CALGARY, AB: The Canadian Taxpayers Federation presented Teddy Waste Awards to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for a decade of federal waste, Global Affairs Canada for spending $51,000 per month on booze and the city of Calgary for spending $65,000 so people can phone a river.

“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 Franco Terrazzano, CTF Federal Director. “Bureaucrats at Global Affairs Canada are winning a Teddy Award because they are wasting money on booze faster than taxpayers can say bottoms up.”

The Teddy Waste Award, the golden pig-shaped trophy the CTF annually awards to governments’ worst waste offenders, is named after Ted Weatherill, a former federal appointee who was fired in 1999 for submitting a raft of dubious expense claims, including a $700 lunch for two in France.

The CTF’s big pink pig mascot, Porky the Waste Hater, was on hand at the ceremony, dressed in a tuxedo.

“New Brunswick spent tens of thousands of dollars to get Europeans to visit the province, but the tourism ads were full of errors because the writers clearly didn’t know much about New Brunswick,” Terrazzano said.

“The city of Calgary won a Teddy Waste Award for spending $65,000 so people can telephone the Bow River and hear what wasting tax dollars sounds like.”

This year’s winners include:

• Municipal Teddy Winner: The city of Calgary

In most cities, you can only send a message in a bottle down a river. But not in Calgary, where the city spent $65,000 so people can phone the Bow River.

• Provincial Teddy Winner: New Brunswick

New Brunswick spent $77,000 on an eight-day trip to Europe to get Europeans to visit the province. The ads created to promote New Brunswick to Europeans were full of gaffs and incorrect information about the province.

• Federal Teddy Winner: Global Affairs Canada

The federal department of Global Affairs Canada spends an average of $51,000 per month on booze, according to records obtained by the CTF. Perhaps all that alcohol explains the department’s crazy spending, like an $8,800 sex toy show in Germany and a $1,700 musical featuring lesbian pirates?

• Lifetime Achievement Teddy Waste Award Winner: Former prime minister Justin Trudeau

On his way to doubling the federal debt in less than a decade, Trudeau added 99,000 federal bureaucrats and wasted taxpayers’ money all over the world on fancy feasts and hotel suites.

You can find the backgrounder on this year’s Teddy Waste Award nominees and winners HERE.

--30--