Business
Conservatives grill CBC CEO for billing taxpayers $6,000 during France vacation

From LifeSiteNews
Conservative MPs have blasted the state-funded Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s CEO after she billed taxpayers $6,000 during a vacation to France.
During an October 21 Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage meeting, Conservative MPs grilled the CBC’s Catherine Tait over her $5,869 France vacation which she claimed qualified as work since it was during the Paris Olympics.
“There were no hotel rooms in Paris that were available at a lower price than that,” Tait told the Commons heritage committee after records obtained by the National Post revealed that she stayed at the luxury Hotel du Collectionneur at $1,000 per night.
CBC CEO admits to billing taxpayers $6,000 for her time in Paris, while on a personal vacation in France.
She thinks she gets to decide when taxpayers are on the hook and when they're not. And we should just trust her.
This is abuse of taxpayer dollars.
Defund the CBC. pic.twitter.com/qr3cDRI1kC
— Jamil Jivani (@jamiljivani) October 21, 2024
“This was the official hotel for the Games. I was there with other delegates. I benefited from all the services, for example the shuttle that took us to the opening of the Games,” she continued.
Tait continued to explain that she was in France for vacation, but interrupted her vacation to cover the Olympics which took place as the same time.
“I was on a personal trip to France and I did not bill the taxpayer for my flight or travel from Canada,” she said.
“What did you bill the taxpayer for?” Conservative MP Jamil Jivani questioned.
“The hotel and the train to get to Paris,” replied Tait.
“Where did your personal trip end and your taxpayer billing begin?” he pressed.
“As part of my job, being at the opening of the Olympics was absolutely expected of me so I interrupted my holiday and took the four days to go to the Olympics,” Tait insisted.
According to her schedule, Tait attended a reception at the Louvre Museum, two meetings with non-CBC staff, three meetings with CBC staff, and attended the opening ceremony. Tait also attended the fencing, swimming and beach volleyball competitions, although it is unclear if these were in a work or recreational capacity.
Tait later claimed that questions surrounding her spending “is a clear effort on the part of members of this committee to vilify and to discredit me and to discredit the organization.”
MP Damien Kurek pointed out that Tait is one of the highest paid public employees in Canada.
“You make more than the Prime Minister,” said Kurek, noting that the prime minister currently earns $406,200 without any yearly bonus.
“You just spent $1,000 a night for a hotel room in Paris during the Olympics,” he continued. “We are in a situation where you are coming to the conclusion of your term being paid more than the Prime Minister of this country.”
Tait’s spending of taxpayer dollars comes as the outlet’s TV advertising revenue dropped nearly 10 percent last year, which the CBC admitted they do not expect to regain in the foreseeable future.
While the CBC’s overall revenue dropped 4.3 percent in 2024, funding from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government increased 13 percent from $1.2 billion to $1.4 billion.
Additionally, in August, documents revealed that Tait doled out $18 million in bonuses after eliminating hundreds of jobs to cut costs.
Regardless of their low viewership, the CBC continues to receive massive subsidies from the Liberal government. Many independent media outlets and Conservative Party politicians, including leader Pierre Poilievre, have accused the outlet of bias and partisanship because of this dependency on government.
Despite these concerns, the Trudeau government has only poured money into the outlet. Beginning in 2019, Parliament changed the Income Tax Act to give yearly rebates of 25 percent for each news employee in cabinet-approved media outlets earning up to $55,000 a year, to a maximum of $13,750.
The Canadian Heritage Department since admitted that the payouts are not sufficient to keep legacy media outlets running, and even recommended that the rebates be doubled to a maximum of $29,750 annually.
Last November, Trudeau again announced increased payouts for legacy media outlets, payouts which coincidence with the lead-up to the 2025 election. The subsidies are expected to cost taxpayers $129 million over the next five years.
Similarly, Trudeau’s 2024 budget outlined $42 million in increased funding for the CBC for 2024-25.
Business
Federal government’s accounting change reduces transparency and accountability

From the Fraser Institute
By Jake Fuss and Grady Munro
Carney’s deficit-spending plan over the next four years dwarfs the plan from Justin Trudeau, the biggest spender (per-person, inflation-adjusted) in Canadian history, and will add many more billions to Canada’s mountain of federal debt. Yet Prime Minister Carney has tried to sell his plan as more responsible than his predecessor’s.
All Canadians should care about government transparency. In Ottawa, the federal government must provide timely and comprehensible reporting on federal finances so Canadians know whether the government is staying true to its promises. And yet, the Carney government’s new spending framework—which increases complexity and ambiguity in the federal budget—will actually reduce transparency and make it harder for Canadians to hold the government accountable.
The government plans to separate federal spending into two budgets: the operating budget and the capital budget. Spending on government salaries, cash transfers to the provinces (for health care, for example) and to people (e.g. Old Age Security) will fall within the operating budget, while spending on “anything that builds an asset” will fall within the capital budget. Prime Minister Carney plans to balance the operating budget by 2028/29 while increasing spending within the capital budget (which will be funded by more borrowing).
According to the Liberal Party platform, this accounting change will “create a more transparent categorization of the expenditure that contributes to capital formation in Canada.” But in reality, it will muddy the waters and make it harder to evaluate the state of federal finances.
First off, the change will make it more difficult to recognize the actual size of the deficit. While the Carney government plans to balance the operating budget by 2028/29, this does not mean it plans to stop borrowing money. In fact, it will continue to borrow to finance increased capital spending, and as a result, after accounting for both operating and capital spending, will increase planned deficits over the next four years by a projected $93.4 billion compared to the Trudeau government’s last spending plan. You read that right—Carney’s deficit-spending plan over the next four years dwarfs the plan from Justin Trudeau, the biggest spender (per-person, inflation-adjusted) in Canadian history, and will add many more billions to Canada’s mountain of federal debt. Yet Prime Minister Carney has tried to sell his plan as more responsible than his predecessor’s.
In addition to obscuring the amount of borrowing, splitting the budget allows the government to get creative with its accounting. Certain types of spending clearly fall into one category or another. For example, salaries for bureaucrats clearly represent day-to-day operations while funding for long-term infrastructure projects are clearly capital investments. But Carney’s definition of “capital spending” remains vague. Instead of limiting this spending category to direct investments in long-term assets such as roads, ports or military equipment, the government will also include in the capital budget new “incentives” that “support the formation of private sector capital (e.g. patents, plants, and technology) or which meaningfully raise private sector productivity.” In other words, corporate welfare.
Indeed, based on the government’s definition of capital spending, government subsidies to corporations—as long as they somehow relate to creating an asset—could potentially land in the same spending category as new infrastructure spending. Not only would this be inaccurate, but this broad definition means the government could potentially balance the operating budget simply by shifting spending over to the capital budget, as opposed to reducing spending. This would add to the debt but allow the government to maneuver under the guise of “responsible” budgeting.
Finally, rather than split federal spending into two budgets, to increase transparency the Carney government could give Canadians a better idea of how their tax dollars are spent by providing additional breakdowns of line items about operating and capital spending within the existing budget framework.
Clearly, Carney’s new spending framework, as laid out in the Liberal election platform, will only further complicate government finances and make it harder for Canadians to hold their government accountable.
Business
Carney poised to dethrone Trudeau as biggest spender in Canadian history

From the Fraser Institute
By Jake Fuss
The Liberals won the federal election partly due to the perception that Prime Minister Mark Carney will move his government back to the political centre and be more responsible with taxpayer dollars. But in fact, according to Carney’s fiscal plan, he doesn’t think Justin Trudeau was spending and borrowing enough.
To recap, the Trudeau government recorded 10 consecutive budget deficits, racked up $1.1 trillion in debt, recorded the six highest spending years (per person, adjusted for inflation) in Canadian history from 2018 to 2023, and last fall projected large deficits (and $400 billion in additional debt) over the next four years including a $42.2 billion deficit this fiscal year.
By contrast, under Carney’s plan, this year’s deficit will increase to a projected $62.4 billion while the combined deficits over the subsequent three years will be $67.7 billion higher than under Trudeau’s plan.
Consequently, the federal debt, and debt interest costs, will rise sharply. Under Trudeau’s plan, federal debt interest would have reached a projected $66.3 billion in 2028/29 compared to $68.7 billion under the new Carney plan. That’s roughly equivalent to what the government will spend on employment insurance (EI), the Canada Child Benefit and $10-a-day daycare combined. More taxpayer dollars will be diverted away from programs and services and towards servicing the debt.
Clearly, Carney plans to be a bigger spender than Justin Trudeau—who was the biggest spender in Canadian history.
On the campaign trail, Carney was creative in attempting to sell this as a responsible fiscal plan. For example, he split operating and capital spending into two separate budgets. According to his plan’s projections, the Carney government will balance the operating budget—which includes bureaucrat salaries, cash transfers (e.g. health-care funding) and benefits (e.g. Old Age Security)—by 2028/29, while borrowing huge sums to substantially increase capital spending, defined by Carney as anything that builds an asset. This is sleight-of-hand budgeting. Tell the audience to look somewhere—in this case, the operating budget—so it ignores what’s happening in the capital budget.
It’s also far from certain Carney will actually balance the operating budget. He’s banking on finding a mysterious $28.0 billion in savings from “increased government productivity.” His plan to use artificial intelligence and amalgamate service delivery will not magically deliver these savings. He’s already said no to cutting the bureaucracy or reducing any cash transfers to the provinces or individuals. With such a large chunk of spending exempt from review, it’s very difficult to see how meaningful cost savings will materialize.
And there’s no plan to pay for Carney’s spending explosion. Due to rising deficits and debt, the bill will come due later and younger generations of Canadians will bear this burden through higher taxes and/or fewer services.
Finally, there’s an obvious parallel between Carney and Trudeau on the inventive language used to justify more spending. According to Carney, his plan is not increasing spending but rather “investing” in the economy. Thus his campaign slogan “Spend less, invest more.” This wording is eerily similar to the 2015 and 2019 Trudeau election platforms, which claimed all new spending measures were merely “investments” that would increase economic growth. Regardless of the phrasing, Carney’s spending increases will produce the same results as under Trudeau—federal finances will continue to deteriorate without any improvement in economic growth. Canadian living standards (measured by per-person GDP) are lower today than they were seven years ago despite a massive increase in federal “investment” during the Trudeau years. Yet Carney, not content to double down on this failed approach, plans to accelerate it.
The numbers don’t lie; Carney’s fiscal plan includes more spending and borrowing than Trudeau’s plan. This will be a fiscal and economic disaster with Canadians paying the price.
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