Tax Talk With The Canadian Taxpayers Federation

The Canadian Senate is locked in yet another scandal - this time on housing expenses. The RCMP are even investigating. Canadian Taxpayers Federation Research Director Nick Bergamini helps us break down what exactly is going on. Plus our usual features: Comment of the Cast, Waste of the Week and Stat of the Cast.

The Liberal government in Ontario, clinging to minority power, released its 2013/14 budget last week, and it means more debt for taxpayers. CTF Ontario director Candice Malcolm joined B.C. Director and Tax Talk host Jordan Bateman to break down the document and what it means in the volatile political battleground of Ontario. Plus our usual features: Comment of the Cast, Waste of the Week and our Stat of the Cast!

In the 2011 Manitoba election, Premier Greg Selinger completely ruled out any sales tax increase in Manitobe. Two years later, that was proven to be a lie. Selinger is proposing a PST increase from 7% to 8% and Manitobans are angry. CTF Prairie Director Colin Craig joins B.C. Director and Tax Talk host Jordan Bateman to talk about the hike, reaction and GregLied.ca. Plus our usual features: Comment of the Cast, Waste of the Week and Stat of the Cast. And a bonus after the closing theme song: Manitoba Premier Greg Selinger's own words on a PST hike (from 2011).

Albertans love beer and hate taxes. They also hate protectionsim. Yet, inexplicably, the Alberta government is pondering an incraese to the beer tax - bad news! CTF Alberta Director Derek Fildebrandt joins B.C. Director Jordan Bateman to talk about the beer tax, and what can be done to save Albertans from more expensive suds. Plus our usual features - Comment of the Cast, Waste of the Week, and Stat of the Cast.

Two significant political personalities passed away recently - former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and former Alberta Premier Ralph Klein. Both were lions of the low tax, small government movement - Premier Klein even receiving a Taxfighter Award from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.  CTF President and CEO Troy Lanigan, who met both Premier Klein and Lady Thatcher, joins B.C. Director Jordan Bateman to talk about their legacy, influence, political philosophy and contrasting governing styles. Plus our usual features: Comment of the Cast, Waste of the Week and the Stat of the Cast.

CTF Prairie Director Colin Craig joins B.C. Director Jordan Bateman to talk about Bill C-27 becoming law. This law, championed by the CTF, will increase transparency on First Nations reserves by making it law that chiefs and councillors must publish their salaries online.  Plus our usual features - Comment of the Cast, Waste of the Week and Stat of the Cast. And a bonus: some of our favorite quotes from the late Margaret Thatcher.

So we know Canada's health care system is taking big bucks but producing only middling results - so how do we fix it? Globe and Mail national affairs columnist Jeffrey Simpson, author of Chronic Condition: Why Canada's Health Care System Needs to Be Dragged Into the 21st Century, sat down with CTF federal director Gregory Thomas to talk about solutions. Note: Part 1 of the Simpson-Thomas interview can be heard on Tax Talk #20. Plus our usual features: Comment of the Cast, Waste of the Week and the Stat of the Cast.

Canada's health care system is paying Cadillac prices for Chevrolet results, and is in desperate need of reform. Globe and Mail columnist Jeffrey Simpson, the author of Chronic Condition: Why Canada's Health Care System Needs To Be Dragged Into the 21st Century, recently sat down with CTF federal director Gregory Thomas to talk about his book, and where health care needs to go next. This episode features part one of that interview (part two will be featured in Tax Talk #21 next week), which looks at the current state of Canadian health care and what we're actually getting for the billions of dollars we pour into the system every year. Plus our usual features: Comment of the Cast, Waste of the Week, and Stat of the Cast.

In a very special Tax Talk episode, we share the Ottawa news conference announcing the nominees and winners for the 15th annual Teddy Waste Awards ceremony. This is the Canadian Taxpayers Federation's signature event, roasting the year’s worst and funniest examples of government waste.   CTF Federal Director Gregory Thomas, Master of Ceremonies, joined the charming and talented Catherine Brière and the CTF’s pig mascot Porky the Waste Hater at the swine-studded gala, held on Parliament Hill March 6 at the Charles Lynch Press Conference Theatre. The CTF’s signature waste award, the Teddy, is named for Ted Weatherill, a former federal appointee sacked in 1999 after submitting a litany of dubious expenses, including a $700 lunch for two. Each year the CTF hosts the Teddy awards to shine the spotlight on corruption and waste in government at every level, whether it’s on Parliament Hill, in a provincial capital, at city hall, the band office, or the school board office.

Alas, poor Ontario. Once the engine of the proud nation known as Canada, the province has fallen on hard times - thanks to poor leadership. It's economy is flailing, its debt is mounting and no one in Queen's Park wants to take the tough action to set things right. So the Canadian Taxpayers Federation has ramped up its presence in Toronto, adding a new Ontario Director, Candice Malcolm.  Candice joined CTF B.C. Director and Tax Talk host Jordan Bateman to talk about Ontario's woes and what can be done to get the province back on track - and back in black.  Plus our usual features:Comment of the Cast, Waste of the Week and Stat of the Cast.

Whether by the Ontario Medical Association, the B.C. independent business tax panel, the B.C. Healthy Living Alliance or a Kamloops city councillor, the idea of a fat or sugar tax continues to pop up like the pesky mole in an old arcade game. Unfortunately, it’s taxpayers – and the provincial economy – that would get whacked by such a tax. Supporters of such a flawed taxation policy should look to Denmark’s experience for a text book example of why it doesn’t work. Recently, the CTF toured Jens Klarskov, executive director of the Denmark Chamber of Commerce, through Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver to meet with politicians and speak with the media about the disaster that was Denmark's fat tax. Jens sat down with CKNW Vancouver radio host Mike Smyth for this interview - a special thanks to CKNW and the Bill Good Show for allowing us to use it on our podcast. Plus our usual features: Comment of the Cast, Waste of the Week and the Stat of the Cast.

It's our first ever Lacey-cast, as CTF Atlantic Director Kevin Lacey makes his long-awaited, highly-anticipated Tax Talk debut. B.C. Director and host Jordan Bateman picks Kevin's brain on some recent exhorbitant spending on a premiers' meeting in Nova Scotia, and on the relative health of each of the four maritime provinces. Plus our usual features: Comment of the Cast, Waste of the Week, and Stat of the Cast.

Love is in the air, and with Valentine's Day around the corner, CTF B.C. Director and Tax Talk host Jordan Bateman and Alberta Director Derek Fildebrandt decided it was time to recognize a few political figures who have done the right thing for taxpayers over the previous year. These individuals aren't perfect, but are definitely deserving of some recognition on key files. Plus our usual features - Comment of the Cast, Waste of the Week and the Stat of the Cast!

The Canadian labour movement showed both their hypocrisy and poor understanding of practical business principles last week when they lashed Canadian companies for hoarding cash. Hypocritical because union members' pension funds own hundreds of millions of dollars in the very companies they criticize. And poor understanding because they cited examples of companies that created jobs, set up funds to cover off the kind of disastrous downturns that doomed Nortel, and ignored brilliant borrowing strategies that lowered long term cost. CTF federal director Gregory Thomas has been following all this, and joined Tax Talk host Jordan Bateman to talk about these vital economic issues. Plus our usual features: Comment of the Cast, Waste of the Week and Stat of the Cast!

CTF B.C. Director and Tax Talk host Jordan Bateman was recently a guest on The David Berner Show, where the veteran journalist interviewed him on a myriad of taxation issues, most notably politicians' determination to spend big bucks on anything remotely green. David has graciously allowed us to air that interview in our middle segment - plus our usual features: Comment of the Cast, Waste of the Week and the Stat of the Cast.

While most of us dread opening our property tax bill and seeing increases higher than the rate of inflation, the people of Penticton, B.C., are in the midst of a three-year tax freeze, thanks to the hard work of their City Hall. Penticton Mayor Dan Ashton and CAO Anette Antoniak join CTF B.C. Director and Tax Talk host Jordan Bateman to tell us how they did it. Plus our usual features--Comment of the Cast, Waste of the Week and some Stats of the Cast that will break your heart.

British Columbia is pushing ahead with a new B.C. Services card - a new ID and information management card that will combine health, driver and other government information, potentially putting your personal information at risk. This will cost a fortune - and is being done by the same government that bungled a new Intergrated Case Management system and the BCeSIS student information boondoggle. Worse yet, the rest of Canada may follow suit. B.C. Director Jordan Bateman is joined by Freedom of Information and Privacy Association executive director Vincent Gogolek to talk about the ID cards - and why government seems so willing to suck up more of our information, without revealing any of theirs. Plus our usual features - Comment of the Cast, Waste of the Week and Stat of the Cast - and stay tuned for a post-end theme song "Easter Egg": the 156 books read by a Manitoba bureaucrat while cahsing taxpayer cheques for three years.

Canadian Taxpayers Federation Alberta Director Derek Fildebrandt joins Tax Talk host and B.C. Director Jordan Bateman to talk about his new report into contraband tobacco sales on Ontario native reserves, which cost taxpayers $1.2 billion a year. Every man, woman and child on Ontario reserves would have to smoke three packs a day to explaint he number of tax-free cigarettes sold in Ontario reserve smoke shacks. This lost revenue could help federal and Ontario taxpayers and give a new revenue source to native bands. Plus our usual features: Comment of the Cast, Waste of the Week and the Stat of the Cast.

If the Canadian Taxpayers Federation were to build a Mount Rushmore of public policy successes, these four would be strong contenders to make the mountain: MP pension reform, the mid-1990s federal budgets, Bill C-27 (First Nations Accountability Act) and the Alberta flat tax system. CTF President and CEO Troy Lanigan joins B.C. Director Jordan Bateman to chat about these big success stories, and the CTF's role in them. Plus our usual features - Comment of the Cast, Waste of the Week and the Stat of the Cast.

Canadian Taxpayers Federation president and CEO Troy Lanigan joins B.C. director Jordan Bateman this week to talk about the CTF's roots, current status and vision for the future. If you've ever had a question about the CTF and how we operate, this is the episode for you. Plus our usual features: Comment of the Cast, Waste of the Week and the Stat of the Cast!