Carney’s conflict？ Ethics screen covers 100+ companies
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Summary
Today's guest is Franco Terrazzano of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. He's all about accountability, transparency, and curbing government waste. And he thinks Prime Minister Mark Carney needs a screen between himself and his dealings with 100 companies in his sprawling government.
Transcript
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I'm Chris Sims filling in for Candice Malcolm here on the Candice Malcolm show. Thank you so
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much for watching and for listening to this show. We've got a great show for you lined up today.
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We're going to be speaking with my good friend, federal director of the Canadian Taxpayers
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Federation, Franco Terrazzano, and for a very specific reason, because all of the bureaucrats
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in Ottawa are apparently going to be spending their summer scurrying around with their hair
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on fire saying they can't possibly find savings in the budget. They're cut marrow thin. They're down
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to the bone, folks. They have nowhere to cut. I'm old enough to remember when then Prime Minister
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Stephen Harper informed his ministers to find, I think it was between 5% and 8% savings within
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their departments, and the bureaucracy freaked out. Spoiler report, we've got about 100,000 more
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bureaucrats now, and their spending has gone through the roof. The numbers that are flowing
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around right now in Ottawa as far as spending on our bureaucracy would choke a horse. So be sure to
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tune in for that. I wanted to get into the element of accountability here though, and it's really
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important to flag this. So I would recommend that people look this up in the National Post,
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read about it at Juneau News and at True North and in online journalism. Check out Brian Lilly's column
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on this. And it is that, remember when Prime Minister Mark Carney, who's got a big CV, okay, to be fair, he's
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former governor of the Bank of England, former governor of the Bank of Canada, the dude's got a PhD in
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economics, he's a business guy, he's got a very long CV, and a very deep contact Rolodex. We get it.
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But remember how during the election, a lot of people were playing dumb, saying that Mark Carney
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couldn't possibly have any conflicts of interest. And to their credit, even the mainstream media during
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the election, was asking then candidate for Prime Minister, Mark Carney, if he would see that he would
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have any potential conflicts of interest with businesses, if he were to govern as Prime Minister.
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Those assets should be publicly disclosed within 120 days, which means you'll campaign
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in a coming federal election, most likely within the next 120 days, and are serving as Prime Minister now,
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with Canadians not being aware of what potential conflicts of interest you've sought to avoid.
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What possible conflict would you have, Stephanie? Stephanie, I'm complying with the rules.
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Yeah, that was not a good answer. And again, to a veteran reporter in the parliamentary press gallery,
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he said, what possible conflicts would I have? And you might even remember, full disclosure,
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the CBC reporter Rosemary Barton, commentator Rosemary Barton, asked him about this too.
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And Carney's response, again, was very odd and defensive of look inside yourself, Rosemary.
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It was a strange response during a very strange election campaign. The reason why this matters is
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because taxpayers are on the hook for this stuff. And Canadians, at large, require accountability from
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government. They need to know if their government is in a conflict of interest with any of the companies
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that are getting contracts that are getting paid with our tax dollars. Remember, folks, close to half
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of your money goes out the window to various levels of government in the form of taxes, levies, and fees.
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To do a thought process on that, imagine what lands in your, say you're on salary, okay,
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you've got a regular job that average people have, and you're on salary, and you get your paycheck
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deposited in your bank account every two weeks. Imagine that amount being double what it actually
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is. What could you do with that money? Could you afford better food? Could you pay down your line
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of credit? Could you save up for a house? Could you get a better education for your kids? That's how
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much money various levels of government take. So you are absolutely right to demand transparency
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and accountability when it comes to where your money is going. This is where this is important.
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On Friday afternoon, the traditional time where all governments like to take out the trash.
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For those of us who've worked on Parliament Hill, who have ever worked in government as staffers,
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it's affectionately sardonically referred to as recycling day. Who's got some recycling for today?
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Well, the thing that was pulled out to the curb on Friday afternoon was this.
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Turns out, Prime Minister Mark Carney is going to need a special screen set up between himself,
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his dealings, and any of the companies that he previously had connection to. Apparently,
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it's going to be in more than 100 instances. Check this out. Carney to recuse himself from dealings
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with over 100 companies in sprawling government conflict screen.
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Okay, that is super important. That's the headline from the National Post. Go read it. Go read that
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article. Share it with your friends. Keep it in mind as we deal with government going forward. Because
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again, you folks need to be informed citizens on this because this is all your money and we need to
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hold government to account regardless of party. Which leads me to another key issue here,
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and that is accountability and the Auditor General. So folks might remember that the Auditor General
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plays a very clear role when it comes to counting beans, checking in on ethics violations, all that
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stuff. Finding out where money is going, okay? How contracts are procured on Parliament Hill.
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The role of the Auditor General was really made famous, I would argue, during the so-called
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sponsorship scandal. For those of you who are kids who don't know what that is, go look that up. That's
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what eventually brought down the Liberal government and ushered in the Harper Arrow was the so-called
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sponsorship scandal or ad scam. Now, it's really important to key in on this because the Auditor General
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pointed something out quite recently, just a few weeks ago, and that is this. Apparently,
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bureaucrats in Ottawa have forgotten how to properly do up a contract, open it to public tender,
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and get ethical procurement of things. In normal people talk, what that means is the bureaucrats that
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you're paying on your taxpayer dime have forgotten their duty on how to properly give a contract to an
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outside agency without ethics violations. Listen to this. Given the investigations you've done so
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far on McKinsey and GC strategies, do you have a sense at this point of how widespread these issues
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are in the public service? Well, I can only speak to those two elements, and in both cases, the vendors
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represented a really small percentage of what was spent on professional services contracts by the
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federal government. But in the McKinsey work, we had looked at 10 crown corporations and 10 departments.
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In this audit, there's 31 federal organizations, including one crown and departments. And we found
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issues in almost every contract that we looked at, which tells me that there's no reason to believe
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it's limited to these two. And it's time for the public service to go back to the basics and
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understanding procurement rules and why they should be followed. Understanding procurement
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rules and why they should be followed. For folks who haven't worked in government, again,
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on Parliament Hill particularly, there's the ministers, okay, who are elected members of
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parliament who are then appointed to cabinet as cabinet ministers. They have staff. They're often referred
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to as political staff. So you've got, you know, people who are in strategy, people who are in
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stakeholder relations, communications professionals, etc. That's political staff. Next to that is the
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department, okay? The deputy minister is a bureaucrat, okay? They don't face election. They don't have to
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run for public office. They typically have a permanent job. Underneath that deputy minister is the entire
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department. There's communications people, like, you name it. They're all under there, okay? Those people
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should know how to do procurement, okay? This should be just part of their DNA. Back when I was a
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staffer, telling tales at a school, I don't care. When I was a staffer, I specifically remember somebody
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from the ethics commissioner giving everybody a briefing, giving staff members a briefing, political
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staff a briefing. We were all communications types. And she basically said, if you go out for coffee with a
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reporter, like a journalist on Parliament Hill, don't accidentally take home their pen, because I will
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consider that to be a gift that you will have to declare. I'm not kidding. So the idea that a permanent
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bureaucrat whose job it is to hand out taxpayers' money and to draw up contracts doesn't know how to
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do ethical procurement is a huge red flag. And it really speaks volumes. It shows you that it's no
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wonder we are spending money like crazy. Keep in mind, the arrive can app that most people loathed using
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and never really worked, should have cost taxpayers around $250,000. Around that. It wound up costing
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taxpayers more than $60 million. That is one example, one example of a huge screw up on Parliament Hill.
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And it's one example of why they cannot get their spending under control. And they have to get their
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spending under control. Otherwise, we're going to hit a debt interest crisis. Let's find out how much we
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need to save in order to balance the budget and start paying down the debt and avoid a huge debt
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interest crisis. How can we avoid this crisis? Let's find out. Joining me now is my good friend and
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federal director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, Franco Terrazzano. Franco, he's stationed in Ottawa.
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I like to nickname it Mordor. I'm picturing what's going on right now, Franco, in relation to these so-called
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cuts. So in the middle of summer, the kids aren't in school, the MPs aren't sitting there,
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the leader of the Conservative Party doesn't have a seat. It feels like the phony war moment right now,
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going into the capital from here. What's it like out there? Are the unions freaking out? Is Carney
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actually going to make the cuts that he needs to make? Oh, I mean, there's a lot to dive into there.
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But Chris, like, look, you asked me if the union bosses are freaking out. I mean, come on.
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They are freaking out. They're fear-mongering over a spending review. Okay? Fear-mongering
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over a spending review. So here's what's going on. Look, Ottawa has been wasting money like crazy
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for more than a decade now, right? Like, look, back in like 2015, 2016, the federal government was
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spending around $290 billion. Well, last year, the federal government spent more than $500 billion.
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So even after accounting for inflation, you got spending up more than 40% in a decade. Okay?
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So Carney comes along, he's like, okay, we're going to do a spending review because like debt
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is spiraling out of control. And you've got the union bosses fear-mongering, right? You know,
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calling this potential savings draconian rollbacks. You know, another union was talking about how it's
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going to hurt everyone in Canada who depends on vital public services. And you know, my response
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to that is like, oh, really? Now government union bosses are worried about services really now,
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right? After the federal government rubber-stemmed hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses,
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added tens of thousands of extra bureaucrats, handed out thousands of pay raises every single year.
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Now union bosses are worried about the services. Like, come on folks. Like if more government
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spending and more government bureaucrats meant better services, then there would be no potholes
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left in Canada, right? There would be no wait times in hospitals. Like, come on after this
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bureaucrat hiring spree, all taxpayers really got out of this deal is just higher taxes and a bigger debt
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bill. Yeah. Because again, not to belabor it, we pay their wages. We pay their salaries. Taxpayers pay
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the wages for all of these government employees. You raised a very good point there. Some folks will
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be like, oh, well, it's essential. We need to nationalize everything. We need to have the
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government take care of us. Okay. Let's go along with that line of logic. How's your healthcare doing?
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How's the passport office being run? How's Canada Post working out for you lately? Like we're,
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we're getting such crappy service coming from the federal government and yet they don't want to
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actually make these cuts. How do we square the circle? Well, here's another little stat I'm going
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to drop on you folks. Okay. So since 2016, the cost of the bureaucracy has gone up 73%.
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Now ask yourself, I'm laughing because to ask the question is to answer it. Have you been getting
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anywhere close to 73% better services from the federal government? I mean, look, unless you're taking a
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taxpayer paycheck, that answer is a big fat no. I mean, here's another point, right? Like you are
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now paying for 99,000 more federal bureaucrats today than you were just 10 years ago. Look,
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the CRA, the Canada Revenue Agency has seen the second biggest increase in the number of bureaucrats.
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And like, are you even able to get a CRA bureaucrat on the phone? The answer is, of course not. And you know,
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like we've got these union bosses that are fear mongering right now over what seems to be any
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potential savings. Um, but like, look, I think the union bosses need to be upfront, up front with
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their membership. And, and that is that the biggest, the single biggest threat to a bureaucrat's
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paycheck. It's not political ideology. It's not a pressure campaign. It's interest charges on the debt.
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Okay. You want to know what will really cut healthcare transfers or will really cut the number of
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bureaucrats. It's not political ideology. It's interest charges and interest charges on the debt
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are spiraling out of control. Let's go there right now. I will also point out this always blows me away.
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And whenever you raise this on the podcast, am I correct in saying that the average pay,
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the average salary for the typical government employee is now over a hundred thousand dollars
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federally per year? Well, okay. The average compensation, when you look at the salary,
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the pension, the bonuses, the other types of perks, the average compensation for a federal
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bureaucrat is 125,000 bucks a year. The average compensation, 125 grand. Hey, Chris, uh, as you'll
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know, right, the federal government doesn't publish a sunshine list. Okay. They do not proactively disclose
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the number of top earners that they have in the federal government, unlike the vast majority of
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provinces, by the way. However, your friends at the Canadian taxpayers federation, we filed an access
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to information requests to find out, you know, how many bureaucrats in the federal government are
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getting a six figure base salary. Chris, this is going to blow your mind. There are 110,000 federal
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employees with a base salary of more than a hundred grand, 110,000 employees. Okay. That means about one
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third of the entire federal bureaucracy gets a six figure base salary. Brutal. Absolutely brutal. So folks,
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when you're thinking about this, okay, and you're thinking about half your paycheck disappearing in
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taxes, levies and fees, okay, to various levels of government, remember what Franco just said about
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a third of the employees at the federal government level, you just said, make over six figures, make
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over a hundred grand. Yeah. Salary. Brutal. Absolutely brutal. Okay. Let's get into the debt interest because
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I'll, I'll be upfront. I think a lot of people don't like thinking about the federal debt because
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they don't like thinking about their own debt. A lot of people are fighting to afford basics right
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now. They're living paycheck to paycheck. They're within 200 bucks every month of not being able to
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make the minimum payments on things like their car, their rent, and yes, their debts. But here's the
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issue folks. We have to think about it because otherwise the politicians will refuse to, and
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they won't fight it. And we're all the ones paying the interest on this darn thing. So Franco, get into
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it for us. How much is the debt right now? And how much is the interest payment on the debt costing
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taxpayers? Well, the debt is more than $1.2 trillion, which is crazy because fast forward back to 2015,
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and the debt was about 600 billion. So in less than a decade, the Trudeau government doubled the
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national debt, which means that your kids and your grandkids are going to be making payments on that
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debt for the rest of their lives. But of course, it's not just the debt, right? The sum total that
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you have to be worried about because the interest charges alone on the debt are astronomically high.
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Okay. So interest charges on the debt are costing taxpayers about 54, 55 billion dollars a year.
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Okay. Which means that interest charges are blowing a $1 billion hole in the budget every single week.
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Now let's give some context to that. Okay. That's a brand new hospital that isn't getting built
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every week because that money's going to the bond fund managers on Bay Street to pay interest on the
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debt. Or let's put it like two other ways here. Okay. Last year, the federal government spent more
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money on interest charges than it sent to the provinces in health transfers. Okay. That's how
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crazy it's getting. Or think about it this way. Welcome to Canada, where every dollar you pay in
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federal sales tax goes to pay interest on the debt. So to really sum it up, think what we could do without
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this massive debt. Okay. We could nearly double health transfers, or we could essentially eliminate
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the entire federal sales tax. Picture that folks. And imagine, Franco, you made a good point there
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about a billion dollar hospital and not being built. Perhaps a stronger visualization is, okay,
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everybody gather around every Saturday evening. We're going to stand around a brand new hospital,
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shiny new paint. Nobody's inside of it yet. Burn it down. Every single week. That's just the interest
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on the debt. Burn down that new hospital structure every single week. This is madness,
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and this is where we're spiraling to. Now, I'm old enough to recognize this movie. I've seen this movie
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before. And that's actually when the Canadian Taxpayers Federation got started. Back in 1990,
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people were super ticked off about the GST. You just mentioned the GST. They were super ticked off about
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the huge debt, okay? And the deficits and the interest payments. Do you think we are hitting
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that wall? Because regardless of color of the team jersey, okay, it was the red team, actually.
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It was Paul Martin who said that damn clock, the debt clock, we've got to slay this deficit. We have
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to balance the budget. Do you think we're coming around to that moment again? Regardless of who's in,
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do you think Carney has the chops to say, you know what, we got to put the brakes on this spending spree?
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You know, I'm glad you brought up the point about the early 90s. And what's that old saying, like,
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history doesn't repeat, but it rhymes, right? I think we're getting to that part of the song again,
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you know what I mean? But look, and let me just bring back the point I made earlier, where it's
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that these union bosses need to be honest with their membership, because it's not really political
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ideology that will lead to nurses getting fired, teachers getting fired, or hospitals getting closed
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down. It's debt interest charges, right? And that's what happened in the 90s. Look, you brought
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up the Liberals in Ottawa that made spending cuts, right? The red team. And also, Chris, in your
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backyard in Alberta, you had the PCs, the Klein government, that, you know, save people money,
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cut spending, held up that paid in full sign in the summer of 2004, right? I reminisce about those days,
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but also the orange team in Saskatchewan in the 90s, right? With the finance minister, Janice McKinnon
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at the time, what did they have to do? Because the massive interest charges, how much it costs
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for the government to borrow money? Well, they had to close what, like 50 hospitals across that
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prairie province. So this kind of goes back to the whole point that we're making. Look,
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either the federal government under Mr. Carney, either they roll up their sleeves and they find some
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savings today or big time spending cuts are going to be forced on them tomorrow. And Chris, to segue
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back to the first part of this conversation, you asked me, is Carney really making cuts? Well,
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look, I actually don't even think he's going to bring down total spending. Okay. What everything
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that I've heard from the Carney government is that debt is still going to go up. And yes,
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they're going to try to find savings in some areas of the budget, but they're going to compensate
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that so to speak with higher spending elsewhere. So the only thing that I can see from the Carney
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government based on what has been tabled before us today is that they will find some savings around
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the edges, but really overall spending is still going to go up, maybe just not as fast as it did
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under the Trudeau era. I want you to debunk a couple of things here for viewers here of the Candace
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Malcolm show. Often we'll hear prime minister Carney say things to the parliamentary press
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gallery like, Oh, I'm going to cut spending. It's going to be investing. It's government. Like,
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it's not like he's taking his own money or, you know, uh, harvesting from an orchard of money trees.
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It's still government spending, right? Like, is there a difference? Is there a difference between
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operational spending and capital spending? Is there a difference between government spending and what
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they're calling investing here? Okay. So you're so right to say that every single dollar, whether
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they call it spending, investing, throwing the money out of a window, every single dollar is still
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taxpayers money. And all of that money over and above the revenue take in that's more money added to the
00:23:05.960
debt, more money wasted on debt interest charges. Now, look, Chris, I can tell you, look, I just bought
00:23:10.760
a 24 pack of a Canadian, but don't worry. It was an investment. You know what I mean? Like,
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so a lot of it also depends on what they decide to classify as operating spending versus capital
00:23:21.960
spending. Now, obviously what we're worried about at the Canadian taxpayers federation is we're
00:23:26.200
worried about accounting trickery, right? Oh, they might cut some operating spending, but what they're
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really doing is just changing the title and then calling it capital spending, right? So it's really
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hard to tell, uh, in an objective way, what is actually operating versus what is capital spending
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other than what the government just wants to use as different labels? Um, like, look,
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can you make the case that some type of capital might have long-term impact? Yes, maybe. Okay.
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But it's still more money going out the window. And I would say this, instead of just reorganizing or
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relabeling what different types of spending is, we should see overall spending going down. Okay.
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Because after the last 10 years of out of, out of control, runaway borrowing, look,
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finding savings in every area of the budget should be like finding water in the ocean.
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Two more questions for you. One, uh, do our creditors care like the bond fund managers on
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Bay street? Like you, like you often say, do they care if this is capital spending or operational
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spending, or is this just a bottom line of going into deeper debt? Oh, they absolutely will care
00:24:29.960
if all of that extra spending means more debt, right? So they w they will totally care. Um, if like
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all of this new budgeting still means more debt, right? And here's where the problem is even during
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the election where Carney was saying, he's going to split the budget into operating capital. Well,
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if you actually look at his numbers, Carney wants to add $225 billion to the debt over the next four
00:24:52.280
years, $225 billion folks. Let's put that into context over those years. Trudeau wanted to add
00:24:59.080
about $131 billion to the debt. Okay. So Carney is planning on adding about a hundred billion dollars
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more to the debt than even what Trudeau was planning to add, right? The banker supposed to
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be better with the numbers and the drama teacher, but the banker is adding almost a hundred billion
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dollars more debt than what even Trudeau was planning to do. So you asked me, will they care?
00:25:21.080
Of course they will care if we're already more than a trillion dollars in debt. And then over the
00:25:25.800
next four years, the federal government adds $225 billion to that tab. Okay. Last question. And I think
00:25:32.520
it might be one of our favorite questions that we get at the Canadian taxpayers federation is okay,
00:25:37.720
tough guy, where do you want to cut first? Do you want to cut, you know, gruel budget for orphans
00:25:43.400
or do you want to cut hip replacements for little old ladies? Like I'm often, there's so much waste that
00:25:48.840
you and I cover and all of our team covers that the taxpayers federation, I get so mad that I feel
00:25:54.040
like just cutting government by like 80%, see which wheels fall off. Then I'll actually care about adding
00:26:01.000
things back onto this clown car, but in all seriousness, where can he find savings? Where
00:26:07.480
can he cut? Are there some big cuts that he could make that would instantly balance this budget?
00:26:13.000
Yeah. I mean, look, let's, let's talk about the small things. Okay. The infuriating examples of
00:26:17.240
waste. I don't know. Uh, maybe don't spend 8 million bucks building a barn on the governor
00:26:22.760
general's estate. Like Chris, I don't know about the first thing about farming, but my buddies back in,
00:26:27.560
back at Brooks, uh, could build a barn for a lot less than 8 million bucks. Right. Uh, or how about
00:26:32.120
this? I don't know. Call me old fashioned, but maybe we don't need to spend 8,800 bucks on a sex
00:26:36.840
toy show in Germany titled whose jizz is this, right? Right. I knew you were going to say that.
00:26:43.560
Yeah. Yeah. I did it for you. Uh, or, or, or I don't know, uh, 12 grand outsourcing old people,
00:26:48.680
sex stories in other countries, right? The government spent 12 grand. So seniors in other countries can talk
00:26:54.040
about their sex lives in front of live audiences in other countries. So look, there's, there's a
00:26:58.760
small examples of ways. Uh, the big examples though, like, look, there is no way to balance
00:27:03.640
the budget, to fix the budget and cut taxes without firing bureaucrats. There's no way,
00:27:08.360
there's no way around it. Okay. Because the federal government added 99,000 bureaucrats in, in a decade.
00:27:14.280
Okay. Now, uh, more than half of the government's day to day spending is consumed by the bureaucracy.
00:27:20.120
In fact, look, if you, if the government just increased the bureaucracy to stay in line with
00:27:24.680
population growth over the last 10 years, uh, we would be saving $7 billion a year.
00:27:30.040
So the big place to cut is the bureaucracy. I'll give you one more area that the government
00:27:34.360
must cut. And it's another big one, corporate welfare. Hey, how about this? How about you let
00:27:39.640
people and businesses keep more of their own money rather than hiking taxes on Canadians and Canadian
00:27:44.520
entrepreneurs, and then turning around and giving bucks of cash to multinational corporations,
00:27:49.640
right? Uh, like the government put taxpayers on the hook for like $30 billion to multinational
00:27:54.520
corporations, like what Honda, Volkswagen, Stellantis and Northvolt. So look, there's a bunch of the
00:28:00.040
small ways that we could talk about the entire show. Uh, but the two big items that they have to
00:28:04.840
really tackle is the bureaucracy and then just completely ending corporate welfare and to grow
00:28:09.800
the economy. How about you cut taxes, cut regulations and get out of the way.
00:28:14.120
You've got so many stats. Just one second. Did you just say that if the feds had kept spending
00:28:19.320
in line with population growth, they'd save $7 billion a year?
00:28:22.600
Uh, no, no, no, no. I was only talking about the bureaucracy.
00:28:26.280
Oh yeah. So only the, only the bureaucracy, like me, yeah, yeah, yeah. You're giving them too much credit.
00:28:33.720
Uh, no, no, no. Like folks, if, if think about it this way, the bureaucracy grew out of control
00:28:39.400
so wildly that if they just allowed the bureaucracy to grow in line with population
00:28:44.760
growth, and you know how much Canada has grown over the last 10 years, if that we would save
00:28:50.440
about $7 billion a year, just by keeping bureaucracy growth in line with population growth,
00:28:55.400
$7 billion a year. I work with him every day, folks, and he still continues to amaze me.
00:29:00.840
Uh, Franco Teresano, thank you so much for your time. Thanks for joining the Candace Malcolm show.
00:29:05.400
Hey, that was fun. We should do this more often.
00:29:10.120
That's it for the Candace Malcolm show for today. Thank you so much for listening and for watching.
00:29:15.480
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