Latest news with #CanadianTaxpayersFederation
CTV News
6 days ago
- Business
- CTV News
Debt clock arrives in Manitoba
The Canadian Taxpayers Federation brought its debt clock to Manitoba, showing how much the province's debt and interest payments are growing.
Toronto Sun
11-07-2025
- Business
- Toronto Sun
CTF says CBC staff with 6-figure salaries has more than doubled in last decade
The CBC/Radio Canada sign on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporations building in Vancouver is pictured on May 28, 2013. Photo by Gerry Kahrmann / Postmedia Network files The Canadian Taxpayers Federation says the number of CBC staff collecting six-figure salaries has more than doubled since 2015 according to access-to-information records. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors Don't have an account? Create Account 'Taxpayers don't need all these extra CBC employees taking six-figure salaries,' said Franco Terrazzano, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation's federal director , in a statement. 'The government should save money by taking air out of its highly paid bureaucracy and that includes Crown corporations like the CBC.' The CTF says in the fiscal year, 2024-25, 1,831 CBC employees took a six-figure salary, according to the records obtained by access to information with those salaries costing taxpayers about $240 million in 2024 for an average salary of $131,060 for those employees. The federation says a decade ago in the 2015-16 fiscal year, 438 CBC employees took home six-figure salaries, for a total cost to taxpayers of about $59.6 million. Your noon-hour look at what's happening in Toronto and beyond. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. Please try again This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. The CTF says the number of CBC staffers with a six-figure salary increased 17% over the last year and since 2015, that number has increased 318%. The federation says the CBC will cost taxpayers more than $1.4 billion this year, according to the main estimates. 'Canadians should be able to pick the content they want to pay for instead of the government forcing them to pay for the CBC with their taxes,' Terrazzano said the CBC in a statement. 'And other media organizations shouldn't be forced to compete with the taxpayer-funded CBC. It's time to defund the CBC.' The CTF says while most provincial governments proactively publish annual sunshine lists to provide transparency on employee compensation, Ottawa does not. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. The federation has repeatedly called on the federal government to proactively publish a sunshine list to disclose the salaries of the government's highest paid employees. More than 110,000 federal bureaucrats took home a six-figure base salary in 2023, according to separate access-to-information records obtained by the CTF. —- Here's CBC sunshine list and cost, per access-to-information records obtained by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation with the fiscal year, number of staff earning $100,000, and total paid to staff earning $100,000: 2015-16: 438, $59.6 million 2016-17: 467, $63.6 million 2017-18: 511, $68.7 million 2018-19: 599, $78.0 million 2019-20: 729, $93.4 million 2020-21: 838, $106.2 million 2021-22: 949, $119.5 million 2022-23: 1,378, $170.4 million 2023-24: 1,566, $192.7 million 2024-25: 1,831, $240.0 million Editorial Cartoons World Toronto & GTA Toronto Maple Leafs Toronto & GTA
Toronto Sun
25-06-2025
- Business
- Toronto Sun
Former PM, GAC's $51K-per-month booze bill tops annual gov't waste awards
Annual awards handed out by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation celebrate the worst in government waste. Global Affairs Canada spent over $3 million on alcohol since 2019 Photo by iStock / GETTY IMAGES OTTAWA — Global Affairs Canada's $51K-per-month booze bill, a $65K phone line to call a river, and a $77K provincial government travel junket that resulted in travel ads insisting Saint John was New Brunswick's capital. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors Don't have an account? Create Account These are among the winners of this year's Teddy Waste Awards, an annual 'celebration' of government waste held by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. The big winner of this year's golden pig, however, was former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau — who snagged the federation's lifetime achievement award. '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 federation federal director Franco Terrazzano, who pointed out it took former PMs 150 years to rack up $600 billion in federal debt — something Trudeau managed to achieve in less than a decade. The City of Calgary won in the municipal waste category for the city's latest public art blunder — a $65,000 phone line that allowed residents to listen to a recording of the city's Bow River. Your noon-hour look at what's happening in Toronto and beyond. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. Please try again This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. 'If someone wants to listen to a river, they can go sit next to one, but the City of Calgary should not force taxpayers to pay for this,' the federation's Alberta director Kris Sims told the Calgary Herald this week. Other nominees included Ottawa's $160K 'night mayor,' and $318K spent in Saskatoon to develop a name and 'feel' for the city's new bus rapid transit system. Provincially, New Brunswick Tourism won for a $77K tourism junket to Europe to promote the province as a travel destination. Read More Unfortunately, the associated ad campaigns were full of erroneous information about the province, including claims that Saint John was the capital and largest city in New Brunswick — while in reality, Fredericton is capital and Moncton its largest city. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Other ads invited travellers to visit the New Brunswick Museum, Martello Tower and the Cherry Brook Zoo — attractions that have long closed. Other nominees include Quebec Premier François Legault for purchasing a framed Guy Lafleur jersey with provincial money, Manitoba Health for commissioning a breast cancer awareness campaign criticized for its vulgarity, and BC Rail for paying two executives $500K in salary to run a railway without trains. Global Affairs Canada spending over $3 million on alcohol since 2019 — a story first published in the Toronto Sun — won the government agency the federal prize. ' These bureaucrats seem like they're having a good time, but what value are taxpayers getting from this huge booze bill?' Terrazzano told the Sun last year. 'Billing taxpayers $51,000 a month for booze is mind boggling, but what's even crazier is this tab is just for one government department.' Runners-up include the Department of National Defence spending $34.8 million on sleeping bags not designed to handle Canadian winters, Parks Canada spending four years and $10,000 to kill a single bullfrog, and Statistics Canada spending nearly a million dollars to produce a podcast that only managed to garner less than 230 subscribers. bpassifiume@ X: @bryanpassifiume RECOMMENDED VIDEO Toronto & GTA NHL Other Sports Music Toronto Maple Leafs
Calgary Herald
19-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Calgary Herald
Civic partner criticized for spending $65,000 on phone line to listen to Bow River
A fiscal watchdog is taking the city's public art authority to task for spending tens of thousands of dollars on a phone line that allowed people to listen to recorded sounds of the Bow River. Article content The Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) issued a freedom of information request to the city in 2024, revealing that the Reconnecting to the Bow public art project cost taxpayers $65,194. Article content Article content Article content 'If someone wants to listen to a river, they can go sit next to one, but the City of Calgary should not force taxpayers to pay for this,' the federation's Alberta director, Kris Sims, said in a news release on Thursday. Article content Article content The project was led by Calgary Arts Development, which has run the city's public art program since 2021. Article content A web page devoted to the audio art project states Reconnecting to the Bow invited Calgarians to 'connect to the Bow River' by calling a hotline to listen to recordings of the river water as it gurgled and babbled. Article content The toll-free phone number — (1-855-269-5786) — was active from August to December 2024. Article content Calling that number now returns an automated message stating the project has concluded. Article content The public art project, a relaunch of a 2014 initiative called Varying Proximities, also included several promotions for the hotline throughout the city on billboards, at transit stations and on social media platforms. Article content Article content Emails the federation obtained from the city revealed the project cost just over $65,000. The budget included approximately $32,000 in installation costs, $15,000 in artist fees, $14,000 in consulting fees and technical support, and $3,500 for communication and research. The project also included the costs to activate the phone number. Article content The arts group collaborated with Broken City Lab, a Windsor, Ont.-based interdisciplinary artist collective.
CTV News
19-06-2025
- General
- CTV News
Taxpayer group wants Bow River phone line disconnected
A couple paddle a raft in the Bow River trying to beat the heat in Calgary, Alta., Wednesday, June 30, 2021. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh Calgarians were charged $65,000 to support an art project that allowed residents to listen to the gurgling waters of the Bow River, a funding watchdog says. The Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) is lashing out against the Reconnecting to the Bow project, a city-funded initiative that involved a hotline connecting callers to the sound of the Bow River at any time. CTF says the project is unnecessary and a waste of money. 'If someone wants to listen to a river, they can go sit next to one, but the City of Calgary should not force taxpayers to pay for this,' said Kris Sims, CTF Alberta director, in a news release. 'If phoning a river floats your boat, you do you, but don't force your neighbour to pay for your art choices.' The phone line, which is accessed by calling 1-855-BOW-LSTN (1-855-269-5786), was originally introduced in 2014 and reintroduced by the Calgary Arts Development Authority last year. The authority said during the first 10 days of launch thousands of people called the hotline. The project is expected to run until December.
