OTTAWA, ON: The Canadian Taxpayers Federation is calling on Prime Minister Mark Carney to cut spending ahead of the 2025 budget.

“The Carney government’s first budget will be a failure if it spends even one dollar more than the Trudeau government spent last year,” said Franco Terrazzano, CTF Federal Director. “After years of completely unrestrained spending, there’s room to cut spending everywhere in the budget.”

The Carney government is expected to table its first budget in October.

“It’s an austerity and investment budget at the same time, and that’s possible if we are disciplined,” Carney told reporters during the cabinet retreat in Toronto. “The rate of increase of federal government spending in the last decade was over seven per cent year over year. That’s faster than the rate of growth of our economy.”

The federal government spent $539.5 billion last year, according to the Fall Economic Statement. Federal spending increased by more than 20 per cent since 2015-16, even after accounting for inflation and population growth.

Debt interest charges cost taxpayers $54 billion last year. For context, the government wasted more money paying interest on the debt than it sent to the provinces in health-care transfers.

The CTF is calling on the government to immediately cut three areas of spending:

1.Member of Parliament pay – MPs need to lead by example and cut their own pay after years of taking raises every April 1. Backbench MPs take a salary of $209,800. A minister’s annual salary is now $309,700, while the prime minister’s salary is $419,600.

2.Bureaucracy costs – The budget needs to shrink the bureaucracy. The federal government added 99,000 employees and ballooned the cost of the bureaucracy 77 per cent since 2016.

3.Corporate welfare – The government must stop handing billions to multinational corporations. Federal corporate subsidies cost taxpayers $11.2 billion in 2022, or more than $1,100 for each Canadian family of four.

“Taxpayers can’t afford to pay more than $1 billion every week just to cover the interest payments on the government credit card,” Terrazzano said. “Carney needs to make government more affordable and that means cutting politician pay, shrinking the bureaucracy and eliminating corporate welfare.”