00:02:45.040But so, you know, Environment Minister Stephen Giebo, you know how he just loves carbon taxes?
00:02:51.720Well, he's at the whatever UN climate summit where they fly there in their jets and they burn all this stuff and they waste all your money.
00:02:59.160He's at some summit and he's actually pushing for a global carbon tax.
00:03:05.100So two of his favorite things, world government and carbon taxes come together.
00:03:11.520And there he is at this UN climate summit pushing for a global carbon tax on shipping.
00:03:18.060So shipping typically is goods that are shipped by cargo that go across the ocean.
00:03:26.020And he's proposing to do this and charge every country in the world that can afford it.
00:03:33.100And that the money would, of course, go to poor countries for them to somehow reduce their carbon footprint or whatever.
00:03:41.700We know largely that this would just get wasted.
00:03:44.200Now, I did need to point out that the folks, the pointy heads at the UN have been pushing for a global carbon tax on things like shipping for years.
00:03:55.700It's the same thing when they try to get people to eat crickets or not eat as much red meat or whatever.
00:04:01.360But this time they have found an ardent dance partner because there has never been a carbon tax that Minister Gebo has made eye contact with that he has not fallen madly in love with.
00:04:13.680Do you think that this is a chance that they might be able to convince them to actually put this thing through?
00:04:18.840Like, do you think they'd get countries signing on to this?
00:04:21.860William, do you want to take a crack at this?
00:04:23.080You know, this COP conference just, you know, makes me cringe every time I hear it happening.
00:04:29.120It might as well be called COP of Feel Conference because every time they have one, they want to reach into your pants and pick your wallet and grab a few more dollars for whatever crazy project that they've just come up with.
00:04:40.320So, yeah, I mean, you know, if you ask around, and I think the U.S. election really brought home the case of this, people aren't exactly saying, I have just too much money in my pockets.
00:04:51.040I have too much disposable income and not enough things to spend it on.
00:04:59.300Transportation is too cheap and affordable.
00:05:02.340And so what I really need is a big government tax to come and make my life even more expensive to get rid of some of my excess cash.
00:05:10.440It's, you know, it would be ludicrous if it weren't quite so criminal and sad.
00:05:16.880And, yeah, you know, we're coming up on Christmas.
00:05:19.240It's the busiest shopping time of the year.
00:05:21.580A lot of people are buying things from faraway places that need to be shipped.
00:05:25.900You know, my family's waiting for Black Friday and Amazon to put on some deals to look at what we're going to buy for my nephews.
00:05:33.000And now we're going to make that more expensive because everything that gets shipped is going to have a new carbon tax.
00:05:39.700And then you're going to send it to developing countries who, of course, their first priority isn't the fact that huge swaths of their populations are unemployed and can't afford health care and maybe don't have enough to eat.
00:05:50.940We're going to pay them to have the privilege of releasing slightly less carbon.
00:05:54.760And, you know, I'm absolutely certain that that money won't be spent on other priorities, you know, because because when I talk to people who work with third world charity groups, they're always telling me it's all about the carbon, not about not about food and shelter and health care.
00:06:09.440Clean water, you know, luxuries like that.
00:06:14.340Yeah, you know, Chris, I was trying to go through in my head and think to myself, which of the countries at COP29 here would even fathom agreeing to something like this?
00:06:23.600Of course, Donald Trump, President-elect Donald Trump hasn't had his inauguration date yet, but I'm thinking, imagine Guibo trying to pitch this to Trump.
00:06:33.200There's absolutely no chance that Trump would do something like this.
00:06:36.600In fact, we've seen over the recent days how Trump has been coming out, in fact, in partnership with Daniel Smith as recently as today, on prioritizing making energy as cheap as possible because he understands that is how you make a strong economy.
00:06:55.020And by the way, we still haven't seen any evidence from the liberals or anyone else that this carbon tax does anything to reduce carbon emissions because our carbon emissions keep going up.
00:07:15.100To be clear, here in Canada, the carbon tax is a disaster, but the government just keeps on digging.
00:07:22.200Like any sane person with an ounce of common sense, if they dig themselves into that whole first job, stop digging.
00:07:28.440But they just keep on going for it, and now they're turning their shovels on other countries, or at least trying to.
00:07:33.000So, here in Canada, we actually already have three carbon taxes.
00:07:38.200We have the first carbon tax, which is often referred to as the retail carbon tax.
00:07:42.600That's the one that adds like $13 per fill-up of a minivan, $20 per fill-up of a pickup truck, over $400.
00:07:50.740This winter alone, here in Alberta, the carbon tax is going to cost us to heat our homes with natural gas.
00:07:56.180Truckers, they're costing like $200 extra, extra, just for filling up with diesel, and that's just the one carbon tax.
00:08:04.700We have the second carbon tax, which is the highest in British Columbia.
00:08:08.540It's a form of government fuel regulation where they basically penalize a company of how dare you, oil and gas company, produce something like oil and gas.
00:08:51.020And so now we have a second carbon tax that's federal.
00:08:54.000It's not as high as it is in BC, but we still have it.
00:08:57.240The third carbon tax we have is often referred to as the industrial carbon tax, really similar to what I just explained with the second carbon tax.
00:09:05.060But this time it's big companies that are paying these credits and offsets and all this other jazz.
00:09:11.100At the end of the day, that just makes our stuff cost more.
00:09:14.680So now we have these three carbon taxes already in Canada.
00:09:17.920We also have record numbers of people saying they cannot make ends meet, that they're within 200 bucks of not making all their minimum payments on their bills.
00:09:28.440That's also known as nearly going bankrupt.
00:09:30.820OK, and we also have record demand for food banks, especially from working families.
00:09:36.120So what the Trudeau government does is say, you know what, these carbon taxes are so super awesome and they're not reducing emissions.
00:10:17.920Just see how many times we can put the word president in front of the name Trump.
00:10:22.660I know there'd be quite a number of people who would support that.
00:10:25.760It is true that U.S. office holders do retain their titles for life.
00:10:31.240But I guess in the case, it's also, though, rare to have someone who was a president then, you know, sort of leave public life, you know, voluntarily or otherwise, to then have them come back into public life.
00:10:44.720Again, it's only happened a handful of times in U.S. history.
00:10:47.080Yeah. So let's just I'm just going to keep it simple.
00:10:50.520President Trump, who is not yet inaugurated, he is making good on some of his promises.
00:11:13.080What I find fascinating is he's appointed these two gentlemen to what would you call it, guys, a task force, a mission to reduce government waste and improve government efficiency.
00:11:26.260And the acronym, I'm not kidding for folks who are on X or Twitter, is Department of Government Efficiency.
00:11:43.840Do we so that's music to Taxpayers Federation ears.
00:11:48.940The idea that you could actually go through departments, get rid of entire departments if they're inefficient and just a big waste of money.
00:11:56.060Find actual waste like we have here at the Taxpayers Federation where we spent taxpayers money, you know, sending sex toys to a show in Germany, like completely stupid things.
00:12:06.260Do we think this will make meaningful change, though?
00:12:23.120Yeah, Isaac, do you want to grab that one?
00:12:25.080Yeah, here's what I'll say, because obviously, and I'm sure many people felt the same way when when I first heard about this dog or dog.
00:12:33.240I don't know how it's pronounced, dog task force or department.
00:12:38.080The first thing I, of course, thought of was Argentina leader, Javier Malay, who his whole campaign was based on the fact that he would slash public service to the bone, essentially.
00:13:41.900Malay's been in office now for just about a year.
00:13:44.540I think he became the president in December 2023.
00:13:47.880So I was curious what has slashing these public services done.
00:13:52.120And I just looked quickly online, you know, and I seen AP came out yesterday saying Argentina has seen the lowest inflation that it's had in the last three years.
00:14:30.360I think it's unclear to me how much power this new group task force agency department will have.
00:14:38.260It doesn't look like, at least at first, they're setting it up as a fully fledged department that would have a secretary and cabinet power.
00:14:45.960But I think one of the things it will have is an ability to expose examples of government waste and mismanagement.
00:14:54.100And I think that public opinion pressure will be very valuable to President Trump when he starts a campaign to try and cut wasteful spending.
00:15:02.940And I mean, you know, we have wasteful spending up in Canada.
00:15:05.820There's a there's a ton of it, including just a massive bloated bureaucracy that has, you know, tens of thousands of more people, maybe even hundreds of thousands more than we need.
00:15:16.020Down in the States, in some ways, it can be even worse because when they're trying to get a bill through Congress, every congressman or congresswoman will have a demand that they want to put on.
00:15:28.260And in order to get their vote, you sometimes have to buy them.
00:15:31.780And it means, you know, a bill for child's health care includes funding for erectile dysfunction medication or, you know, a bill to study farm products in the Midwest includes salmon fishing out in the Pacific Northwest.
00:15:49.980There's there's all sorts of these things are called Christmas trees.
00:15:52.340Everybody likes to hang little spending ornaments on them.
00:15:55.340But I'm personally very excited about what the Department of Government Efficiency is going to find.
00:16:00.760And it really takes the air out of the sails of people who talk about how government is this force for good in the lives of everyday people, how we need government and how government spending is efficient.
00:16:12.480And when the government tackles problems, that's the best way to solve it.
00:16:16.740You know, the late great Margaret Thatcher, my personal political hero, some minister came to her and said, we've, you know, we've identified this problem.
00:16:25.380And his solution was to create a new ministry that would be responsible for this problem.
00:16:30.980And she looked him in the eye and said, if the existence of the ministry and the minister depends on this problem continuing to exist, then it will never be solved.
00:16:40.420We will never rid ourselves of it once jobs depend on having this problem be around.
00:16:46.100So I say Godspeed to the new Department of Government Efficiency.
00:16:50.540And please find some places to cut wasteful spending.
00:16:58.780I think this will change the momentum and the tone.
00:17:01.900The very idea that they're now openly saying we need Ron Paul in here to come help.
00:17:07.320Like for the longest time, Dr. Ron Paul, bless his heart, has been trying to reduce government spending, reduce government waste, expose government corruption, hold government to account.
00:17:16.820And for the longest time, also, it's, you know, advocacy organizations similar to ours in the United States, like the Americans for Tax Reform with Grover Norquist, trying to restrain spending.
00:17:27.660And there's always been, you know, a healthy push behind that.
00:17:31.160But it hasn't gone mainstream or viral in an awful long time.
00:17:36.040And to be able to see something like small government, like dramatically reducing the size and scope and power and spending of government, to make that shiny and attractive again is huge.
00:18:49.660And for the handful of folks who are watching who like big government and they think that we need big government to take care of us and do everything, I just heartily encourage you to really think again.
00:19:00.960Ask yourself if whatever it is that needs to be done could be done better by honest, earnest private citizens or a charity group or an advocacy organization.
00:19:10.820I'll give you a quick example, and I won't get too graphic because otherwise I might start crying.
00:19:15.620You guys might remember that there was a case in British Columbia off one of the Gulf Islands where they had deer that Parks Canada wanted to get rid of.
00:19:29.040And kudos to the reporters in Vancouver who dug up this story.
00:19:32.640They did a great job and they phoned us about a year ago.
00:19:35.840So what was happening is taxpayers were paying like it was like a million dollars, something crazy.
00:19:42.060It was a crazy amount of money for foreigners, New Zealanders, if I recall correctly, sharpshooters to shoot deer out of a circling helicopter.
00:20:59.560And the more you dig into things, the more the government screws up.
00:21:02.480So, yes, I, for one, I keep that little doge thing on my phone because I wanted to inspire people to reduce government waste and to cut taxes.
00:27:39.140And then ask yourself if you really need to do that for a few hours in the morning on one day.
00:27:43.900Or maybe you could wait till the next day or even in the afternoon once people have gone home.
00:27:49.160Did we want to go to the school board?
00:27:51.180Because this one was a little bit funny and I think I need something to cheer me up.
00:27:54.480I do have to say that coming off a very somber topic, we, you know, now have an example of, you know, maybe we'll just revisit that first one about there's no wasteful spending in government.
00:28:52.140The only place apparently that they could get it was Italy.
00:28:54.620So they spent more than $50,000 on travel expenses to go to Italy for a week to buy $100,000 worth of religious art, which they subsequently brought back to Canada.
00:29:12.660And I'll just give you a little list here.
00:29:17.320Well, one of the things I have to laugh is their trip to Italy included two nights in Germany, which is a country famous for not being Italy.
00:29:25.120So a lot of people wonder why that was.
00:29:29.240Well, apparently, according to the board chair who has recognized the air of his ways, it's quite a long flight from Italy, Canada to Italy.
00:30:15.540And so the real question is, though, would they have really been so tired given that their average flight cost was $7,000 apiece?
00:30:22.620Which, you know, for those of us who have occasionally studied flights know that they flew business class in the nice lie-flat pods that they have at the front of the plane.
00:30:32.740So why did they have jet lag when they spent $28,000 on their flights for these four people so that they could get a good night's sleep over the Atlantic Ocean?
00:30:45.100They also stayed in what have been described as luxury or deluxe hotel rooms and suites during their course there.
00:30:52.820They enjoyed a limousine ride at one point.
00:30:56.280Maybe there was a lack of parking at the religious art factory that they were visiting.
00:31:12.140So for anybody out there who doesn't think there's wasteful spending in government, I would just urge you to look at this example.
00:31:19.920When places are crying out for funding for education to hire more teachers, to hire more teaching assistants, to have more resources in classrooms, well, this Brandt Haldeman Catholic School District group, they decided four people, $50,000.
00:31:34.440I tell you, if I ever am planning a luxury trip to Italy, I want to get that school board to do my trip planning.
00:31:41.200They know how to put on a luxury vacation.
00:31:55.540This is just the one that we've heard about.
00:31:58.080There's tons of stuff that we've never heard about.
00:32:00.460At the Taxpayers Federation, we do the annual Teddy Waste Awards where we hand out golden pig statues to levels of government that waste your money in spectacular fashion.
00:32:09.940We do it to make fun of it because otherwise you'd cry.
00:32:13.200Like, it's such a huge waste of money.
00:32:15.360And, yeah, this sounds like, I don't know, the $100,000 or $200,000 that our federal politicians blow on airplane food.
00:32:22.320And they say, oh, it was normal airplane food.
00:32:24.480Meanwhile, it's stuff you can't pronounce.
00:32:25.920It's like beef carpaccio and super fancy stuff.
00:32:29.200And it has to be served on China plate.
00:32:31.060Like, this is just a gross waste of taxpayers' money.
00:32:34.080And I have to stress, it wasn't always like this.
00:32:37.820The reason the term public servant exists is because it used to be people like retired teachers, former police officers, local small business owners,
00:32:48.440who donate their time for a tiny stipend, like they might get parking, they might get lunch.
00:32:55.220But it was a tiny stipend that they were paid to be a public servant.
00:33:00.640And now we're spending, would you say, 50 grand?
00:33:23.100I was going to say everyone, every good Catholic, practicing Catholic knows the only place to get religious art is in the Vatican City, actually, in Italy.
00:33:31.800I'm pretty sure if this school board walked down the street to a church and just said, hey, do you guys know any art we could get?
00:34:10.480But you don't need to pay $50,000 to local bureaucrats from the school board to fly there, stuff themselves full of gourmet food to bring it back to you.
00:34:22.820But I really think it's important that we highlight this sort of stuff, especially in light of what we were talking about with the movement for the Department of Government Efficiency, DOGE, in the United States.
00:34:33.620If we can make cutting spending and reducing the size and power of government cool again, then we'll definitely be winning as taxpayers.
00:34:44.100Isaac, William, thank you both so much for joining us today.
00:34:48.180And, folks, thank you so much for watching and listening.
00:34:50.440Be sure to share this show with someone you know needs to hear it.
00:34:54.960But remember, everything is off the record.
00:34:56.920I thought of a real good question for you.
00:35:08.200Every report and every data I've ever seen on essentially comparing public to private spending in various sectors has shown that private can do it better.
00:35:17.360I'm wondering if you know of any examples where the public sector can actually outperform the private sector.
00:35:26.920The only one I know on the top of my head, because I've given this a lot of thought, is we fought a lot against ICBC.
00:35:34.740So that's the government monopoly on the auto insurance in British Columbia.
00:35:38.480And their rates are disgusting and they're through the roof, blah, blah, blah, blah.
00:35:42.040The vast majority of the time, having private competition reduces the cost.
00:35:47.560I don't know why, but in Saskatchewan, they have a government-controlled auto insurance monopoly, and it's cheap.
00:35:58.700So I've basically, like, not made eye contact with it because it's, like, accidentally running on time.