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Reality check—Canadians are not getting an income tax cut

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From the Fraser Institute

By Jason Clemens and Jake Fuss

On the campaign trail, both the Conservatives and the Liberals promised to cut personal income taxes, and with the Liberal Party winning a minority, one assumes the Carney government will fulfill the promise and reduce the bottom personal income tax rate from 15 to 14 per cent. However, in reality, due to the dismal state of federal finances, neither party actually offered a tax reduction but rather simply a deferral of taxes to the future.

The key variable in any government’s fiscal policy is spending. It represents the amount of resources the government plans to marshal for its various programs and transfers. At any given point in time, a country has only so many resources (i.e. raw materials, workers, equipment, etc.) and a government’s spending plan represents the share of those resources it intends to use for its purposes rather than leaving them in the hands of the people, families and businesses that actually created them.

Taxes are simply the way governments finance that spending. But it’s not the only way. Governments in many western countries, particularly Canada and the United States, have increasingly relied on borrowing to finance current spending. Instead of raising taxes today to pay for increased spending, governments defer those taxes into the future by borrowing and increasing government debt.

According to the Trudeau government’s last economic update, Ottawa expected to collect $516.2 billion this year (2025/26) but planned to spend $558.3 billion on programs and debt interest payments. The difference—$42.2 billion—represents how much the federal government plans to borrow.

According to the Liberal Party’s election platform, the promised tax cut to the lowest personal income tax rate will reduce revenues by a projected $4.2 billion this year. If the Liberal platform also reduced spending by at least the same amount, the tax cut would represent a real reduction in the amount of resources used by government and thus a genuine reduction in the tax bill for Canadians.

But the Liberal platform doesn’t reduce spending. In fact, it proposes marked increases ($29.4 billion this year) on already record levels of spending by the previous government. And the planned deficit this year is expected to increase from a projected $42.2 billion under Trudeau to $62.3 billion under Carney.

Put differently, Prime Minister Carney plans to use more resources in government for his new spending and investments compared to Trudeau. However, Carney plans to collect slightly less taxes now by shifting the burden to more borrowing, which simply means more debt and higher debt interest payments, and ultimately higher taxes in the future.

These decisions are not also without immediate costs. Under Trudeau, total federal debt increased from $1.1 trillion in 2014/15 (the year before he took office) to an expected $2.3 trillion this year. (Again, Carney plans to increase the amount of debt accumulated this year and at least the next three years.) Debt interest payments also increased from $24.2 billion the year before Trudeau took office to a projected $54.2 billion this year.

Carney’s plan, which includes higher debt levels, means those interest costs will increase. Interest payments represent resources extracted from Canadians that are not available for actual programs such as health care or genuine tax relief.

So while the new government may tell Canadians that its delivering tax relief, it’s not. It’s simply kicking the can down the road by financing higher spending through more borrowing. That means higher interest costs, higher debt and ultimately higher taxes in the future.

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Largest fraud in US history? Independent Journalist visits numerous daycare centres with no children, revealing massive scam

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A young journalist has uncovered perhaps the largest fraud scheme in US history. 

He certainly isn’t a polished reporter with many years of experience, but 23 year old independent journalist Nick Shirley seems to be getting the job done. Shirley has released an incredible video which appears to outline fraud after fraud after fraud in what appears to be a massive taxpayer funded scheme involving up to $9 Billion Dollars.

In one day of traveling around Minneapolis-St. Paul, Shirley appears to uncover over $100 million in fraudulent operations.

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“Magnitude cannot be overstated”: Minnesota aid scam may reach $9 billion

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Federal prosecutors say Minnesota’s exploding social-services fraud scandal may now rival nearly the entire economy of Somalia, with as much as $9 billion allegedly stolen from taxpayer-funded programs in what authorities describe as industrial-scale abuse that unfolded largely under the watch of Democrat Gov. Tim Walz. The staggering new estimate is almost nine times higher than the roughly $1 billion figure previously suspected and amounts to about half of the $18 billion in federal funds routed through Minnesota-run social-services programs since 2018, according to prosecutors. “The magnitude cannot be overstated,” First Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson said Thursday, stressing that investigators are still uncovering massive schemes. “This is not a handful of bad actors. It’s staggering, industrial-scale fraud. Every day we look under a rock and find another $50 million fraud operation.”

Authorities say the alleged theft went far beyond routine overbilling. Dozens of defendants — the vast majority tied to Minnesota’s Somali community — are accused of creating sham businesses and nonprofits that claimed to provide housing assistance, food aid, or health-care services that never existed, then billing state programs backed by federal dollars. Thompson said the opportunity became so lucrative it attracted what he called “fraud tourism,” with out-of-state operators traveling to Minnesota to cash in. Charges announced Thursday against six more people bring the total number of defendants to 92.

Among the newly charged are Anthony Waddell Jefferson, 37, and Lester Brown, 53, who prosecutors say traveled from Philadelphia to Minnesota after spotting what they believed was easy money in the state’s housing assistance system. The pair allegedly embedded themselves in shelters and affordable-housing networks to pose as legitimate providers, then recruited relatives and associates to fabricate client notes. Prosecutors say they submitted about $3.5 million in false claims to the state’s Housing Stability Services Program for roughly 230 supposed clients.

Other cases show how deeply the alleged fraud penetrated Minnesota’s health-care programs. Abdinajib Hassan Yussuf, 27, is accused of setting up a bogus autism therapy nonprofit that paid parents to enroll children regardless of diagnosis, then billed the state for services never delivered, netting roughly $6 million. Another defendant, Asha Farhan Hassan, 28, allegedly participated in a separate autism scheme that generated $14 million in fraudulent reimbursements, while also pocketing nearly $500,000 through the notorious Feeding Our Future food-aid scandal. “Roughly two dozen Feeding Our Future defendants were getting money from autism clinics,” Thompson said. “That’s how we learned about the autism fraud.”

The broader scandal began to unravel in 2022 when Feeding Our Future collapsed under federal investigation, but prosecutors say only in recent months has the true scope of the alleged theft come into focus. Investigators allege large sums were wired overseas or spent on luxury vehicles and other high-end purchases. The revelations have fueled political fallout in Minnesota and prompted renewed federal scrutiny of immigration-linked fraud as well as criticism of state oversight failures. Walz, who is seeking re-election in 2026 after serving as Kamala Harris’ running mate in 2024, defended his administration Thursday, saying, “We will not tolerate fraud, and we will continue to work with federal partners to ensure fraud is stopped and fraudsters are caught.” Prosecutors, however, made clear the investigation is far from finished — and warned the final tally could climb even higher.

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