I have to agree with them on this one. Their demands are both insulting and unacceptable to taxpayers. They need serious cuts to both the size and cost of government unions.
Trudeau Has Buried Us In Debt
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- Start date
I guess that's why they're in politics instead of the private sector because they'd have been fired or their businesses would go broke under the same circumstances. Being involved in government means a job for life & all its benefits.Ottawa approved pay hikes for 78% of federal employees in 2025: CTF
Government workers enjoy 4.8% wage premium over non-government workers says the Fraser Institute
Author of the article:Jane Stevenson
Published Jul 31, 2026 • Last updated 17 hours ago • 2 minute read
Parliament Hill
Parliament Hill as seen from the Gatineau side of the Ottawa River. The active use pathway was reopened by the NCC after rehabilitation work was completed. Photo by Tony Caldwell /POSTMEDIA
I see you and I’ll raise you.
So said the federal government last year when it rubberstamped raises for 78% of its employees, or 336,188 bureaucrats, according to the Canadian Taxpayers Federation who obtained access-to-information records showing as much.
Meanwhile, the same records showed departments barely met half of their own performance targets and only 0.14%, or just 596 employees, took a pay reduction.
“Taxpayers have every reason to question why the vast majority of bureaucrats are taking bigger paycheques when departments can barely pass their own test,” Franco Terrazzano, CTF Federal Director, said in a statement.
“Federal bureaucrats shouldn’t feel entitled to more money every year just because they’re on the taxpayer payroll.”
The CTF says about 385,000 federal employees took a pay raise in 2024 and the government handed out more than one million pay raises between 2020 and 2023.
The federation says the government has continually refused to disclose how much these pay hikes cost taxpayers.
CTF says feds won’t say how much raises cost taxpayers
“Taxpayers are on the hook for another wage hike, but the government won’t tell Canadians the price tag,” Devin Drover, CTF General Counsel, said in a statement.
“That’s another failure of Canada’s broken access-to-information system. Taxpayers pay these wages and they have a right to know the bill.”
CTF says this isn’t the first time the feds have refused to disclose pay raise amounts after the federation launched legal challenges against CBC and the Bank of Canada for refusing to do so for its senior bureaucrats.
CBC logo on building
The CBC Radio Canada logo / sign on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporations building in the 700 block HamiltonVancouver, May 28 2013. Gerry Kahrmann / PNG staff photo) ( Prov / Sun News ) [PNG Merlin Archive]
The federation says government employees are now taking larger salaries than their counterparts working outside of government.
“Canada’s government-sector workers (from federal, provincial, and local governments) enjoyed a 4.8% wage premium, on average, over their private-sector counterparts,” according to the Fraser Institute, which controlled for factors like age, gender, education and industry.
The government union, Public Service Alliance of Canada, who is negotiating new contracts for its members, has already called the federal government’s wage offers “insulting” and “unacceptable.”
“What’s really insulting and unacceptable is how much the bureaucracy costs taxpayers and how little it delivers,” Terrazzano said. “Prime Minister Mark Carney needs to shrink the federal bureaucracy to stop borrowing money and provide Canadians with the tax relief they need.”
The cost of the bureaucracy is expected to reach $79.4 billion in 2026 – more than during former prime minister Justin Trudeau’s last year in office in 2024-25, even after inflation.
The cost of the federal bureaucracy increased 80% between 2015 and 2024, according to the Public Accounts.
Ottawa approved pay hikes for 78% of federal employees in 2025: CTF
The feds rubberstamped raises for 78% of its employees or 336,188 bureaucrats in 2025 says the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. Read more.torontosun.com
Cost to build the Ontario Line now tripled at $34 billion and climbing
The Ontario Line is a 15.6-km-long standalone rapid transit line that will link Exhibition Place to an area near Don Mills Rd. and Eglinton Ave., near the site of the now-closed Ontario Science Centre.
Author of the article:Gordon Anderson
Published Aug 11, 2026 • Last updated 19 hours ago • 2 minute read
metrolinx
Ontario Premier Doug Ford and Michael Lindsay, President and CEO, Metrolinx, at an Ontario Line construction site in the Don Valley in Scarborough, Ontario on Wednesday, August 5, 2026. Photo by (Peter Power/Postmedia News-POOL)
Costs associated with the Ontario Line subway construction project continue to escalate, Metrolinx boss says.
“When the Ontario Line began as a project, we lived in a different world with respect to major capital project delivery,” Metrolinx CEO and president Michael Lindsay told reporters on Tuesday. “We have experienced one of the worst supply chain shocks in the last several decades, trade uncertainty, but I can tell you that the direct costs of every single item on the Ontario Line are competitively bid and we progressively develop these projects with our partners precisely because we want to have that kind of line-item scrutiny on the costs.”
First announced in April 2019 by Premier Doug Ford, the Ontario Line is a 15.6-km-long standalone rapid transit line that will link Exhibition Place to an area near Don Mills Rd. and Eglinton Ave., near the site of the now-closed Ontario Science Centre.
Three times the cost
On Tuesday, Lindsay said the awarding of a $4.32 billion contract for three kilometres of tunnelling underneath Pape Ave. and the construction of two underground stations has pushed the current cost of the Ontario Line to around $34 billion. That is more than three times the original $10.9 billion cost estimate that was relayed in 2019.
Running underneath Pape Ave. in the city’s east end from near Gerrard St. north to the Don Valley near the Millwood Ave. bridge, the $4.32-billion contract will also include construction of two stations — one at the existing Pape TTC Line 2 subway station at Danforth Ave., and a second about 1.2 km north at Cosburn Ave.
The contract was announced on Aug. 6.
However, the CEO warns that the new expected cost is “under pressure.” He says it’s not possible to give an accurate estimate until a much later date.
Speaking of completion, when the project was announced seven years ago, the estimated completion time was early in 2027, but that time has now been pushed back indefinitely, with the latest completion time somewhere in the early 2030s.
Lindsay says Metrolinx is trying to squeeze every nickel out of the overall price point as costs are more than likely to increase in the future.
“It is absolutely true to say that the direct costs of these projects continue to go up, whether it is fighter jets, transit or hospitals or whatever it is,” Lindsay said. “We take it very seriously though at Metrolinx that we need to do everything we can to condition those costs and make our expenditures as efficient as they can be for taxpayers.”
ganderson@postmedia.com
— With files from the Toronto Sun
torontosun.com
The Ontario Line is a 15.6-km-long standalone rapid transit line that will link Exhibition Place to an area near Don Mills Rd. and Eglinton Ave., near the site of the now-closed Ontario Science Centre.
Author of the article:Gordon Anderson
Published Aug 11, 2026 • Last updated 19 hours ago • 2 minute read
metrolinx
Ontario Premier Doug Ford and Michael Lindsay, President and CEO, Metrolinx, at an Ontario Line construction site in the Don Valley in Scarborough, Ontario on Wednesday, August 5, 2026. Photo by (Peter Power/Postmedia News-POOL)
Costs associated with the Ontario Line subway construction project continue to escalate, Metrolinx boss says.
“When the Ontario Line began as a project, we lived in a different world with respect to major capital project delivery,” Metrolinx CEO and president Michael Lindsay told reporters on Tuesday. “We have experienced one of the worst supply chain shocks in the last several decades, trade uncertainty, but I can tell you that the direct costs of every single item on the Ontario Line are competitively bid and we progressively develop these projects with our partners precisely because we want to have that kind of line-item scrutiny on the costs.”
First announced in April 2019 by Premier Doug Ford, the Ontario Line is a 15.6-km-long standalone rapid transit line that will link Exhibition Place to an area near Don Mills Rd. and Eglinton Ave., near the site of the now-closed Ontario Science Centre.
Three times the cost
On Tuesday, Lindsay said the awarding of a $4.32 billion contract for three kilometres of tunnelling underneath Pape Ave. and the construction of two underground stations has pushed the current cost of the Ontario Line to around $34 billion. That is more than three times the original $10.9 billion cost estimate that was relayed in 2019.
Running underneath Pape Ave. in the city’s east end from near Gerrard St. north to the Don Valley near the Millwood Ave. bridge, the $4.32-billion contract will also include construction of two stations — one at the existing Pape TTC Line 2 subway station at Danforth Ave., and a second about 1.2 km north at Cosburn Ave.
The contract was announced on Aug. 6.
However, the CEO warns that the new expected cost is “under pressure.” He says it’s not possible to give an accurate estimate until a much later date.
Speaking of completion, when the project was announced seven years ago, the estimated completion time was early in 2027, but that time has now been pushed back indefinitely, with the latest completion time somewhere in the early 2030s.
Lindsay says Metrolinx is trying to squeeze every nickel out of the overall price point as costs are more than likely to increase in the future.
“It is absolutely true to say that the direct costs of these projects continue to go up, whether it is fighter jets, transit or hospitals or whatever it is,” Lindsay said. “We take it very seriously though at Metrolinx that we need to do everything we can to condition those costs and make our expenditures as efficient as they can be for taxpayers.”
ganderson@postmedia.com
— With files from the Toronto Sun
Ontario Line
A 15.6-km subway line in Toronto that will run from Exhibition Place to Line 5 Eglinton.
metrolinx.com
Cost to build the Ontario Line now tripled at $34 billion and climbing
The current cost of the Ontario Line to around $34 billion, three times the original $10.9 billion cost estimate. Read more.
Corporate welfare is strangling Canadian economy: study
Subsidies totalled $87.7 billion in 2024 alone, with $44.7 billion coming from the federal government and $43 billion from the provincial governments combined, according to the Fraser Institute
Author of the article:Lorrie Goldstein
Published Aug 11, 2026 • Last updated 1 day ago • 2 minute read
Parliament
Corporate welfare by Canada’s federal and provincial governments has more than tripled since 2015 and is strangling economic growth, according to a new study by the Fraser Institute. Photo by DAVE CHAN /AFP via Getty Images
Corporate welfare by Canada’s federal and provincial governments has more than tripled since 2015 and is strangling economic growth, according to a new study by the Fraser Institute.
It found corporate subsidies totalled $87.7 billion in 2024 alone, with $44.7 billion coming from the federal government and $43 billion from the provincial governments combined.
That more than tripled the 2015 level of $25.1 billion, adjusted for inflation and population growth.
Despite all of this spending, the study said, “an extensive body of research shows there is little connection between sustained, widespread economic growth or job creation and corporate subsidies.”
“The massive recent increase in government spending on corporate welfare should concern all Canadians,” said Alex Whelan, co-author of the study by the fiscally conservative think tank, Eliminating Corporate Subsidies in Canada: An Opportunity to Boost Growth.
“It’s wasteful spending at the expense of Canadian taxpayers and places government in the position of picking favoured businesses. Better policies exist to drive economic growth.”
Gov’t could lower business taxes by more than 80%: Study
The study argues that by eliminating corporate welfare and applying the savings to broad-based corporate income tax relief, the federal and provincial governments could lower business taxes today by more than 80%, removing another anchor on the Canadian economy.
During the total study period from 2007 to 2024, the study found provincial governments spent $474.4 on corporate welfare while the federal government spent $312.9 billion, for a total of $787.3 billion.
It said that while some of this was due to the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021, the amount of corporate welfare today far exceeds the amounts given away in pre-pandemic years.
The root problem, the study says, is that instead of improving their goods and services and how efficiently they produce them in order to compete and boost profits, corporate welfare incentivizes businesses to keep seeking government subsidies, known as “rent seeking”, instead of increasing productivity through research and development.
Low productivity has been described as a “break the glass emergency” by Bank of Canada senior deputy governor Carolyn Rogers.
The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development has warned that if nothing changes, Canada’s real GDP per person — a measure of the standard of living — will be the lowest among its 38-member industrialized countries from 2020 to 2060.
Prime Minister Mark Carney is trying to turn this around by doubling the amount of foreign investment in Canada within a decade, to reduce our economic reliance on the United States.
But it will be a slow process.
Carney presided over the worst record of economic growth in Canada during his first year in office of any prime minister in more than half a century — negative growth of 0.5%, as reported by Bloomberg News.
torontosun.com
Subsidies totalled $87.7 billion in 2024 alone, with $44.7 billion coming from the federal government and $43 billion from the provincial governments combined, according to the Fraser Institute
Author of the article:Lorrie Goldstein
Published Aug 11, 2026 • Last updated 1 day ago • 2 minute read
Parliament
Corporate welfare by Canada’s federal and provincial governments has more than tripled since 2015 and is strangling economic growth, according to a new study by the Fraser Institute. Photo by DAVE CHAN /AFP via Getty Images
Corporate welfare by Canada’s federal and provincial governments has more than tripled since 2015 and is strangling economic growth, according to a new study by the Fraser Institute.
It found corporate subsidies totalled $87.7 billion in 2024 alone, with $44.7 billion coming from the federal government and $43 billion from the provincial governments combined.
That more than tripled the 2015 level of $25.1 billion, adjusted for inflation and population growth.
Despite all of this spending, the study said, “an extensive body of research shows there is little connection between sustained, widespread economic growth or job creation and corporate subsidies.”
“The massive recent increase in government spending on corporate welfare should concern all Canadians,” said Alex Whelan, co-author of the study by the fiscally conservative think tank, Eliminating Corporate Subsidies in Canada: An Opportunity to Boost Growth.
“It’s wasteful spending at the expense of Canadian taxpayers and places government in the position of picking favoured businesses. Better policies exist to drive economic growth.”
Gov’t could lower business taxes by more than 80%: Study
The study argues that by eliminating corporate welfare and applying the savings to broad-based corporate income tax relief, the federal and provincial governments could lower business taxes today by more than 80%, removing another anchor on the Canadian economy.
During the total study period from 2007 to 2024, the study found provincial governments spent $474.4 on corporate welfare while the federal government spent $312.9 billion, for a total of $787.3 billion.
It said that while some of this was due to the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021, the amount of corporate welfare today far exceeds the amounts given away in pre-pandemic years.
The root problem, the study says, is that instead of improving their goods and services and how efficiently they produce them in order to compete and boost profits, corporate welfare incentivizes businesses to keep seeking government subsidies, known as “rent seeking”, instead of increasing productivity through research and development.
Low productivity has been described as a “break the glass emergency” by Bank of Canada senior deputy governor Carolyn Rogers.
The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development has warned that if nothing changes, Canada’s real GDP per person — a measure of the standard of living — will be the lowest among its 38-member industrialized countries from 2020 to 2060.
Prime Minister Mark Carney is trying to turn this around by doubling the amount of foreign investment in Canada within a decade, to reduce our economic reliance on the United States.
But it will be a slow process.
Carney presided over the worst record of economic growth in Canada during his first year in office of any prime minister in more than half a century — negative growth of 0.5%, as reported by Bloomberg News.
GOLDSTEIN: Corporate welfare is strangling Canadian economy: study
Corporate welfare by Canada’s federal and provincial governments has more than tripled since 2015, according to a new study. Read on.
Senate Speaker drops nearly $900K on world travel: Canadian Taxpayers Federation
Raymonde Gagné took 14 overseas trips in her three years in the post, government documents show
Author of the article:Bryan Passifiume
Published Aug 12, 2026 • 3 minute read
King Charles III bestows a new ceremonial sword to the Usher of the Black Rod of the Senate of Canada, Gregory Peters, with Speaker of the Senate of Canada, Raymonde Gagne present during an audience at Buckingham Palace on March 12, 2025 in London, England.
King Charles III bestows a new ceremonial sword to the Usher of the Black Rod of the Senate of Canada, Gregory Peters, with Speaker of the Senate of Canada, Raymonde Gagne present during an audience at Buckingham Palace on March 12, 2025 in London, England. Photo by Aaron Chown /Pool via Getty Images
OTTAWA — The Speaker of Canada’s Senate spent nearly $900,000 on travel since being named to the post three years ago.
Government documents made public by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation show Senate Speaker Raymonde Gagné’s office shelled out $875,677 for at least 14 international trips since her May 2023 appointment.
“It’s hard to imagine why an unelected senator should be travelling anywhere outside of the country on taxpayers’ dime, so Gagné billing taxpayers almost $1 million to fly around the world is completely unacceptable,” said CTF federal director Franco Terrazzano.
“Prime Minister Mark Carney needs to hold Gagné accountable and make sure senators aren’t globetrotting on the taxpayer credit card.”
Terrazzano pointed out the total cost of Gagné’s overseas trips is actually much higher because the records they unearthed are missing full costs for her trips to Chile, Tunisia and the Netherlands.
The records also provide no insight on reimbursements to taxpayers, if any.
Destinations include Benin, New Zealand, Spain
Gagné and her entourage traveled far and wide over the last three years.
These include a March 2024 trip to Africa, where they attended the opening of a regional stock exchange in Côte d’Ivoire before visiting tourist sites in Benin — at a cost of $101,816.
Later that year in September, Gagné brought a delegation to New Zealand for “business calls” to Christchurch and Wellington, and a photo op with the mayor of resort town Rotorua.
That trip cost taxpayers $118,965.
Gagné brought her entourage to Spain and the U.K. in March 2025, where she and Canada’s Usher of the Black Rod Gregory Peters received a ceremonial sword from the King at Buckingham Palace — a trip that cost $105,156.
March 2026 also saw Gagné pay a “courtesy call” to Japan’s Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi, at a cost of $107,594.
Other locales visited by the speaker include the United States, South Africa, Belgium, Brazil, France, Romania, Czechia and Switzerland.
Her annual salary as speaker of the Senate is $268,300, a job that includes benefits such as car and residence allowances.
Gagné also spent big on meals, with records showing a $2,822 dinner for 12 at the Oxford and Cambridge Club in London, a $1,927 lunch in Madrid, and $1,408 for a 13-person luncheon in Bucharest, Romania.
Speaker has diplomatic duties, office states
“If Gagné wants to make a courtesy call to a Japanese politician, then she should pick up the phone instead of billing taxpayers six figures,” Terrazzano said.
“In what world is it acceptable for an unelected senator to bill taxpayers thousands of dollars for meals and receptions in Europe?”
In a statement to the Toronto Sun, Gagné’s office said the speakers of both the Senate and House of Commons have constitutionally-defined diplomatic roles, as they hold rank in Canada’s table of precedence — only outranked by the Governor General, the Prime Minister and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
“As part of her constitutional and institutional responsibilities, the Speaker regularly hosts foreign leaders and delegations visiting Parliament and leads parliamentary delegations abroad to promote Canadian values and interests and strengthen interparliamentary relations,” the statement read.
“These official parliamentary missions are undertaken as part of the Speaker’s responsibilities and typically include other senators as members of the delegation.”
bpassifiume@postmedia.com
X: @bryanpassifiume
torontosun.com
Raymonde Gagné took 14 overseas trips in her three years in the post, government documents show
Author of the article:Bryan Passifiume
Published Aug 12, 2026 • 3 minute read
King Charles III bestows a new ceremonial sword to the Usher of the Black Rod of the Senate of Canada, Gregory Peters, with Speaker of the Senate of Canada, Raymonde Gagne present during an audience at Buckingham Palace on March 12, 2025 in London, England.
King Charles III bestows a new ceremonial sword to the Usher of the Black Rod of the Senate of Canada, Gregory Peters, with Speaker of the Senate of Canada, Raymonde Gagne present during an audience at Buckingham Palace on March 12, 2025 in London, England. Photo by Aaron Chown /Pool via Getty Images
OTTAWA — The Speaker of Canada’s Senate spent nearly $900,000 on travel since being named to the post three years ago.
Government documents made public by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation show Senate Speaker Raymonde Gagné’s office shelled out $875,677 for at least 14 international trips since her May 2023 appointment.
“It’s hard to imagine why an unelected senator should be travelling anywhere outside of the country on taxpayers’ dime, so Gagné billing taxpayers almost $1 million to fly around the world is completely unacceptable,” said CTF federal director Franco Terrazzano.
“Prime Minister Mark Carney needs to hold Gagné accountable and make sure senators aren’t globetrotting on the taxpayer credit card.”
Terrazzano pointed out the total cost of Gagné’s overseas trips is actually much higher because the records they unearthed are missing full costs for her trips to Chile, Tunisia and the Netherlands.
The records also provide no insight on reimbursements to taxpayers, if any.
Destinations include Benin, New Zealand, Spain
Gagné and her entourage traveled far and wide over the last three years.
These include a March 2024 trip to Africa, where they attended the opening of a regional stock exchange in Côte d’Ivoire before visiting tourist sites in Benin — at a cost of $101,816.
Later that year in September, Gagné brought a delegation to New Zealand for “business calls” to Christchurch and Wellington, and a photo op with the mayor of resort town Rotorua.
That trip cost taxpayers $118,965.
Gagné brought her entourage to Spain and the U.K. in March 2025, where she and Canada’s Usher of the Black Rod Gregory Peters received a ceremonial sword from the King at Buckingham Palace — a trip that cost $105,156.
March 2026 also saw Gagné pay a “courtesy call” to Japan’s Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi, at a cost of $107,594.
Other locales visited by the speaker include the United States, South Africa, Belgium, Brazil, France, Romania, Czechia and Switzerland.
Her annual salary as speaker of the Senate is $268,300, a job that includes benefits such as car and residence allowances.
Gagné also spent big on meals, with records showing a $2,822 dinner for 12 at the Oxford and Cambridge Club in London, a $1,927 lunch in Madrid, and $1,408 for a 13-person luncheon in Bucharest, Romania.
Speaker has diplomatic duties, office states
“If Gagné wants to make a courtesy call to a Japanese politician, then she should pick up the phone instead of billing taxpayers six figures,” Terrazzano said.
“In what world is it acceptable for an unelected senator to bill taxpayers thousands of dollars for meals and receptions in Europe?”
In a statement to the Toronto Sun, Gagné’s office said the speakers of both the Senate and House of Commons have constitutionally-defined diplomatic roles, as they hold rank in Canada’s table of precedence — only outranked by the Governor General, the Prime Minister and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
“As part of her constitutional and institutional responsibilities, the Speaker regularly hosts foreign leaders and delegations visiting Parliament and leads parliamentary delegations abroad to promote Canadian values and interests and strengthen interparliamentary relations,” the statement read.
“These official parliamentary missions are undertaken as part of the Speaker’s responsibilities and typically include other senators as members of the delegation.”
bpassifiume@postmedia.com
X: @bryanpassifiume
Senate Speaker drops nearly $900K on world travel: Canadian Taxpayers Federation
Canadian Taxpayers Federation slams Red Chamber Speaker Raymonde Gagné over $875,677 in taxpayer-funded overseas trips. Find out more.