OTTAWA, ON: The Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) today released its 2018 federal naughty and nice list, highlighting the people and institutions in Ottawa who have either been costing – or saving – taxpayers money.

The Taxpayers’ Naughty List:

The Canada Revenue Agency

From being unable to even apply its own rules consistently, to forcing taxpayers to pay for the agency’s own mistakes, the taxman gets a big “bah humbug!” and inclusion on this years’ taxpayers naughty list.

Environment Minister Catherine McKenna

For her relentless insistence in trying to make life more expensive for millions of Canadians by imposing a carbon tax on provinces that don’t want one (in between jetting around both the country and world) Minister McKenna earns a large lump of non-renewable, combustible sedimentary rock for her Christmas stocking.

Finance Minister Bill Morneau

Minister Morneau’s failure to ho-ho-hold the line on spending meant a third consecutive deficit and still no plan or timeline whatsoever to return the budget to balance as explicitly promised. There’s clearly no need to check the list twice: saddling Canadian taxpayers with an additional $76 billion in debt by 2020 is a guaranteed way to land the minister on the naughty list.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

The taxpayer buck stops (or rather, doesn’t stop) at the top, and the PM simply hasn’t shown much interest in looking out for Canadian taxpayers – from carbon taxes to budget deficits, or from a disastrous trip to India to failing to stop paying for outrageous spending by former governors general. He’ll need to show vast improvement (especially before October) to have any shot of getting onto the nice list next year.   

The Taxpayers’ Nice List:

The Office of the Auditor General of Canada

Another year of fine work done by this important independent institution, including a report on the expensive fiasco of the Phoenix pay system and an examination of the Canada Revenue Agency’s failure to properly apply tax rules when reviewing taxpayer files.

The Parliamentary Budget Office

Another critical independent officer of Parliament, the PBO has produced many important reports, including the cost of increased refugee arrivals and the potential cost of making employer health benefits taxable. The PBO’s good work helps provide Members of Parliament and Canadians generally with important information to help hold the government to account.

The Global Affairs Canada whistleblower

An individual working inside Global Affairs Canada provided important information that allowed the CTF to use access to information laws to uncover wasteful expenditures including $24,000 on 86 seat cushions at the Mexico City embassy and $127,000 on crystal glassware. We salute this conscientious government employee for their concern and willingness to act on the abuse of taxpayer dollars!

Thrifty MPs

At least 12 MPs – including Liberals Shaun Chen, David McGuinty, Robert Morrissey, John Oliver and Churence Roger, Conservatives Tom Lukiwski, Scott Reid and Len Webber, and New Democrats David Christopherson and Alistair MacGregor – claimed $0 in office hospitality costs for the first six months of fiscal 2018-19, underscoring that careful use of taxpayer dollars truly can cut across party lines.