The city of Toronto won the Canadian Taxpayers Federation's municipal Teddy Waste Award for spending nearly $2,000 on a plaque commemorating a dead raccoon while the Ontario government was nominated for the slow and over-budget Finch West LRT in the provincial category.

“Toronto won the top dishonour for cities across the country because bureaucrats decided to blow thousands of taxpayer dollars celebrating the routine death of a raccoon,” said Noah Jarvis, CTF Ontario Director. “City hall should be filling potholes instead of memorializing roadkill.”

Heritage Toronto spent $1,936 on a plaque commemorating “Conrad the Raccoon,” a raccoon that died 11 years ago on a sidewalk and was given a faux memorial by city residents.

The city paid for a permanent plaque, a temporary plaque and a graphic designer, according to documents obtained by the CTF through a freedom of information request.

Heritage Toronto is an agency of the City of Toronto that receives nearly half of its budget directly from taxpayers.

The Ontario government was also nominated in the provincial government waste category for the Finch West LRT, a light rail line that was 50 per cent over budget and travels at an average speed of 12 km/h.

“It’s bad enough that politicians misled voters on the cost of building the Finch West LRT,” Jarvis said. “But when the LRT is running it’s 10-kilometre route slower than hundreds of Toronto Marathon participants, you’re building transit wrong.

“Politicians need to focus on saving taxpayer money instead of blowing it on memorials for dead street animals and on over-budget jalopies.”

Other winners at the 2026 Teddy Waste Awards include:

• 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.

All the winners and nominees for the 2026 Teddys are HERE.