Parliament returns as Carney warns of WORSE deficit
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Summary
We're back in session in the House of Commons, and things are heating up in Ottawa. Today, we're joined by Franco Terrazzano, federal director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, to talk about what's going on.
Transcript
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Welcome to the Candace Malcolm Show. It is Monday, September 15th, 2025. My name is Chris Sims. I'm the Alberta Director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, filling in for Candace this Monday. Thank you so much for making us a part of your day and your work week. We hope that you're energized and ready to fight for changes. Speaking of fighting for changes, they're back.
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Ottawa's House of Commons is back in session. That means that more than 300 members of Parliament from all around Canada are now gathering in the nation's capital. They're back in the House of Commons. They're going to be doing question period. They're going to be arguing about things like debts, deficits, and how to spend your money.
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And also, very importantly, they're going to be arguing about things like the looming ban on the sale of normal gasoline and diesel-powered vehicles.
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They're going to be arguing in committee for lots of things that affect both your basic fundamental rights, like freedom of expression, and things that hit your wallet, like how much they're going to be spending.
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Are they going to be adding to the debt? It actually sounds grim. It sounds like Prime Minister Mark Carney is trying to prepare people for an enormous deficit, meaning adding more money onto the federal debt than they were even planning to do.
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And folks, for those of us who have had a troubling last few days because of what we saw happen in the United States, we're here for you.
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You're not alone. I want everybody to know that you're not alone.
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So I just want to encourage people to reach out to their friends and family.
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You can talk about stuff like this, okay? It's important to talk about things like this and to mark when bad things happen.
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What I find helps, personally, is really putting my shoulder to the wheel in order to push for positive changes.
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So that includes, in my world, holding government to account, telling our elected members of parliament, parliament literally means like to speak, okay?
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To speak for us, to truly stand up for us, to say things like we are tired of having nearly half of our incomes taken from us by various levels of government, and we want lower taxes.
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We are tired of seeing government wasting money on absurd things, and we are done with it.
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We are tired, for example, of government-funded media.
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Journalists should never be paid by the government.
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The vast majority of what we would call the mainstream media or legacy media are on the government dole now.
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So, we've also got a looming ban on the sale of normal gasoline and diesel-powered vehicles.
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We don't have the electricity to charge these battery-powered cars.
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And lastly, it's not supposed to be up to the government what kind of vehicle you purchase and you choose to drive.
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You need to be able to purchase vehicles that suit what you need for your work and your family.
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So, a lot of very important topics are coming to a head very quickly in Ottawa.
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He is the federal director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
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He's also one of my best friends in the whole wide world.
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Franco, just give us a feeling of what it's like right now.
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I know there's lots of members of Parliament that are back on Parliament Hill.
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And look, there's always a lot of noise going on, right?
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But I think there's going to be two big fights right around the corner during this session of Parliament.
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We don't know exactly when the budget is going to be.
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We expect it to be sometime this fall, maybe October, maybe even November.
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But I think that's going to be a massive fight.
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Because our finances, the government's finances, are an absolute mess.
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Interest charges on the debt costing taxpayers more than $1 billion every single week.
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The second big fight that I think is heating up is that if Carney's serious in any way about fixing the budget,
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But if he's serious in any way, then the big fight also is going to be with the bureaucracy.
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As you already see, government union bosses playing chicken little, running around, claiming the sky will fall
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if the federal government finally fires some bureaucrats and save taxpayers some money.
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And we have a few clips to play for our viewers and for our listeners.
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And this is classic, trying to soften the blow of, oh, you know that bad budget we were expecting?
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Your House leader said this morning that the deficit will be, quote, substantial.
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How big are we talking and what does that mean for future cuts?
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Substantial means it'll be bigger than it was last year.
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So, Franco, can you explain just how we cannot afford a bigger deficit?
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Yeah, well, let's start, number one, with the interest charges on the debt, right?
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I already mentioned that the interest payments on the government credit card are costing taxpayers
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So essentially, we're losing out on a brand new hospital every single week because of
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the massive government borrowing and debt interest charge problem.
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But let me just put it into further context, okay?
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Every dollar that you paid in federal sales tax last year went to pay interest charges
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Think about that next time you're standing in the checkout line, that every dollar you're
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paying in federal sales tax is not going to services, not improving the roads, right?
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That money is just going to the bond fund managers on Bay Street to service the debt.
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The federal government wasted more money paying interest on the debt than what it sent to the
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So think about this massive government debt problem that we have and think about what we
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We could essentially remove the federal sales tax or double federal health transfer.
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So the government has really got itself into a huge mess because of out-of-control spending
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And now hearing Carney saying that the deficit could grow?
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Like, that's equivalent to the full-time salaries of about 5,000 cops plus 5,000 paramedics.
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The annual salaries per week, that's what we're blowing on interest payments.
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I wanted to get your reaction to this as well because you and I at the Canadian Taxpayers
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Federation, one of the main things we're fighting federally is just the enormous size of the
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Like, the one stat that always blows my mind that you told me, and I still can't wrap my
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head around it, is you did the math or you figured out the math.
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And if we had kept pace with the growth of population, we'd be saving, like, billions
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We would have 60,000 fewer paper pushers in Ottawa and taxpayers would be saving seven
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billion dollars every single year if the bureaucracy had just grown in line with population over
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Folks, listen to how crazy, how big, how bloated the federal government has become.
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The feds have added about 100,000 extra bureaucrats since 2016.
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The cost of the bureaucracy has gone up 77%, right?
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Now, ask yourself, are you getting anywhere close to 77% better services from the federal
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We actually commissioned a Leger poll that shows that half of Canadians say federal services
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have gotten worse since 2016, despite the bureaucracy costs going up 77%.
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So, you know, Simmer, clearly adding more government bureaucrats does not mean better outcomes for Canadians.
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So far, unfortunately, it looks like Prime Minister Mark Carney is caving.
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Looks like he's wussing out because he was asked about the size of the bureaucracy and he used
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The cap relates to the level, yeah, the overall level and the adjustments that will happen naturally
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There's a certain age cohort in the public sector.
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You know, people leave employment, whether it's in the public or private sector, for a variety
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Attractive opportunities outside, retirement on the other side.
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So we'll be managing, we'll be managing through that.
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You know, translation there, Franco, is let's do nothing.
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That's literally what that means of like, oh, I don't actually need to wait in there and
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make some cuts and tell people that you have a pink slip and we're reducing people.
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Can't we just let nature take its course, put our heads in the sand and do nothing?
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Chris, if I gained 100 pounds in one year and I said, don't worry, you know what?
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You would be like, Franco, I love you, but you got to do some cardio, okay?
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You're going to have to do some sit-ups, some crunches, some push-ups.
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I mean, look, the government just added 100,000 extra bureaucrats in a decade.
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And now they think attrition is going to cut it.
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We got to cut the number of federal bureaucrats immediately and significantly.
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Now, let's bring in the political element here, okay?
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Because Carney has tried to sell himself during the election and now as the practical guy,
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He's going to come in here, look at the data and do the right thing.
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But what this shows me is that he is succumbing to the political pressure within the Liberal
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Some of his Liberal backbenchers, maybe some ministers, maybe Carney himself, who has a
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riding in Ottawa, is succumbing to the pressure of the government union bosses.
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Because look, if you look at the data where the federal government added 100,000 bureaucrats
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in a decade, where the federal bureaucracy costs gone up 77% a decade, and yet Canadians are
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still getting lackluster, poor, brutal services from the federal government, anyone who's being
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objective or practical will look at these numbers and say, attrition is not serious.
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We have to significantly shrink the size and cost of the federal bureaucracy.
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Now, to stay with this political element for a second here, you know, I really do hope
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that the conservatives, the official opposition under Pierre Polyev, who now is in a riding
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in Alberta, will now feel like they are justified to go after and hold the Carney government accountable.
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Because look, taxpayers can't keep paying for an unaffordable, bloated federal bureaucracy.
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So I think Carney needs to backtrack off of this.
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I think he has to roll up his sleeves and actually cut the number of bureaucrats.
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And I think Mr. Polyev and his official opposition need to hold the government accountable and push
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Yep, no longer will Pierre Polyev have in the back of his mind, oh, what about those
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Manitic mansions that are full of bureaucrats that I'm going to be trying to door knock on
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Not a lot of federal bureaucrats that are at the doors there.
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So I'm expecting, I'm expecting a tone intensification.
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I won't say change because they were calling for cuts, but I'm expecting that to be amplified
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We have one more clip to play for our listeners.
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Speaking of people who have ridings in the National Capital Region, this is the House leader.
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And for people who, you know, aren't huge political nerds, okay?
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So in Parliament Hill, there's more than 300 members of Parliament.
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They're from different parties and they all sit together in different groups.
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And within those parties, within those seats in Parliament Hill, there's different kind
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Sometimes they're cabinet ministers and sometimes they actually have a couple of different portfolios.
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So that's the job, like that's what the term means, to whip them into line, make sure they're
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all voting the right way, make sure that they've got their butts in their seats at the right
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This is the government house leader who has a riding right there in Ottawa.
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The house leader is important because they're the ones that help direct the right answers
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to the questions and the questions when you're expecting answers on different sides in the
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What do you say to Canadians who were voting for you and Mr. Carney who said that he will take
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care of the economy and now you are clearly preparing the groundwork for a substantial
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deficit and austerity, things that Canadians may not have voted for last spring?
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I mean, Canadians certainly had the full financial picture for the previous fiscal year.
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What do you say in terms of what you're telling Canadians?
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Austerity, that is not anything that we have heard in the campaign.
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And these substantial deficits, not what we heard in the campaign.
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We talked about spending less and investing more, and that's exactly what we continue
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That was interesting, hearing pointed, directional, factual questions coming from the mainstream
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Franco, is this what we heard during the election campaign?
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From what I remember, I remember Mark Carney saying things like he was going to invest,
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And he was going to do some budget tricks with splitting it between operational, right?
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So is this lining up with what we heard during the election?
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Well, in a sense, kind of, only because I think Carney has been about as clear as mud
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Like, that's the only reason it kind of does, because I think he's been clear as mud the
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Like, look, I want to kind of bridge the gap between the debt that we're talking about
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If you do look at Carney's election platform, he was planning to add $225 billion to the
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On top of what already happened, $225 billion extra debt.
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For comparison, that's about $100 billion more of debt than what even Trudeau was planning
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So, you know, Carney, the banker is supposed to be better with the numbers than the drama
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Yet, the banker is planning on adding almost $100 billion more of debt than what even Trudeau
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Now, to bring it back to the bureaucracy is, look, during the election, Carney said he was
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going to balance the operating budget by, you know, 2028.
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Number one, if the debt keeps going up, that's not a balanced budget, okay?
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If Canadians' kids, grandkids, and, you know, great-grandkids are saddled with one penny
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more of debt, that's not a balanced budget, okay?
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If Carney's first budget, if Carney spends one penny more than Trudeau, that will be a
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Because after the last decade of runaway spending, finding savings in every area of the budget
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And the one last thing I'm going to say, it's not just the number of bureaucrats that are a
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problem, so are the costs, like the perks, like the bonuses, okay?
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Well, that app ballooned from $80,000 to $60 million.
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Those government executives working on that app took in $340,000 in bonuses.
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And the problem is, that is the rule, not the exception, where the federal government has
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rubber-stamped $1.5 billion in taxpayer-funded bonuses to bureaucrats since 2015.
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While they're failing, I have to stress this, while they're failing, they are getting taxpayer-funded
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I want you to, well, we've got a couple minutes left here, Franco.
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For the six people out there who still think that the government isn't wasting money, and
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that if they had to, you know, if they actually cut bureaucrat positions and cut spending and
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balance the budget, that we would actually be cutting core services, you know, food for
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orphans and, you know, bus passes for war widows, okay?
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Can you get into some of the insane amounts of waste that we have seen?
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Like, some of the dumb stuff that comes to mind, like just right off the top of my head,
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is we spend $100,000 on a documentary about a shopping cart.
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Like, we spend taxpayers' money so bureaucrats can hold their own departmental podcasts,
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Can you just describe some of the crazy amounts of waste?
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I know we usually try to focus on the small first and get up to the big, because it's easier
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So, look, you talked about a research project, $100,000 to study the birth, life, and death
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I mean, maybe just phone up Bubbles from Trailer Park Boys, give them a stick of pepperoni,
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$20,000 to study gender politics of Peruvian rock music.
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Then there's your favorite waste of money, right?
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We talk about this all the time, the $8,800 for a sex toy show in Germany.
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I know you hate it when I ask, but $8,800 for a sex toy show in Germany.
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$12,000 so seniors in other countries could talk about their sex lives in front of live
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And Chris, this wasn't even Canadian seniors, right?
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The economy apparently has gotten so bad over the last decade that the federal government
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Let me give you another example of a waste of money, and, you know, I don't care.
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I'm just going to call out all political parties right now, is the raises that MPs give themselves
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So since 2020, the beginning of 2020, all MPs have taken six pay raises, while their constituents
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have struggled through pandemic government lockdowns, okay?
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Now this trade war with the United States, MPs have continued to stuff more pay in their
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A couple other examples, the government spent $8 million building a barn at Rideau Hall,
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If you look at all the corporate welfare the federal government hands out, federal corporate
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welfare is costing taxpayers about $11 billion a year.
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So that means federal subsidies to corporations is costing, you know, the average Canadian family
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Just think of all the families of four that you know, right?
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All right, Franco, while we're wrapping up here, so is it fair to say then that you see
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the looming budget, okay, and the fight to balance it, the size of the bureaucracy as the main
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Do you think that the fight against the ban on the sale of gasoline and diesel-powered vehicles,
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Will we be able to, like, have more than one focus?
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So we've already mentioned a couple focuses, the budget coming and the massive debt problem
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that we're in and going to try to get ourselves out of.
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We also mentioned the fight with the bureaucracy, the greedy government union bosses, right?
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And let me actually frame it with just within the economy and natural resources, okay?
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And there's two fights within that broader category.
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The first one is the ban on the sale of new gas and diesel vehicles by 2035.
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So Carney is announcing that he is delaying it by a year because that was, you know, that
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was supposed to start to kick in in 2026, but he's going to delay it by a year and do
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Number two, Carney says he's doing a 60-day review on this.
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That review better not turn into backroom negotiations where the government uses billions of taxpayer
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dollars in the form of corporate welfare to try to woo these corporations to get in
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But even beyond that, Chris, you're hearing a lot of talk about this major project office,
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The government trying to fast-track a couple natural resource projects.
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Taxpayers, Canadians, we don't need politicians and bureaucrats pretending like they know which
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We need these politicians and bureaucrats to get out of the way, to cut the regulations
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that are making it almost impossible for us to build major natural resource projects here
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That means getting rid of Bill C-69, the No More Pipelines law, Bill C-48, the discriminatory
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I don't want people to get confused when they're hearing Prime Minister Mark Carney talking about
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We don't want the government to use taxpayers' money to build the big things.
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As Franco has illustrated so well, we don't have the money to do this.
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It's going to wind up going way over budget, like we saw when Kinder Morgan walked away
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and the Canadian taxpayers had to take over building the Trans Mountain Pipeline.
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It wound up going way over budget, and it never should have happened.
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The issue here is that normal, like, investors, okay, around the world who have money to spend
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are looking around the world of where they want to put their wallet down, which park bench
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in the world are they comfortable putting their wallet down, where they will trust that
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it's going to be safeguarded and their investment will turn into good things, like functioning
00:23:35.580
Canada has broken that trust for the past 10 years.
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Now, these people with money are like, I'm not putting my money there.
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This isn't a government isn't building things enough problem.
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This is government has made it so that, you know, no big investors trust Canada enough
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So, I'm glad to hear them talking about, you know, big projects and getting our stuff out
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to market because it helps taxpayers that would help our economy and help workers, but
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Franco, thank you so much for joining us today.
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Have fun up on Parliament Hill and give him heck.
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He is the federal director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
00:24:20.460
Hey, we are all part of this, I would say, freedom movement, small government, more accountable
00:24:29.520
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00:24:34.760
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00:24:40.120
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00:24:47.980
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00:24:56.100
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