Taxpayers were on the hook for more than $190 million in bonuses handed out by Crown corporations last year, according to newly released government records.The Canadian Taxpayers Federation blasted the payouts, saying Ottawa has no business cutting big cheques to highly paid bureaucrats while running deficits in the tens of billions.“Bonuses are for when you do a good job, they shouldn’t be handed out like participation trophies,” said Franco Terrazzano, CTF’s federal director. “Maybe the government should stop handing out bonuses when it’s borrowing tens of billions of dollars every year.”The order paper records, tabled by Conservative MP Andrew Scheer, show the Business Development Bank of Canada led the pack with more than $60 million in bonuses, including an average of $216,000 per executive..The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation followed close behind with $30.6 million. Nearly 99% of CMHC executives cashed in, averaging $42,900 apiece, despite the fact housing affordability has collapsed across the country. A 2024 Ipsos poll showed 70% of Canadians who don’t already own a home say they’ve given up on ever buying one.VIA Rail approved $11 million in bonuses, with 100% of executives taking home an average of $110,000. That’s despite posting $385 million in operating losses last year and relying on $1.9 billion in government bailouts over the past five years.The Canada Infrastructure Bank handed out $8.6 million, with executive bonuses averaging $197,000. The Parliamentary Budget Officer has already warned the agency won’t meet its disbursement goals in any sector by 2027-28. A Commons committee has gone further, recommending the CIB be scrapped altogether..Other Crown corporations, including Canada Post and the National Capital Commission, declined to provide bonus figures, saying they had “nothing to report at this time.”While Crown corporation payouts are eye-popping, they come on top of more than $1.5 billion in bonuses paid out to federal departments and agencies between 2015 and 2023 — even though fewer than 50% of performance targets were consistently met in a given year, according to the PBO.Prime Minister Mark Carney has ordered Crown corporations to find up to 15% in savings by 2028, but critics say taxpayer-funded bonuses should be the first thing to go.“We need a culture change in Ottawa,” Terrazzano said. “That starts with ending the practice of rewarding failure with taxpayers’ money.”
