The Canadian Taxpayers Federation presented Teddy Waste Awards to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for a decade of federal waste, Global Affairs Canada for spending $51,000 per month on booze and the city of Calgary for spending $65,000 so people can phone a river.

“Trudeau added 99,000 extra bureaucrats, billed taxpayers $6,000 per night for a hotel suite in England and spent six-figures on airplane food after the government promised to cut those costs,” said Franco Terrazzano, CTF Federal Director. “Bureaucrats at Global Affairs Canada are winning a Teddy Award because they are wasting money on booze faster than taxpayers can say bottoms up.”

The Teddy Waste Award, the golden pig-shaped trophy the CTF annually awards to governments’ worst waste offenders, is named after Ted Weatherill, a former federal appointee who was fired in 1999 for submitting a raft of dubious expense claims, including a $700 lunch for two in France.

The CTF’s big pink pig mascot, Porky the Waste Hater, was on hand at the ceremony, dressed in a tuxedo.

“New Brunswick spent tens of thousands of dollars to get Europeans to visit the province, but the tourism ads were full of errors because the writers clearly didn’t know much about New Brunswick,” Terrazzano said.

“The city of Calgary won a Teddy Waste Award for spending $65,000 so people can telephone the Bow River and hear what wasting tax dollars sounds like.”

This year’s winners include:

• Municipal Teddy Winner: The city of Calgary

In most cities, you can only send a message in a bottle down a river. But not in Calgary, where the city spent $65,000 so people can phone the Bow River.

• Provincial Teddy Winner: New Brunswick

New Brunswick spent $77,000 on an eight-day trip to Europe to get Europeans to visit the province. The ads created to promote New Brunswick to Europeans were full of gaffs and incorrect information about the province.

• Federal Teddy Winner: Global Affairs Canada

The federal department of Global Affairs Canada spends an average of $51,000 per month on booze, according to records obtained by the CTF. Perhaps all that alcohol explains the department’s crazy spending, like an $8,800 sex toy show in Germany and a $1,700 musical featuring lesbian pirates?

• Lifetime Achievement Teddy Waste Award Winner: Former prime minister Justin Trudeau

On his way to doubling the federal debt in less than a decade, Trudeau added 99,000 federal bureaucrats and wasted taxpayers’ money all over the world on fancy feasts and hotel suites.

You can find the backgrounder on this year’s Teddy Waste Award nominees and winners HERE.

From the National Citizens Coalition

By Peter Coleman

“The Liberal government’s latest economic bill could cut red tape — or entrench central planning and ideological pet projects.”

On the final day of Parliament’s session before its September return, and with Conservative support, the Liberal government rushed through Bill C-5, ambitiously titled “One Canadian Economy: An Act to enact the Free Trade and Labour Mobility in Canada Act and the Building Canada Act.”

Beneath the lofty rhetoric, the bill aims to dismantle interprovincial trade barriers, enhance labour mobility, and streamline infrastructure projects. In principle, these are worthy goals. In a functional economy, free trade between provinces and the ability of workers to move without bureaucratic roadblocks would be standard practice. Yet, in Canada, decades of entrenched Liberal and Liberal-lite interests, along with red tape, have made such basics a pipe dream.

If Bill C-5 is indeed wielded for good, and delivers by cutting through this morass, it could unlock vast, wasted economic potential. For instance, enabling pipelines to bypass endless environmental challenges and the usual hand-out seeking gatekeepers — who often demand their cut to greenlight projects — would be a win. But here’s where optimism wanes, this bill does nothing to fix the deeper rot of Canada’s Laurentian economy: a failing system propped up by central and upper Canadian elitism and cronyism. Rather than addressing these structural flaws of non-competitiveness, Bill C-5 risks becoming a tool for the Liberal government to pick more winners and losers, funneling benefits to pet progressive projects while sidelining the needs of most Canadians, and in particular Canada’s ever-expanding missing middle-class.

Worse, the bill’s broad powers raise alarms about government overreach. Coming from a Liberal government that recently fear-mongered an “elbows up” emergency to conveniently secure an electoral advantage, this is no small concern. The lingering influence of eco-radicals like former Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault, still at the cabinet table, only heightens suspicion. Guilbeault and his allies, who cling to fantasies like eliminating gas-powered cars in a decade, could steer Bill C-5’s powers toward ideological crusades rather than pragmatic economic gains. The potential for emergency powers embedded in this legislation to be misused is chilling, especially from a government with a track record of exploiting crises for political gain – as they also did during Covid.

For Bill C-5 to succeed, it requires more than good intentions. It demands a seismic shift in mindset, and a government willing to grow a spine, confront far-left, de-growth special-interest groups, and prioritize Canada’s resource-driven economy and its future over progressive pipe dreams. The Liberals’ history under former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, marked by economic mismanagement and job-killing policies, offers little reassurance. The National Citizens Coalition views this bill with caution, and encourages the public to remain vigilant. Any hint of overreach, of again kowtowing to hand-out obsessed interests, or abuse of these emergency-like powers must be met with fierce scrutiny.

Canadians deserve a government that delivers results, not one that manipulates crises or picks favourites. Bill C-5 could be a step toward a freer, stronger economy, but only if it’s wielded with accountability and restraint, something the Liberals have failed at time and time again. We’ll be watching closely. The time for empty promises is over; concrete action is what Canadians demand.

Let’s hope the Liberals don’t squander this chance. And let’s hope that we’re wrong about the potential for disaster.

Peter Coleman is the President of the National Citizens Coalition, Canada’s longest-serving conservative non-profit advocacy group.