Juno News - Who wasted THE MOST taxpayer money in 2025？

00:00:00.000 Welcome to The Fighter with Chris Simms. I am Chris Simms. I'm the Alberta Director for the

00:00:08.900 Canadian Taxpayers Federation, and it is the most wonderful time of year. I hope you are having

00:00:16.140 a peaceful, safe, and happy holiday with your friends and family across the country. We've got

00:00:22.620 a lot of fun here at the Taxpayers Federation because it's a time for reflection. It's when

00:00:28.040 Franco Terrazzano gets on the phone with Saint Nicholas, and Santa tells Franco who is on his

00:00:36.440 Taxpayer Naughty and Nice list. Okay, so we hand out this list from Santa to politicians and bureaucrats

00:00:45.280 and some tax fighters who've been good or bad all year round. Now, of course, we've got Franco

00:00:51.740 himself to deliver the actual news, but first, let's hear a word from our sponsor. Folks, I want to

00:00:57.240 take a minute to thank today's sponsor, which is Macamie College. So Macamie College has an

00:01:02.300 applied politics and public affair program. It's a two-year evening online program available across

00:01:08.600 Canada. Students have the opportunity to learn to run political campaigns, organize grassroots

00:01:12.640 movements, and push policy in the right direction. Students also have hands-on placements in their

00:01:18.080 community or with the party they believe in. So when they graduate, they have real job-ready

00:01:22.920 experienced applicants only need a high school diploma or homeschooling equivalent to apply.

00:01:27.660 Intake starts in September and January. And folks, we are very excited to announce that anyone who

00:01:33.480 who applies and is successful in enrollment will get a $500 scholarship from Juno News. So apply using

00:01:41.540 our link. It's in the description. You can go to CandiceMalcolm.com slash Macamie. That's M-A-K-A-M-I.

00:01:47.300 And if you apply through that link and you're successful, you get a $500 Juno News scholarship.

00:01:53.740 You know, I went to the University of Alberta and studied political science. And the thing you realize

00:01:57.940 when you're doing a university degree is that it doesn't lead you to a job. And so for me,

00:02:02.200 after three years of being a political science student, I looked around and realized I had no

00:02:07.140 job skills. I had never worked in politics. Everything was theoretical. It was all in the classroom.

00:02:11.540 And I had to start working on political campaigns just to get my foot in the door. The hard thing

00:02:16.640 about politics is that you need experience to get a job, but jobs require experience. And so doing

00:02:22.200 something like this, I mean, the fact that you can do it online, the fact that you could do it on the

00:02:25.080 evening is really helpful. If you're interested in politics and you're watching the show, I presume

00:02:28.860 you are. This is something that you really might want to consider, or hey, maybe, maybe one of your

00:02:32.720 adult children might be interested in doing something like this. So again, check out this link at

00:02:39.080 okay, without further ado, as promised, joining me now is Franco Terrazzano, my dear friend and

00:02:46.900 colleague. He's the federal director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. We had a lot of I

00:02:51.520 assume you had a lot of fun talking to St. Nicholas about his naughty and nice list. You just talk on

00:02:58.040 the phone or do you FaceTime now? Oh, it's a little bit of this a little bit of that. I mean, what's

00:03:03.900 really hard though, is because look, Mr. and Mrs. Claus, especially Mrs. Claus, there's so

00:03:09.060 many politicians and bureaucrats that she wants to put on the naughty list, but we have to whittle

00:03:12.820 that list down to like six, five, six politicians and bureaucrats. But that's the hard part, right?

00:03:18.420 Because Mrs. Claus is so upset with the way that politician bureaucrats are taking your money and

00:03:23.120 wasting it on these extravagant trips and all the big blow to bureaucracy across Canada.

00:03:28.480 Yeah. So let's start with the big one. Let's start with topping the naughty list. Who is on top

00:03:35.000 of Santa's taxpayer naughty list? Well, it's a well-deserved top of the naughty list this year.

00:03:40.860 It's Ontario Premier Doug Ford for giving Ontario politicians Santa-sized pay raises. Okay, folks,

00:03:48.700 this is gross. It's disgusting. These Ontario politicians, they gifted themselves a 35% raise

00:03:55.580 this year. Okay. Premier Doug Ford, he gave himself a raise that would make even Ebenezer Scrooge blush,

00:04:01.960 a $73,000 salary hike in just one year. And not only that, folks, these Ontario politicians at

00:04:09.740 Queen's Park, they brought back their taxpayer-funded platinum pensions. And oh, more bad news,

00:04:15.900 more lumps of coal for Premier Doug Ford. He initially promised to end political welfare,

00:04:21.980 but this year he made Ontario's per-vote subsidy to political parties permanent. So it's absolutely

00:04:27.500 gross for handing out 35% pay raise, for giving himself a $73,000 raise, for bringing back the

00:04:36.340 platinum-funded pension, for making Ontario's political welfare system permanent. Yeah, Doug

00:04:41.420 Ford very well-deserved on the top of the Santa taxpayer naughty list. Yeah, big time. I will point

00:04:47.700 out, I lived in Ontario for a long time when I lived in Ottawa. And for the longest time, then the

00:04:52.540 opposition Conservatives were harping at the Ontario Liberals for blowing money, for constantly wasting

00:04:58.520 money, for not balancing the budget. Have they taken a look at their Ontario debt lately? Like, I thought

00:05:04.600 that we were actually supposed to balance budgets and save money and quit blowing taxpayers' money.

00:05:09.100 I didn't think we were just signing up for, I don't know, a blue suit.

00:05:12.240 Yeah, the party with taxpayers' money is alive and well at Queen's Park. Let me tell you, right,

00:05:20.120 absolutely crazy, staggering amount of spending, really no fiscal responsibility happening under

00:05:27.720 Premier Doug Ford. And look, like, we talk about the pay raises, they're absolutely gross. Like,

00:05:33.100 first of all, what have they done to deserve a pay raise? Like, honestly, and a $73,000 raise that

00:05:40.220 Ford is taking? Like, that's the entire salary of the average Canadian worker that Ford is giving

00:05:45.480 himself in a pay raise in one year. Like, talk about padding your pockets with taxpayers' money.

00:05:51.660 And on the political welfare thing, right? Like, look, I know a lot of Canadians right now are losing

00:05:56.580 a lot of sleep, worried about the finances, worried about the basics, worried about the credit card

00:06:00.960 bills. I don't think there's a single person living in Ontario worried that these political parties

00:06:06.900 don't have enough money to launch attack ads, put up lawn signs, or stuff people's mailboxes with

00:06:12.440 pamphlets and nobody reads. I want to stress that too, because I think some of our viewers might be

00:06:16.800 like, huh, what do you mean politician welfare? To your point exactly, folks in Ontario, some of your

00:06:23.080 money is going to political parties, even if you don't vote for them, even if you don't like them,

00:06:29.440 okay? And it is going to pay for things like junk mail, attack ads on radio, and lawn signs.

00:06:37.080 Like, to me, it's just a huge abuse of taxpayers' money. So yeah, very well deserved. Top of the

00:06:43.300 nice, top of the naughty list there for Ontario Premier Doug Ford. Where do we want to go from

00:06:48.100 here on the naughty list? Do you want to go to Philippe Champagne? Yeah, Federal Finance Minister

00:06:54.580 Francois Philippe Champagne. Like, look, the patron saint of children doesn't like it when politicians

00:06:59.800 settle future generations with massive government debt bills to pay back. Well, Champagne, he plans

00:07:06.080 to add about $320 billion to the debt by 2030. Gross. For comparison, former Prime Minister Justin

00:07:14.460 Trudeau planned to add about $150 billion to the debt over those same years. So yeah, when you plan to

00:07:21.300 borrow almost twice as much as what even Trudeau was, yeah, you're on the naughty list.

00:07:26.640 That still blows my mind. Let's roll right into the Canada Revenue Agency, because you had a long

00:07:32.820 talk with Santa about this one. He was super ticked off. Why did the CRA actually land on the naughty list?

00:07:41.180 Well, they left Santa on hold, and then they gave him the wrong tax information. Okay, so look,

00:07:46.560 Santa, he reads every single letter that he receives. Okay, the CRA can barely even find out

00:07:52.340 where the phone is. All right, so Santa was telling me this story. He was like, yo, Franco,

00:07:57.080 when I tried to call the CRA, they left me on hold for about an hour. When they finally did pick up the

00:08:02.140 phone, they forgot to check their numbers twice. The CRA gave Santa the wrong tax information. Now,

00:08:09.020 Santa, he's not surprised that the Auditor General found that the CRA only gives out the right answer to

00:08:15.400 individual tax questions 17% of the time, meaning that the CRA gets it wrong 83% of the time. But Santa's

00:08:22.960 mad. He's furious, right? Santa has been this mad since the invention of sugar-free cookies.

00:08:29.420 That sounds gross. All right, where do we want to go here? I thought that this BC minister going to

00:08:35.100 Boston, and I think her name is Brenda Bailey. There's a lot of Bs, a lot of alliterations in this

00:08:39.800 one. This was a crazy story. Yeah, well, she's on the naughty list for taking taxpayers on a golden

00:08:46.980 sleigh ride, right? Like, look, Santa's little helpers, they caught Brenda Bailey, who's now the

00:08:52.920 finance minister in British Columbia, they caught her billing taxpayers 6,600 bucks for a limousine

00:08:58.720 service during a four-day trip to Boston. I mean, like, Rudolph doesn't even charge that much,

00:09:05.520 right? Absolutely ridiculous. And then, look, Bailey admitted that the trip she was on was a

00:09:10.880 junket, but instead of apologizing, instead of, you know, paying the money back, she told reporters

00:09:16.600 that this was the type of trip she'd take again. Yeah, that was horrible. Now, folks, Franco isn't

00:09:22.620 being facetious there. She actually used the word junket. Like, she called it that herself.

00:09:28.820 And then she said, this is it, guys, pro tip, pro tip in communications. If you're in it up to your

00:09:36.780 neck, like, stop swimming around in it. Just climb out. But she didn't. She's like, no, no, I would take

00:09:42.600 the trip again. Again, they're in un-money land right now in British Columbia. Massive provincial debt.

00:09:49.120 Most people can't afford the basics right now in that province. There's no way that some provincial

00:09:53.720 politician needs to jet set to Boston, much less rent a limousine for herself. Okay, do you want

00:09:59.880 to finish off with everybody's favorite public safety minister and him trying to grab the firearms

00:10:05.520 of licensed law-abiding gun owners in Canada? Gary Anandasangri, the federal public safety minister.

00:10:13.320 Yeah, definitely on the naughty list. And I'll tell you right now, Mrs. Claus is absolutely furious

00:10:17.500 over this one, okay? So, Anandasangri, he checked law-abiding Canadians' firearm licenses.

00:10:22.560 He even checked them twice. Law-abiding Canadian firearm owners did everything right.

00:10:27.240 But instead of going after criminals and illegal guns, Anandasangri wants to grinch

00:10:31.560 law-abiding Canadians' firearms away with taxpayers' money. And Mrs. Claus, like we were chatting

00:10:37.260 on the phone, Mrs. Claus made it real clear that she is not going to hand over the rifles

00:10:41.840 she uses to protect the reindeer from those hungry predators. Okay, so, yep, this gun ban

00:10:48.460 and confiscation scheme that Anandasangri is moving forward with under the direction of

00:10:53.080 Prime Minister Mark Carney, I mean, it's an absolute taxpayer boondoggle. Who knows how

00:10:57.340 many billions of dollars it's going to cost? But also, it's not going to make Canada more

00:11:01.040 safe. Like, you got the Toronto Police Association speaking out, you had the union representing

00:11:05.160 the Mounties, speaking out for many years, really. And the reason is, is like, look, it's

00:11:11.880 not like criminals are walking over to the police headquarters to hand over their illegal guns.

00:11:17.320 No, like, this is going after law-abiding Canadian firearm owners.

00:11:21.260 Yeah, big time and well-deserved. Okay, that is a packed naughty list. And unfortunately,

00:11:25.580 I hear that Santa has a lot more nominations and recommendations for his naughty list than he does

00:11:30.780 for his nice list. So, it's the flip side of the kids here. All right, want to move on to the

00:11:34.420 nice? Because you've got a real great one, or sorry, Santa has a great one for the top of his nice list.

00:11:41.880 Yeah, let's start with the Parliamentary Budget Officer, Jason Jakes. I mean, just for giving

00:11:47.420 Canadians the gift of government transparency and accountability in Ottawa, the PBO has been

00:11:52.140 doing great work for a number of years. But really, the PBO owner, Jason Jakes, I mean, this year,

00:11:56.960 they were just delivering in droves the amount of accountability, right? It was the PBO who first

00:12:02.940 sounded the bells over the government's massive growing debt, right? We heard the PBO and committee

00:12:08.740 use words and phrases like unsustainable, stupefying, shocking, something is going to

00:12:14.600 break, everybody should be concerned. And then, and then the PBO called Krampus on Carney's creative

00:12:21.340 accounting, right? The PBO caught Carney trying to relabel $94 billion of operating spending as

00:12:28.240 capital. So, for the great work that the PBO has done, I think very well deserved to be on the top of

00:12:33.200 the taxpayer nice list this year. And I wanted you to just kind of delve into that a bit. So,

00:12:37.660 for folks who haven't worked in the Ottawa terrarium, I know they really value shows like

00:12:43.020 this because we've worked in it and you work in it right now. It takes a lot of guts. It takes a lot

00:12:48.460 of courage in that Ottawa bubble to speak out like this, doesn't it? Oh, yeah. I mean, it sure does,

00:12:55.120 right? Because like, let me give you an example. Like when I'm at committee, when I'm at the finance

00:12:59.140 committee, for example, talking about the budget, you know what I noticed? Everyone's there with

00:13:03.780 their handout asking for more money. We're essentially the only group that's at committee

00:13:07.860 telling these politicians to spend less. And like the PBO, they like, they work in Ottawa,

00:13:13.960 they have like, you know, their family, their friends all in this Ottawa bubble. And the bureaucracy,

00:13:19.280 the politicians, the other swamp creatures, they all want, you know, the party just to keep flowing,

00:13:24.960 just spend more, borrow more, who cares is other people's money, just raise taxes,

00:13:28.940 print money, who knows? And the PBO is saying, no, no, no, guys, like something is going to break.

00:13:34.520 We need to get the adults back into the room and somebody's got to say no. So that does take a lot

00:13:39.180 of courage, especially just given the context of them living and working in Ottawa. So hey,

00:13:44.060 kudos to the PBO because we deserve accountability and transparency in Ottawa and the PBO is delivering.

00:13:49.320 Much well-deserved top of the nice list. Speaking of well-deserved, and I will point out also the PBO,

00:13:55.140 as you mentioned, it was that office that was often giving us the straight goods on the true cost

00:14:00.840 of carbon taxes with a lot of deep dives. So, so important. That parliamentary budget office is super

00:14:06.940 important. Speaking of carbon taxes, Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe, he's also on Santa's nice list.

00:14:14.320 And once again, Saskatchewan is kind of one of the lone voices now speaking out against the industrial

00:14:19.920 carbon tax. Yeah. If you go back a decade ago, there's really just two formal organizations

00:14:25.140 fighting the carbon taxers in Ottawa. Number one was the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, always have,

00:14:30.520 always will. But the other one was actually the Saskatchewan government under then Premier Brad

00:14:36.480 Wall. And, you know, kudos to Mr. Wall, but also kudos to Scott Moe, the current Premier of Saskatchewan,

00:14:42.420 who's continued that fight. And so Moe set the industrial carbon tax rate to zero,

00:14:47.500 making Saskatchewan the first and so far only carbon tax-free province in Canada. And by taking

00:14:55.140 the industrial carbon tax off of Sask power bills, Moe is saving Saskatchewan families hundreds of

00:14:59.780 dollars. And, you know, rumor has it, Santa is thinking about moving his toy production shop

00:15:05.140 to northern Saskatchewan to escape the Grinch's industrial carbon tax.

00:15:09.440 You know what? There's plenty of frozen, snow-capped wilderness out there. He can definitely

00:15:13.380 move operations across the border into northern Saskatchewan. So well-deserved,

00:15:18.020 Scott Moe. I wanted to move on here. Do you want to go to the Indigenous activist,

00:15:23.640 Hans McCarthy? Yeah. Okay.

00:15:25.680 How about I do this one? We've got a couple more on the NICELIST, folks. If you want to

00:15:29.600 learn more about the NICELIST, head over to taxpayer.com, check out the newsroom.

00:15:33.420 Simmer, I'm going to do one and then you take us home. How about it? Okay.

00:15:37.100 So also on the NICELIST, you have Indigenous activist, Hans McCarthy, and I'm just reading my notes

00:15:41.600 here because I want to get these numbers right because they're staggering. Okay. So

00:15:44.900 Indigenous activist, Hans McCarthy, he partnered with the Canadian Taxpayers Federation to launch

00:15:51.020 a court challenge to force the federal governments to release records regarding the Frog Lake First

00:15:56.980 Nations Trust Fund. Okay. Now Frog Lake, it's, you know, northeastern Alberta, you know, similar,

00:16:03.920 close to Lloyd Minster. And the trust fund, it totaled about $102 million in 2013.

00:16:11.600 Okay. $102 million in 2013, less than $9 million remained in 2024. Okay. So it went to $102 million

00:16:18.960 in about a decade's time. It went down to 9 million. So McCarthy launched and he won this court

00:16:26.700 challenge and the court ordered the federal government to provide the records. And so not

00:16:32.200 only does McCarthy's court victory really improve transparency for people on his First Nations

00:16:39.720 community, but it also sets a clear precedent across Canada, right? That band members have a right to

00:16:45.520 know how their community's money is being used. Yeah. And, you know, for that, I think Hans McCarthy

00:16:50.700 very well deserved on the taxpayer NICELIST this year. Like folks, like it really takes a ton of not

00:16:56.820 just commitment to government transparency, but a ton of courage to be able to go through this type of

00:17:03.400 court challenge. Yeah. Big time. If I may, he not only had to try to hold his local band council

00:17:09.600 government to account, he then had to go hold the feds to account. That was astonishing. And the fact

00:17:16.140 that he won in court is amazing. So the next time someone is trying to get, especially something like

00:17:21.340 financial transparency from their local First Nations government, which essentially is kind of like a

00:17:25.740 small town council, but it's on a First Nation. And they try to get information. This will revert back to

00:17:31.460 this court case. It'll be known as the McCarthy ruling or whatever they say in proper lawyer talk.

00:17:36.520 I will also point out that, especially in small communities like this, everyone knows each other.

00:17:42.080 So for him to stick his head above the parapet for year after year to say, nope, I want answers.

00:17:47.340 Nope. Show us where the money went. I want answers. Like he would have heard about that every single day

00:17:53.340 and he stuck with it. Yeah. And specifically, I mean, this challenge, it's really the court ordering

00:17:59.440 the federal government to provide the records, right? Like, so the court ordered the federal

00:18:03.600 government to provide these records and like McCarthy sets a clear precedent, right? Sets a

00:18:09.380 clear precedent for Canadians. Yeah. And that's, uh, that's awesome. Yeah. Big time. So well-deserved

00:18:13.640 on Santa's taxpayer nice list. Okay. Let's get into the last one that we have on our nice list. And

00:18:19.700 that is a, okay. This is Alberta Premier Danielle Smith. Now, yes, I can hear the audience right now.

00:18:25.440 Yes. We know that there's some questions about the MOU. Yes, we know. Okay. I think that Premier

00:18:31.320 Danielle Smith really wants pipelines and she really wants to get that production cap lifted.

00:18:36.800 She also wants to get that green thing taken off of our power bills. So I understand that. And I also

00:18:42.680 understand a lot of people don't trust Carney and they can't stand carbon taxes. All that said,

00:18:48.580 something huge happened just before that. And that was the Alberta teacher strike. Franco,

00:18:55.980 uh, you lived here in Alberta. Okay. You know how powerful some of these big government unions can

00:19:01.100 be. They really ground down parents and kids and frankly, some teachers because teachers were not

00:19:07.380 getting strike pay. They were on strike for close to a month, a month, even though the deal that was

00:19:14.760 being offered would have made Alberta teachers, the highest paid teachers in Western Canada,

00:19:19.680 also without a sales tax. So the cost of living here is cheaper. Okay. Than other Western provinces,

00:19:25.400 but no kids were out of school. Teachers were on the picket line with no strike pay. I will remind

00:19:33.360 people and parents were scrambling. What was crazy. Franco is that halfway between this big fight. Okay.

00:19:40.220 They came out and said, give us $2 billion more. Like on top of the billions of dollars they're

00:19:50.020 already spending on top of the billions of dollars they're already spending to build new schools.

00:19:54.960 Okay. They said, give us 2 billion more. And I got to say the easiest thing that Smith could have done

00:20:01.280 would have been, you know what, fine. It's been three weeks. Everybody's mad at me. The kids are

00:20:05.800 suffering because they're not in school here. Here's your pound of flesh right out of the

00:20:10.020 taxpayer side. Here's 2 billion more dollars. She didn't. She said no signing bonus. So they went

00:20:17.200 right back to work and no 2 billion extra dollars. So now teachers are back at work. Kids are back at

00:20:23.660 school and the Alberta teachers are still the highest paid in Western Canada. So I thought that Alberta

00:20:29.640 Premier Daniel Smith deserved to be on Santa's taxpayer nice list for saving taxpayers 2 billion

00:20:35.960 bucks. Yeah, me too. So does Santa. I'm glad that Santa Claus agreed. Franco, this is a really

00:20:45.120 interesting list. I would encourage everyone from across Canada to go read it. Where can they find

00:20:50.340 it? Is it just right up on our website? Best place taxpayer.com. Check out the newsroom. You'll find it

00:20:56.840 there. Again, taxpayer.com. Perfect. And folks, remember in the comments, let us know who you

00:21:02.340 think should have been on Santa's taxpayer naughty and nice list. And we will let, oh, sorry, Franco

00:21:06.920 will let the big guy know. He has his phone number. Thank you so much for watching. Be sure to like this

00:21:11.840 video, subscribe to the channel and head on over to Juneau News where you can find independent journalism.

00:21:26.840 you

Juno News - December 23, 2025

Who wasted THE MOST taxpayer money in 2025？

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