Business
Taxpayers deserve proof of how politicians spend their money
This article supplied by Troy Media.
Canadians deserve to know how their money is spent. Politicians must end the secrecy and show every receipt, every time
Taxpayers pay the bills for politicians’ expenses and they deserve to see the receipts.
Right now, in Manitoba, cabinet ministers and the premier post quarterly expense statements online. These statements show the purpose of the trip and the total spent in several broad categories like “airfare” and “accommodation, meals and phone calls.”
What the statements don’t show are the itemized receipts. That’s a problem for taxpayers trying to keep the government accountable.
Taxpayers foot the bill for these trips, so transparency helps ensure public money is being spent responsibly, not frivolously. Taxpayers aren’t asking for much: just the truth, with a receipt attached.
For example, Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew, who leads the province’s NDP government, took a trip to Washington, D.C., in February. That trip cost taxpayers
$4,051. The costs were broken down as $1,481 in airfare, $2,450 in accommodation, meals and phone calls, and $120 in other transportation.
Now, these could be completely justifiable expenses. Travelling costs money. But without the receipts, taxpayers have no way of knowing whether Kinew was purchasing a meal from the local diner or splurging taxpayer cash on caviar.
And that’s just his personal tab. The expenses of staff he brought on the trip aren’t disclosed publicly at all.
Families Minister Nahanni Fontaine went on a trip last March and the expense release form showed the trip cost taxpayers $6,649. But details dug up by the Canadian Press through freedom-of-information (FOI) requests, which allow the public to access internal government documents, show that the total cost of the trip, including staff, was $23,105.
That highlights the core issue: the only way for a taxpayer or a journalist to access the fine details and expenses of accompanying staff is to send in an FOI
request to the government.
That means potentially waiting more than a month for the information and being hit with fees to get information that taxpayers should be able to see for free.
In Alberta, if a politician or senior official spends more than $100 of taxpayers’ money, they have to provide an itemized receipt that’s posted online for all to
see. It’s the gold standard in expense transparency in Canada.
This summer, the Alberta government quietly tried to dump its longstanding policy of proactively posting expense receipts online. That was a mistake. After outrage from taxpayers, the government reversed the decision and restored the receipt transparency.
Alberta NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi said reversing the decision is a “no-brainer.”
If Alberta can do it, there’s no excuse for Manitoba to lag behind. Taxpayers there deserve the same level of transparency for both politicians and senior officials.
It helps taxpayers hold politicians accountable, and it stops politicians from wasting money in the first place because they know they will have to post the receipts and defend their choices. Sunlight is the best disinfectant.
This level of transparency would have helped Manitobans get clearer answers in the past. Former premier Brian Pallister took two trips to Ottawa with some
questionable expenses in 2021. He spent $1,300 on the category of “other transportation.” At that time, Kinew said: “It certainly raises questions as to what
that $1,300 was spent on.” That was the right question for Kinew to ask, and having access to the receipts would have made it easier to hold Pallister to
account.
At the time, a spokesperson for Pallister said “other transportation” could include car rentals, travel agent fees or taxi cabs, essentially anything that isn’t airfare.
But that’s not clear enough for taxpayers. It doesn’t tell them if he rented a Corvette or a Corolla.
The NDP’s 2023 election platform declared that “a Manitoba NDP government will strengthen democracy in Manitoba by promoting transparency and
accountability.”
Kinew didn’t start off on the right foot after becoming premier. He failed to post the required expenses for about the first year of his government, despite repeated calls to do so.
After finally posting the receipts, Kinew said he would look at including staff and bureaucrat travel expenses in the proactive disclosures. That’s the right move.
And it should also include itemized expenses.
Kinew promised transparency. Taxpayers shouldn’t have to file paperwork and pay fees just to get access to basic information about how governments spend their money.
That means showing the receipts.
Gage Haubrich is the Prairie Director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
Troy Media empowers Canadian community news outlets by providing independent, insightful analysis and commentary. Our mission is to support local media in helping Canadians stay informed and engaged by delivering reliable content that strengthens community connections and deepens understanding across the country.
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Carney praises carbon taxes on world stage
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Alberta must block Carney’s industrial carbon tax
The Canadian Taxpayers Federation is calling on the government of Alberta to completely scrap its provincial industrial carbon tax.
“It’s baffling that Alberta is still clinging to its industrial carbon tax even though Saskatchewan has declared itself to be a carbon tax-free zone,” said Kris Sims, CTF Alberta Director. “Prime Minister Mark Carney is cooking up his new industrial carbon tax in Ottawa and Alberta needs to fight that head on.
“Alberta having its own industrial carbon tax invites Carney to barge through our door with his punishing industrial carbon tax.”
On Sept. 16, the Alberta government announced some changes to Alberta’s industrial carbon tax, but the tax remains in effect.
On Friday night at the Global Progress Action Summitt held in London, England, Carney praised carbon taxes while speaking onstage with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
“The direct carbon tax which had become a divisive issue, it was a textbook good policy, but a divisive issue,” Carney said.
During the federal election, Carney promised to remove the more visible consumer carbon tax and change it into a bigger hidden industrial carbon tax. He also announced plans to create “border adjustment mechanisms” on imports from countries that do not have national carbon taxes, also known as carbon tax tariffs.
“Carney’s ‘textbook good policy’ comments about carbon taxes shows his government is still cooking up a new industrial carbon tax and it’s also planning on imposing carbon tax tariffs,” Sims said. “Alberta should stand with Saskatchewan and obliterate all carbon taxes in our province, otherwise we are opening the door for Ottawa to keep kicking us.”
From LifeSiteNews
By Joseph Quinn
Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger explained how Wikipedia systematically blacklists and “deprecates” conservative sources. Wikipedia remains one of the most heavily used information sources online and is integrated with Google search results.
Elon Musk has announced plans to build “Grokipedia,” a new open-source online encyclopedia under his artificial intelligence company xAI.
“Will be a massive improvement over Wikipedia,” Musk wrote on X. “Frankly, it is a necessary step towards the xAI goal of understanding the Universe.”
We are building Grokipedia @xAI.
Will be a massive improvement over Wikipedia.
Frankly, it is a necessary step towards the xAI goal of understanding the Universe. https://t.co/xvSeWkpALy
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 30, 2025
The announcement came days after Tucker Carlson’s interview with Larry Sanger, a co-founder of Wikipedia and a vocal critic of the organization since his departure in 2002.
Larry Sanger built Wikipedia as an unbiased repository of the world’s knowledge, and then stood helplessly by as activists and intel agencies turned it into the most comprehensive propaganda op in human history. There’s nothing more corrupt.
(0:00) The Origins of Wikipedia… pic.twitter.com/J59oEejCG2
— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) September 29, 2025
Sanger explained how Wikipedia systematically blacklists and “deprecates” conservative sources. Seeing LifeSiteNews on the list, Carlson said that the platform has become “a weapon of ideological, theological war.”
Musk echoed Sanger’s criticisms, affirming Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton’s claim that “Wikipedia is a smear machine for the Left.”
💯
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 30, 2025
Musk later amplified memes promoting Grokipedia, calling it “an open source knowledge repository that is vastly better than Wikipedia.”
Join @xAI and help build Grokipedia, an open source knowledge repository that is vastly better than Wikipedia!
This will be available to the public with no limits on use. https://t.co/3CnfrvNIpI
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 30, 2025
He also affirmed Sanger’s “Nine Theses,” which call for dismantling Wikipedia’s centralized editorial control.
Some good suggestions from the co-founder of Wikipedia https://t.co/bgwBmi6uXN
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 30, 2025
Musk has not released technical details of the Grokipedia project but said that Grok AI will be independent of Wikipedia “by the end of the year.”
Images of a potential logo were also shared on his X account.
Wikipedia should have just taken that $1 billion offer from Elon Musk, it’s too late, the rival is coming: Grokipedia! pic.twitter.com/cLBKfPRgyO
— SMX 🇺🇸 (@iam_smx) September 30, 2025
Wikipedia remains one of the most heavily used information sources online and is integrated with Google search results. Critics argue that its governance model allows biased editors – described as “ideologically-driven thought police” – to shape content and suppress dissenting viewpoints, particularly on political, cultural, and religious topics.
A similar initiative called “Infogalactic” was launched in 2016. A “fork” of Wikipedia, it was designed to decentralize control and allow multiple perspectives. While Infogalactic never reached Wikipedia’s scale, it established a model for alternative knowledge repositories.
Attracting a critical mass of editors and establishing credibility remain significant challenges facing such alternatives. Musk’s involvement signals a higher-profile challenge to Wikipedia’s dominance, combining xAI’s technological resources with his public platform on X.
Musk has not provided a clear timeline, but the announcement positions xAI to mount a direct challenge to Wikipedia’s dominance of the information ecosystem.
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