True Patriot Love

00:00:00.000 hello everyone today we're lucky enough to have franco terrazzano from the canadian

00:00:17.000 taxpayers association welcome franco hey thanks for having me on yeah hey so you know i got an

00:00:24.560 opportunity and i've been on your site before and i got an opportunity to kind of go through it again

00:00:29.420 i was amazed at the number of campaigns you guys are working on so you want to tell us a little

00:00:35.340 about what's hot uh for the taxpayers association of canada yeah i mean look we we've been working

00:00:42.120 on a ton of campaigns and uh we've come off a very big successful one as well right like our biggest

00:00:47.840 campaign for about a decade plus now has been against the carbon tax uh right we've been arguing

00:00:52.900 like look the carbon tax was all pain no gain right it would make your life more expensive make it more

00:00:58.320 expensive for you to fuel up your car to get to work right make it more expensive for you to heat

00:01:02.540 your home during the winter months and of course also just make it more expensive for you to buy

00:01:06.720 groceries because the cost of the carbon tax goes throughout the entire supply chain but like the

00:01:11.920 problem is is that a carbon tax on canadians that doesn't reduce emissions in places like china or

00:01:18.100 russia or india or the united states so you know that was one of our biggest campaigns uh you know

00:01:23.860 ordinary citizens push back and force the liberal government to end their own consumer carbon tax in

00:01:30.120 ottawa so that was a very successful campaign but like the big campaign that we're working on right

00:01:35.140 now is stop the debt right because government debt especially in ottawa is out of control out of

00:01:42.160 control right a baby born today she is crying because she's already on the hook for about 30 000

00:01:48.820 dollars in federal government debt alone oh no i know it's it's incredible you know and uh for a lot

00:01:56.340 of uh canadians don't realize you know uh we came out of covid all right and we came up with this massive

00:02:03.200 debt on an annual basis you know last year roughly what 62 billion or 60 billion um and it looks like

00:02:10.980 we're going to climb again this year uh based on all the commitments we're making now uh how do we stop

00:02:16.740 this insanity how do we go back to where we're not talking about the b word anymore and go to maybe

00:02:22.580 the b becomes about balanced budgets again well that would be great and that's really the end goal

00:02:27.780 right and here let me just uh take a little step back through time here right to the before the pandemic

00:02:33.860 days so when justin trudeau first became prime minister the federal debt stood at about 600 billion

00:02:40.260 dollars within a decade trudeau brought that 600 billion dollar debt tab all the way up to about

00:02:46.740 1.2 trillion right so let that sink in for the entire history of canada before trudeau the government

00:02:54.660 added about 600 billion dollars of debt in the span of less than 10 years trudeau doubled that debt

00:03:01.700 and the problem is twofold number one right canadians are going to be our canadians kids and grandkids are

00:03:07.860 going to be making payments on that debt for the rest of their lives that's unfair but the second

00:03:13.220 problem hurts us right here right now and because of the massive debts the government is now wasting

00:03:19.940 more than a billion dollars every single week paying interest on that debt right and what's a billion

00:03:27.540 dollars well the bill a billion dollars is a brand new hospital so every week we are losing out on a

00:03:33.380 brand new hospital because that money is going to pay interest on the federal debt yeah no i i get you

00:03:40.660 you know and it's interesting you know you look at a trillion dollars right we're not a big cut you

00:03:46.100 know i tell the people all the time we are not a big country population wise so and i know we want to

00:03:52.100 act like a big country and we want to act like we have a massive amount of capabilities to fund all these

00:03:58.020 projects but we have to kind of come to some reasonable thinking and i think you know we coming

00:04:03.940 out of covid we got going on this okay we're okay with deficits now we're okay with 60 billion dollars

00:04:10.420 in deficit we're okay to climb again and and you know it's interesting we we had on the other day uh

00:04:17.300 some people from the fraser institute actually from ottawa and we were talking about military spending and we

00:04:23.060 said okay you know add on sort of the new commitments to that whatever we end up spending

00:04:28.180 there's no firm commitment on that right now and you know to the existing deficit what are we going

00:04:33.700 to end up at so how do we how do we rejig this and how do we stop having the provinces this is the kind

00:04:41.220 of crazy part that i can't figure out how do we stop having the provinces looking for transfer payments to

00:04:47.540 increase that deficit so okay provinces let's kind of pull back a little let's stop because

00:04:53.860 it seems like you know and i was looking at your site you know there's some really interesting ones

00:04:58.740 whether it be you know projects like fifa or whatever where all of a sudden every time someone

00:05:04.420 needs money they say well let's get the federal government involved and then the federal government

00:05:08.820 steps up and they strike another check you know okay that project can go forward and there seems to be

00:05:16.500 uh no appetite for no you know why don't we just say no to some of these projects we say no then we

00:05:23.460 stop and then because if you look at the you know the financial statements i used to be a cpa in my old

00:05:29.860 life um we look at the financial statements a lot of those deficits are coming because we keep

00:05:36.100 transferring all this money down to the provinces to keep them with these crazy projects so uploading

00:05:42.420 downloading lending money to the provinces funding projects we got to stop well you know okay so there

00:05:50.980 as you know right there's this big perverse incentive in government and among politicians

00:05:56.020 right and and that's this simple intuition is that you're going to be more wasteful spending wise

00:06:02.180 when you're spending other people's money right when it's your own money that you worked hard to earn

00:06:06.980 you're going to be more conscious of the decisions that you're making with those dollars and cents

00:06:11.860 but politicians and government bureaucrats who are essentially not essentially they are spending other

00:06:17.060 people's money they are less constrained by that simple fact of life right so there's a couple things

00:06:22.820 that have to happen number one uh there has to be some laws around spending and laws around debt

00:06:30.820 accumulation and we saw some of these laws come into place especially in the 90s and we saw them

00:06:36.820 like throughout the different provinces right where there's taxpayer protection legislation right outlawing

00:06:42.660 debts and deficits outside of extreme circumstances uh limitations on how much spending can go up every

00:06:50.180 single year right those are the hard concrete laws that should be put into place to limit the

00:06:56.260 frivolousness of politicians and bureaucrats who are spending other people's money now the other thing

00:07:02.180 that has to happen is more of a cultural shift right so and i'm really um talking about a cultural

00:07:07.780 shift among our political and government leaders because the problem with what they're doing right now

00:07:13.940 is that if they don't make tough decisions today really tough and bad decisions are going to be forced on

00:07:20.340 them tomorrow and we saw this happen throughout the 90s uh all levels of government all governments of

00:07:26.580 all different political stripes let me just give you a new democrat example that happened in saskatchewan

00:07:32.740 right the saskatchewan government let its deficits balloon so out of control that an ndp government

00:07:39.300 in saskatchewan in the 90s was forced to close down 50 hospitals across that province and that's a perfect

00:07:46.740 example of how it's not so much political ideology but the forces acting on governments through higher

00:07:53.300 interest payments that will really force uh politicians of all political stripes to uh make

00:07:59.300 really really tough decisions in the future if they don't make some of the tough decisions today

00:08:05.460 no no i'm with you totally with you hey so talk to me a little bit you know uh i see on your site

00:08:12.100 basically uh fifa let's talk about that for a minute i was really curious so you know uh looks

00:08:19.780 like you guys want some reining in of spending on that one well we don't think that taxpayers should

00:08:26.100 be on the hook for fifa at all right we do we don't think that and look i don't think that's a good

00:08:31.620 use of of taxpayers money to hold uh you know essentially a couple soccer games right like like

00:08:37.620 think about how much money is going into this and you know i'll actually bring back an example that

00:08:42.340 on a referendum that i led when i was in calgary and that was a referendum against the the winter

00:08:47.780 olympics and you know we were fortunate enough we had the backing of the people that we were successful

00:08:52.900 in stopping that olympic uh bid boondoggle but but it's the principles are the same right like look

00:08:58.660 when you have governments that are massively in debt like the ontario government like the bc

00:09:03.860 government and the federal government there's no way that taxpayers money should be going um

00:09:08.900 essentially so wealthy people can attend sporting events like that's just a fundamental bad use of

00:09:15.700 scarce tax dollars well you know it's interesting so as a torontonian i i watched that kind of evolve

00:09:22.580 and you know it's amazing how it started you know at a such a low number you know fifa's coming and it's

00:09:28.820 going to cost you x right now what is it escalated to it's like in the hundreds of millions right yeah

00:09:36.180 i don't have the exact figure off the top of my head but it's absolutely astonishing and i'm glad

00:09:41.220 you brought up the cost overruns because this is what always happens right politicians they want to 0.95

00:09:45.620 host a press conference and they want to be like look at all this you know this great deal that we're

00:09:50.500 getting and then months go by oops the bill is more months go by even more oops the bill went up again

00:09:56.980 sorry taxpayers you're left with this massive debt right so we we ended up with john tory remember that

00:10:02.820 was a john tory announcement then next thing you know he's gone olivia comes in you know we're getting

00:10:08.340 the news well you know i took over but it's not going to cost this it's going to cost this and then

00:10:13.300 recently again we're getting it again when you know when does the bucks uh stop you know when do we

00:10:19.780 actually say you know someone's got to be accountable for this right and i agree with you that you know

00:10:25.620 passing laws that actually keep this in check needs to happen but but how do you make it happen

00:10:31.300 so how are you guys you know it the always challenging to figure out how to create a big

00:10:38.500 enough let's call it not a dirty word but a lobby to get this enacted so you stop these things happening

00:10:45.380 so what is the i know you know you you create a site you guys are active you know what can people do

00:10:52.500 to get involved to make these changes well let me just start with our political philosophy okay so

00:10:58.420 um you know one of my favorite premiers of all time maybe my favorite premier is ralph klein right the

00:11:03.940 former premier who was in alberta during the 90s he held up that big beautiful sign in 2004 and it said

00:11:11.300 paid in full right the klein government in alberta paid down the debt and let me just like start by

00:11:17.220 saying that in the early 90s alberta's finances were a mess right like they were a mess and the

00:11:24.260 klein government they came in they put in balanced budget legislation laws requiring certain debt

00:11:30.420 repayment over time and that allowed klein to hold up that sign in 2004 after more than a decade of very

00:11:36.900 tough decisions from that government now the reason i bring up klein is now i'm going to paraphrase but he

00:11:42.500 said something to the extent of the job of a successful politician is to figure out where the

00:11:47.940 parade is going and get in front okay so the reason that i i bring that up is because our job is to try

00:11:55.620 to you know create a mass of people who want the government to act in you know the right way for

00:12:01.940 taxpayers to respect taxpayers money so we try to create that parade to force politicians who want to 0.67

00:12:08.420 get re-elected or get elected uh to be able to do so in a sense right so we create the mass and then

00:12:15.380 with that mass we force politicians who want to get re-elected to adopt taxpayer-friendly policies

00:12:20.900 um very similar way as what we did with the carbon tax fight you know about a decade ago uh or it was

00:12:28.500 really only two organizations who were fighting carbon taxes number one was the canadian taxpayers

00:12:33.300 federation and number two was the bradwall government in saskatchewan but you know a lot

00:12:39.060 of the other provinces were bringing in carbon taxes right uh i believe it was the wind government

00:12:43.780 in ontario brought in a form of carbon tax of course you had the trudeau liberals in ottawa who brought

00:12:49.140 in the national carbon tax and i remember you know when i moved when i first moved to ottawa about uh

00:12:55.060 four years ago i remember people saying franco you're crazy there's no way politicians will get elected

00:13:01.060 unless they run on a carbon tax well isn't isn't it funny how things change where now the only way

00:13:08.260 for a politician to get elected is to oppose uh carbon taxes right so that's how we kind of create

00:13:14.900 the momentum using um you know allowing ctf supporters to join other fellow tax fighters to

00:13:21.540 push politicians in the right directions for uh for taxpayers yeah well done no and you know great uh

00:13:28.580 you know before we leave you know just to mention to everyone please visit the site donate and

00:13:33.460 participate because this is a great site and and a good initiative um you know what i wanted to ralph

00:13:39.780 klein you know so let's talk a little bit about that because that's an interesting one the end of his

00:13:44.740 talk a little bit about you know why his you know premiership came to an end and you know what

00:13:50.660 we're learning now well i think there's a couple lessons that we can learn from the klein era and i'll go

00:13:56.660 from the beginning one lesson from the beginning one lesson from the end so a lesson from the beginning

00:14:01.700 before they're really exercising this fiscal restraint the klein government did something

00:14:06.820 quite noble right where it cut the um it cut the minister's budgets and also the pay

00:14:14.420 of politicians and government bureaucrats right so what what they said is like look we need to have

00:14:19.380 the moral authority to actually sell savings to the public so everyone needs to take a cut everyone

00:14:25.220 needs to take a cut i mean the klein government they ended the pension plans for mlas in alberta

00:14:31.780 right so they showed leadership by example by tightening their own belts and another way that

00:14:36.500 the klein government handled the government union bosses because as you'll know that is always one of the 0.74

00:14:41.460 tougher groups to oppose to force cuts well the klein government said look uh there's a media scrum

00:14:47.300 right out here i'm going to tell the media you guys either take a five percent pay cut or we're going to

00:14:52.500 lay off more government employees you can make that decision right so that was one of the way that the

00:14:57.700 klein government was able to sell uh spending cuts to albertans by showing leadership within the government

00:15:04.180 itself now the second lesson from the klein government is a little bit of a bad one it's a warning

00:15:10.260 right because once klein held up that sign paid in full in 2004 after that happened uh the progressive

00:15:17.300 conservative spending in alberta ballooned out of control right so it kind of shows a lesson uh the

00:15:24.340 need for eternal vigilance because just because a government does something good in the early days

00:15:29.700 you have to stay vigilant to keep the government doing good stuff in its later days right and then

00:15:36.340 covet remember the whole covet tobacco that hit and all that craziness and you know we're still kind of

00:15:42.580 not wrapped up our whole uh review of covet spending you know and it came back up uh what last week

00:15:50.020 it was in the news quite a bit you know is there any summary of what was spending covet or review

00:15:56.020 go back recap uh you know again we haven't done that yet right so well and there was a crazy

00:16:02.580 crazy amount of waste and unaccountability happening during covet right like you might remember hearing

00:16:07.940 that 32 billion dollars of the covet subsidies 32 billion dollars went to an eligible or questionable

00:16:15.060 recipients right you had the serve or and subsidies like the serve you had it handed out to 1500 people

00:16:21.540 who were in jail right 700 people not living in canada 400 children under the age of 15. it even went

00:16:28.660 to like what 391 dead people right so clearly there was a crazy amount of waste there and one of the big

00:16:36.420 areas of waste that everyone will will remember is arrive can remember arrive can that that simple

00:16:42.420 app it launched with an initial price tag of 80 000 bucks it ballooned all the way up to 60 million

00:16:49.380 dollars right and and what are the government executives working on that app do how do they

00:16:54.660 hold themselves accountable they took 340 000 in bonuses yeah yeah well and then you know and after the

00:17:03.220 review you know the gentleman who were involved with the the company actually just got uh suspended for

00:17:09.940 seven years from being awarded a government contract and i think it's probably almost up now they're back

00:17:15.060 in place so the two people the two gentlemen that were lobbyists it individuals who work from their

00:17:20.660 basement uh who took home 20 million dollars so yeah no i'm with you it's great that's craziness but

00:17:28.820 again the same type of review we need to go through and we need to get the legislation in place that

00:17:33.780 will stop that from happening you know my worry right now and i i don't know if you're feeling it my

00:17:38.820 worry is this tariff thing like honestly this tariff discussion and all the panic around tariffs the other

00:17:45.300 night i'm sitting there and i'm listening to the u.s ambassador to canada and he comes on he says hey

00:17:51.620 you know by the way canada's effective average tax rate for tariffs is five percent

00:17:58.500 the cbc you know interviewer he says what do you mean he says well you know you take the usmca

00:18:04.420 cosma you take all those things out you take the 15 that's left you have some large items that are in

00:18:10.100 on the tariff side they're important but quite frankly we're at five percent you know we're running

00:18:15.700 around you know having all these discussions like you know the world is ending um and then

00:18:21.860 if you read steven murin's papers you know that were written because the head economist from the

00:18:26.340 u.s the trickle down effect to the consumer what is it so you know not that it's not important not

00:18:31.940 that industries aren't impacted and i think we have to be cautious to brush it with a broad stroke but

00:18:37.460 but we also have to be cautious not to panic and go running around throwing money everywhere

00:18:42.340 to try to take care of a problem that we need to see what the impact is first and i just wish

00:18:48.980 well i sorry for interrupting but i just wish that you know the the media you know or political elites

00:18:55.780 or whatever the talking heads i wish they would just pay as much attention on how much our own

00:19:01.140 governments are taxing us compared to how much uh you know another government is imposing tariffs

00:19:06.980 essentially on its own citizens right like if you look at the average canadian family not a rich

00:19:13.700 canadian family the average canadian family you know more than 42 percent of their total income is

00:19:20.980 going to taxes right like that is disgusting it is disgusting that an at the average family's biggest

00:19:29.140 cost is not food it's not clothing it's not housing it is taxes and that taxes cost the average

00:19:36.740 family from our own governments more than what they spend on food housing and clothing combined so

00:19:42.980 you know i'm glad you brought up the tariff and you know all the stuff that's going around i just wish

00:19:47.700 that these you know political elites these talking heads would just focus a fraction of their attention

00:19:53.860 on how much governments in canada are taking from their own citizens no i agree you know i was the other

00:20:00.740 day i did another show and i said you know my biggest wish right now is that our our whole uh

00:20:06.020 government at every level would just stay home for a while and deal with domestic policy like you know

00:20:11.700 we we we really want to again i know i know we want to pretend we're a g7 country we're not in that 0.99

00:20:17.540 category anymore but like let's stop traveling around having these uh meetings in other countries let's

00:20:24.580 come home deal with our domestic policy for a while get it under control deal with all the issues at

00:20:30.180 hand and then we can start to move out and have other discussions on trade with other countries but

00:20:35.300 first you know first things first we you know we we have uh new governments in in power all throughout

00:20:40.820 canada we need to actually get them to to deal with the issues at hand such as taxes and the large tax

00:20:46.660 burden which unfortunately i think a lot of canadians right now are feeling a little beat down you know when

00:20:52.260 i travel around and i talk to people i think they kind of they're giving up and i that that's a shame

00:20:57.300 especially you know younger canadians i think they're really feeling the pain uh and wondering

00:21:02.500 what's next in the country and even even a lot of new immigrants that i'm uh crossing paths with on a

00:21:09.060 daily basis you know they're starting to ask the question do i go back well you know one little

00:21:16.740 point comes to mind when you're talking about domestic versus international concerns and that's also

00:21:21.700 like just the sheer amount of money that our federal government spends abroad right like if

00:21:26.580 you look at our international assistance or foreign aid or whatever you want to call it in the most

00:21:31.380 recent year that data is available the federal government spent 11 billion dollars on foreign aid

00:21:37.620 in one year okay i went through each department's uh budgets just so i can compare so 11 billion dollars in

00:21:44.500 foreign aid that same year the government spent six billion dollars through the entire department of

00:21:50.020 veterans affairs right let that sink in the government spent almost twice as much on foreign aid as it

00:21:58.420 did through the entire department of veterans affairs yeah that's crazy that's crazy and well and that you

00:22:06.340 know that's your problem right that's one of your big problems but again we you know we spend all this

00:22:11.700 time on foreign it seems like it's become super trendy to just spend time on foreign affairs and not talk

00:22:19.620 about domestic and so it's easy and quite frankly you know you can jump on a plane you can go to france you

00:22:26.100 can get the jet off to italy you know you can have these great meetings you know shake hands but you know

00:22:33.220 back home what's happening and you know it's interesting because you guys are talking you know i see in your

00:22:40.740 campaigns you're talking a little about media so today you know you thank you for taking the time

00:22:45.620 with us but you know one of the reasons we love these podcasts is we can dig into the issues a little

00:22:50.580 more whereas mainstream media quite frankly you know it's a sound bite it's you know he you know the

00:22:56.100 the prime minister is in and you know uh india the prime minister is here uh governor's meetings are

00:23:03.460 there right they're great sound bites but they don't get enough content you know and what we're trying

00:23:08.900 to do which i appreciate you coming aboard is we're trying to get a little bit more conversation

00:23:14.180 like we're having today around the key issues in the background to the issue so i really appreciate

00:23:19.460 you taking the time um before we leave i just wanted to you know a little bit of history so you know

00:23:28.100 the canadian federation taxpayers federation right uh how did you guys evolve and and tell me a little bit

00:23:35.700 about it because i'm sure people will want to understand a little more if they're not on the

00:23:40.820 site tell us what kind of uh started it and kicked it off and and why and then basically who the group

00:23:48.260 is like who who you know other than yourself yeah which i've enjoyed meeting today tell me sort of how

00:23:53.860 it evolves well yeah so you know the canadian taxpayers federation has actually been around for

00:23:58.980 more than three decades now right we started in the very early 90s and a lot of the tension

00:24:04.500 the taxpayer tension really revolved around three things number one massive debts right massive

00:24:10.580 debts in the in the provinces and at the federal level right in the late 80s early 90s then there

00:24:15.700 was also just like uh different um corporate subsidies that were favoring uh eastern provinces

00:24:22.900 versus western provinces right you'll remember the reform era and a lot of the uh prairie anger over

00:24:29.140 some of this stuff that was going on but then finally too a lot of it had to deal with uh the gst

00:24:34.900 right the the sales tax that was that was that was brought in so there was a lot of different um

00:24:40.260 sparks that really ignited and and and formed the canadian taxpayers federation but look we've been

00:24:46.340 fighting for for more than 30 years now uh one of our most famous things that we do is is the debt

00:24:51.380 clock right you even had former prime minister uh or i guess he was the finance minister at the time 0.99

00:24:56.420 paul martin say something to the effect like that damn clock you know that damn clock and he was 0.98

00:25:01.860 talking about the canadian taxpayers federations debt clock where we have this big truck and we 0.99

00:25:06.420 have this digital counter that just shows the federal government's debt going up in real time

00:25:12.020 right and and we bring it across the country uh and so it's a lot of fun and a good way to put

00:25:16.980 pressure on politicians to rein in the debt and to show canadians like this is your money this is how

00:25:22.420 much you owe in government debt um but we've also been very successful on other issues like uh democratic

00:25:28.180 accountability right fighting for recall legislation uh referendum legislation which has been successful

00:25:35.380 in uh western provinces we'd like to get that all across canada and then of course um we're also you

00:25:41.620 know very big and very instrumental in one of the key policy fights over the last couple years that i

00:25:46.100 mentioned a couple times the carbon tax right fighting it since day one uh even when not many other

00:25:51.700 groups or many politicians wanted to talk about it so we've been fighting for a very long time but we

00:25:56.820 will always stick to our core mission and that's fighting for lower taxes less government waste more

00:26:01.860 government accountability and and you know one other thing that i will say is that uh we won't take

00:26:07.460 any money never have never will from any government uh political party uh or any any anywhere outside

00:26:15.380 from anyone outside of canada right so uh we are here to fight for canadian taxpayers and not be

00:26:20.820 holding to any government or any political party oh that's terrific thank you franco and you know what

00:26:26.740 i really enjoyed meeting you today can i ask you know is is in the next few weeks as issues come up

00:26:32.580 we'd love to have you back on the show so when issues come up and you want to get it back on we'd love to

00:26:38.500 have you we i really enjoyed your site and meeting you today and uh we hope we can get you back on the show

00:26:44.820 soon yeah right on that'd be awesome this was fun all right thank you yeah thank you

Paul Micucci Talks with Franco Terrazzano ｜ Canadian Taxpayers Federation on Today’s Hot Issues

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