Taxpayers Federation presents Teddy Waste Awards for worst government waste

CALGARY, AB: The Canadian Taxpayers Federation presented Teddy Waste Awards to the Canada Revenue Agency for getting personal tax questions right only 17 per cent of the time, British Columbia Premier David Eby for wasting money on fake soccer balls and the city of Toronto for celebrating a dead racoon.

“Bureaucrats at the CRA are winning a Teddy Award because they give out so many wrong answers that Canadians might as well ask a Magic 8 Ball for tax advice,” said Franco Terrazzano, CTF Federal Director. “Toronto bureaucrats spent taxpayers’ money on a plaque for a racoon that died 10 years ago so they’re getting a trophy they deserve: A Teddy Waste Award.”

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

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

“I don’t know much about soccer, but neither does Eby because he spent hundreds of thousands on three soccer balls that aren’t round and that you can’t kick because they’re made out of wood-leather,” Terrazzano said.

“The government claims the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council studies ‘issues that matter most to Canadians,’” Terrazzano said. “But the SSHRC funds studies about the life of a grocery cart, fat fashion photography on social media, erotic video games, letters to a porn star and the mating rituals of frat boys in Jasper.

“For answering questions that nobody asked and costing taxpayers $1 billion a year, the SSHRC is a worthy recipient of this year’s Lifetime Achievement Award for Waste.”

This year’s winners include:

• Municipal Teddy Waste Award Winner: Toronto

Heritage Toronto wasted nearly $2,000 on a plaque to memorialize a raccoon that died in 2015.

• Provincial Teddy Waste Award Winner: B.C. Premier David Eby

The B.C. government spent $354,000 on three “wood-leather soccer balls” for display purposes, according to records obtained by the CTF.

• Federal Teddy Waste Award Winner: The Canada Revenue Agency

The Auditor General found that the CRA’s “responses to general individual-tax questions were accurate only 17 per cent of the time.” The CRA’s responses on business taxes were accurate just 54 per cent of the time. Even then, the Auditor General said the “completeness of response” was 31 per cent.

• Lifetime Achievement Teddy Award Winner: The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council

The government claims the SSHRC-funded studies provide “insights on the issues that matter most to Canadians.” However, the SSHRC has a long history of funding whacky and niche research.

The CTF caught the SSHRC spending $105,000 studying “the birth, life and death” of a grocery cart, $17,500 on a study about “casual sex among young adults living in Jasper” and $17,500 on a study about disgraced former rodeo princesses.

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