureaucrat station in Ottawa would

00:15:13.920 retire.

00:15:14.820 OK, they're gone.

00:15:16.080 They would get on average $60,000 of their bonus, just kind of heaped up over the years

00:15:23.180 of service.

00:15:24.260 And they used to refer to it as, oh, it's the boat bonus because they've already bought

00:15:27.200 the cottage.

00:15:28.140 Now this is for the boat.

00:15:29.300 And this gets ingrained into the culture of Ottawa.

00:15:32.540 And here we have it.

00:15:33.780 Well, and there used to be, when you talk about the culture, this thing called March

00:15:38.660 Madness by people in our world, where at the end of the fiscal year, a department has

00:15:43.940 been a little bit more fiscally prudent.

00:15:46.060 And they say, oh, wow, we've got, you know, $100,000 left in our budget.

00:15:49.300 Great.

00:15:49.580 You and I would say, amazing, $100,000, I can put that towards my mortgage.

00:15:54.440 I can invest it in a TFSA.

00:15:56.400 They say, OK, well, we don't want the government to cut our budget next year.

00:15:59.960 What can we spend this on?

00:16:01.600 And when you look at ATIPS, you'll find the most bizarre purchases of like, oh, wow,

00:16:06.340 they just bought, you know, 97 office chairs that year.

00:16:10.800 Oh, they bought, you know, 18 mini fridges.

00:16:12.880 It's like they're doing things that are literally like you've just given some hyped up kid a credit

00:16:19.020 card and let them loose in a candy store.

00:16:21.040 But this is just the way of doing business for them.

00:16:24.060 And it still happens, right?

00:16:25.600 You'll see stories in the newspaper, like in the first couple quarters of the year saying

00:16:30.680 federal government on its way to post a surplus.

00:16:33.500 And then all of a sudden you end up with a $50 billion deficit.

00:16:36.940 You're like, what?

00:16:38.160 Yeah, where did they, where, where, hang on?

00:16:39.780 Where did, where did things go wrong in the year?

00:16:41.600 Yeah.

00:16:42.080 Like this isn't for getting to carry the two, you know what I mean?

00:16:44.600 This is like a $50 billion gap.

00:16:46.960 And look, the reason is kind of the, well, there's two reasons.

00:16:49.720 Number one is the incentive structure in place.

00:16:51.700 I mean, think about it.

00:16:52.740 If a department doesn't blow the money and they end up with surpluses in the department,

00:16:57.360 then the politician says, great, they don't need the extra money.

00:17:00.520 We can actually save money there.

00:17:02.340 And then the next year, the department doesn't get the money.

00:17:04.960 So the entire incentive structure is for that department to blow through the money and then

00:17:09.860 say, we need more to achieve better results.

00:17:12.980 Now, the second problem is the problem that we're especially facing here in Ottawa is that

00:17:17.440 the political class, the politicians and the staffers just either don't care about the

00:17:23.060 fact that they're spending your money like crazy and running these huge deficits and

00:17:26.800 these huge interest charges and these huge debts, or they just lost the muscle for fiscal

00:17:32.600 responsibility as atrophy.

00:17:34.680 And if I can just go back to kind of what Chris was talking about, the makers and the

00:17:38.780 takers, because I think that was another big issue here in 2023.

00:17:43.680 If you can remember the Peace Act union, the largest federal government union went on

00:17:47.000 strike and some of the things that they were pushing for were absolutely crazy.

00:17:52.300 Remember, they were pushing for up to 47% compensation increases over three years, right?

00:17:59.060 They wanted overtime paid at double time.

00:18:01.580 They want an education fund of up to $17,000 for laid off employees.

00:18:06.180 They wanted taxpayer contributions into a social justice fund.

00:18:10.820 Folks, they wanted a shift premium because they wanted more money to work past 4 p.m.

00:18:15.800 Andrew, you know what most office people call working past 4 p.m.?

00:18:20.080 Monday to Friday, right?

00:18:22.140 So this kind of just goes to some of the crazy benefits.

00:18:25.060 And here's the worst thing.

00:18:27.180 Which political party opposed this?

00:18:29.620 The NDP didn't oppose it.

00:18:31.220 No, they stood with the union.

00:18:33.400 The liberals didn't really oppose it.

00:18:35.680 Even the conservatives didn't really oppose the union demands coming from those government

00:18:41.960 union bosses, right?

00:18:43.640 And that's why it was so important for advocacy groups like the Canadian Taxpayers Federation,

00:18:48.500 for different independent media outlets to actually cover what was going on.

00:18:53.960 Just incidentally, that Peace Act union, do we as taxpayers end up saving any money by all

00:18:59.600 the time that these workers were not working or do we get hosed either way?

00:19:04.060 No, I don't think we ended up saving money.

00:19:06.880 I mean, there might be some later analysis to look at this, but I highly doubt it.

00:19:11.200 I mean, look, the one saving grace is that the amount of money that they ended up getting

00:19:15.980 was significantly, significantly lower than what they were initially asking for.

00:19:21.200 And can I just go back to one other thing to build on this maker versus takers?

00:19:25.040 As Chris was saying, the federal bureaucracy has ballooned, right?

00:19:29.100 The Trudeau government added 98,000 bureaucrats since coming to power, a 40% increase.

00:19:36.560 Nobody's getting 40% more value from the federal government, maybe 40% longer wait times.

00:19:42.080 The Trudeau government has dished out $1.3 billion in bonuses since 2015, even though departments

00:19:48.180 are meeting half of their own performance targets.

00:19:51.180 Okay, you have these crown corporations like the CBC handing out $16 million in bonuses last

00:19:56.960 year, the Bank of Canada handing out tens of millions of dollars of bonuses over the

00:20:01.260 last couple of years, even though they failed to meet their own objective of keeping inflation

00:20:05.460 low, even though they raised interest rates a number of times, even though they printed

00:20:09.620 hundreds of billions of dollars out of thin air, making your life more expensive.

00:20:13.060 The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, same story, bonuses, tens of millions of dollars

00:20:18.060 and bonuses, even though Canadians can't afford a home.

00:20:20.860 So folks, at least the way it's working right now, it certainly doesn't feel like these public

00:20:26.140 servants are serving the public.

00:20:28.760 And just to go back to this idea, Chris, I mean, people in the US in particular talk about

00:20:33.700 this idea of a deep state, which is this, you know, these forces of all these three-letter

00:20:37.900 agencies that are supposedly working against democracy.

00:20:41.120 And when this was gaining steam in, you know, 2016, 2017, I sort of looked at it, I said,

00:20:45.820 they're just talking about the bureaucracy.

00:20:47.100 I mean, this has always been the issue.

00:20:48.620 And, you know, we look at in Canada, the things Franco just spoke about, we had 10 years of

00:20:52.680 a conservative government really didn't address that fundamental influence and size of the

00:20:56.980 bureaucracy.

00:20:57.860 And even if you were to have a very fiscally prudent, fiscally conservative, hawkish conservative

00:21:03.160 government come in, they still have this thing to deal with.

00:21:06.100 And I wanted to ask how that's working out in Alberta, because you have Danielle Smith 0.65

00:21:09.200 that's been able to make some changes to the AHS governance and whatever.

00:21:13.540 But the size of government is not the size of the people at the top.

00:21:18.720 It's the size of the people in the middle, these faceless folks that we never see.

00:21:23.080 Yeah, we very often, and rightly so, will take premiers and their size of cabinet to task.

00:21:29.160 So right now, unfortunately, Premier Danielle Smith has a pretty sizable cabinet. 1.00

00:21:33.340 We would like to see her cut it, because cabinet ministers make, you know, just under $200,000

00:21:38.700 or so.

00:21:39.700 The Premier, same thing, just under $200,000.

00:21:42.440 I will point out that the mayors of Edmonton and Calgary are paid more than the Premier of

00:21:47.980 the province.

00:21:48.980 So that is more of a municipal problem.

00:21:51.740 So, but to be fair, those are the obvious targets, right?

00:21:56.160 Those are the MLAs and who become then cabinet ministers who have to face the electorate all the

00:22:01.660 time. And here in Alberta, not only do they need to face them at the regular voting day,

00:22:06.660 we have recall legislation here in the province of Alberta.

00:22:10.180 So if they screw up in spectacular fashion, the people of their riding can then force a

00:22:15.420 by-election and maybe fire those folks from their jobs. 1.00

00:22:19.220 So in essence, it's the front-facing retail politicians who are actually held to more account.

00:22:25.220 To your point on the so-called deep state, right, that's happening in Washington, and

00:22:30.500 it happens in Ottawa too, you're right.

00:22:32.760 You're absolutely right.

00:22:34.000 That is just the bureaucracy.

00:22:36.040 That is the permanent, faceless level and form of government.

00:22:40.520 And I'm really glad that Franco pointed out that the Trudeau government has added almost

00:22:45.920 100,000 human beings to that rank and file.

00:22:50.000 That is the population of Lethbridge, where I'm sitting right now.

00:22:54.520 That's the population of red deer who are now on government payroll.

00:22:59.880 And to the whole point about what Grover Norquist was arguing for smaller government, when you

00:23:04.620 allow that thing to expand, not only does it cost you more money, not only are they less

00:23:10.060 accountable, but they then start holding more political power as a block.

00:23:15.160 And I'm going to go out on a limb here, but I think that might have something to do with

00:23:19.280 why the Conservatives didn't want to speak up against PSAC, because that is a growing,

00:23:25.460 booming, powerful wing of the permanent form of government.

00:23:29.360 And they were probably spooked to say so.

00:23:32.920 Yeah, I think that is very well said.

00:23:34.800 And I want to bring up recall for a moment.

00:23:37.160 Now, I have an essay here called Building Canada Through Freedom, which was written by a gentleman

00:23:42.880 you may be familiar with.

00:23:43.780 His name is Pierre Polyev.

00:23:45.240 This is a very young, young Pierre Polyev.

00:23:47.860 Oh, look at him.

00:23:48.680 I just don't wash jeans.

00:23:49.600 Oh, I'll put it back up.

00:23:50.600 Yeah, he's there in the Rockies, the essay, Building Canada Through Freedom.

00:23:56.340 But I want to read something he wrote.

00:23:58.220 I think he was 21 at the time.

00:24:00.100 A system of voter recall would be enacted to ensure that members of parliament were accountable

00:24:07.000 to their constituents.

00:24:07.880 Under this system, a representative would be forced to resign and seek re-election in

00:24:12.400 the event that over a period of three months, 40% of voters in the riding signed a recall

00:24:17.260 petition.

00:24:17.720 This would put voters in command of legislators, not the other way around.

00:24:22.700 The essay was writing about what he would do as prime minister.

00:24:26.500 Franco, is there any reason the Alberta approach to recall could not be brought to the federal

00:24:32.300 government?

00:24:33.060 And have you heard a commitment within the last 20 years from Pierre Polyev to a champion,

00:24:39.280 something like that, if he's elected?

00:24:40.420 So first, there's nothing technically stopping the federal government from introducing recall

00:24:45.160 legislation.

00:24:46.260 I mean, look, what Pierre wrote in that, in the sense of putting voters back in the driver's

00:24:51.540 seat, is absolutely correct when it comes to recall legislation, right?

00:24:54.940 Like, just imagine being a small business owner and saying, well, I can only fire my employees

00:25:01.080 once every couple of years when there's an election.

00:25:04.740 Imagine how bad that business would be run.

00:25:06.980 I mean, it would be run so bad, it would almost be like the business of government in Ottawa,

00:25:12.840 right?

00:25:13.840 Like, this is one of the problems, is that there's, like, almost no accountability over

00:25:19.560 the politicians, right?

00:25:20.940 Because essentially, they can just do silly things.

00:25:23.480 They can waste money, like $6,000 per night on a hotel, like, just hypothetically.

00:25:28.460 And you've forgotten about it by the time the next election rolls around.

00:25:31.320 Well, that's exactly that.

00:25:32.860 Now, when it comes to a specific offering from Mr. Polyev, folks, the Canadian Taxpayers

00:25:38.380 Federation interviewed Mr. Polyev when he was running for leadership of the Conservative

00:25:42.480 Party.

00:25:42.840 And that was a question I posed to him.

00:25:45.040 But, hey, would you consider recall legislation?

00:25:49.600 And, folks, I can't remember exactly what he said.

00:25:52.080 You can find it on YouTube.

00:25:53.120 Just check out the Canadian Taxpayers Federation page.

00:25:56.000 But if I can remember correctly, he said that he would be open to recall legislation.

00:26:00.120 He would have to work out or consider some of the pros and cons, some of the kinks and 1.00

00:26:04.260 bugs that could be within recall legislation.

00:26:06.760 Of course, one of the issues is to make sure that political chaos doesn't ensue where there's

00:26:11.140 constant elections.

00:26:12.740 But I think the fact that there's recall legislation in a couple provinces in Canada, British Columbia

00:26:18.160 and Alberta, and there's recall legislation at many different levels of government all over

00:26:23.400 the world providing these different examples that we can choose from, I think proves to me

00:26:27.660 that there is no reason why a true federal government that wants to be democratically

00:26:32.160 accountable to the people shouldn't want to put in recall legislation.

00:26:35.960 I think it would be a very good step forward.

00:26:38.020 That does it for us.

00:26:38.940 We will be back tomorrow to close out the week here on The Andrew Lawton Show, Canada's

00:26:42.840 most irreverent talk show.

00:26:44.540 Thank you, God bless, and good day to you all.

00:26:47.560 Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:26:50.100 Support the program by donating to True North at www.tnc.news.

00:26:55.560 The Andrew Lawton Show.

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Juno News - December 27, 2023

Sex toys, bus blankets, and beef carpaccio – a year in government waste

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