It was quiet and across Canada, and everyone was listening — even the mouse — as the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) announced the taxpayer naughty-and-nice list.The list describes what Canadian taxpayers should deem naughty or nice when it comes to the spending of their tax dollars.Top of the naughty list — you can only guess who's getting coal for Christmas — Doug Ford for his own Christmas present: a nice hefty pay raise."Ontario Premier Doug Ford [gave] Ontario politicians, Santa-sized pay hikes," stated Franco Terrazzano, Federal Director of the CTF.."'Tis the season for giving — and Ontario politicians sure do love giving to themselves.""Ontario politicians gifted themselves a 35% pay raise.""This year, Ford took a raise that would make even Ebenezer Scrooge blush, a $73,000 hike.""Ford initially promised to end political welfare, but this year, he made Ontario's per-vote subsidy to Ontario political parties permanent.".Next on the naughty list, is someone that if you guessed correctly — you could perhaps celebrate your victory with some...champagne?That's right — François-Philippe Champagne, Minister of Finance and National Revenue is you next naughty-list maker.As Terrazzano puts it, Champagne can be credited "for sticking future generations with massive debt to pay back.""Champagne plans to add about $320 billion to the debt by 2030 for comparison, former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau planned to add about $150 billion to the debt over those same years," quite the gift during Christmas time..A government agency that takes a well deserved position on the naughty list — the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA).These guys "left Santa on hold for nearly an hour, and when the CRA finally picked up the phone, they forgot to check their numbers twice," stated Terrazzano.Of course this is a reference to the auditor general report in which CRA responses were only accurate 54% of the time, while the "completeness of response" was 31% of the time. "The CRA gave Santa the wrong tax information," said Terrazzano.."Now, Santa is not surprised that the auditor general found the CRA gives the correct answer to individual tax questions just 17% of the time, but Santa is hopping mad."And last but certainly not least, because Santa does not discriminate, especially when it comes to the naughty list, we have Gun Grab Gary, or officially, Gary Anandasangaree, Minister of Public Safety.Terrazzano says Canadian taxpayers can credit Anandasangaree "for taking away presents from law-abiding Canadian firearm owners.""So the public safety Minister checked law abiding Canadians' firearm licenses — he even checked them twice."."Law-abiding firearm owners did everything right. But instead of going after criminals and illegal guns, the federal public safety minister is going to Grinch law-abiding Canadians' farms away with taxpayers' money.""Now Mrs. Claus has made it very clear that she is not going to hand over her rifle that she uses to protect reindeer from hungry predators."Moving on to something more, shall we say, holly and jolly — we've got number one getting whatever they want off their Amazon wishlist, the Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO), Jason Jakes.Jakes is on the list "for the gift of government transparency and accountability," stated Terrazzano.."Taxpayers always deserve transparency and accountability from Ottawa and the PBO is delivering.""The PBO first sounded the bells on the government's growing debt, then the PBO called out Krampus on the government's creative accounting.""The PBO called the Federal Government relabeling $94 billion of operating spending as capital.Who's also been nice, you may ask?.That'd be, Premier of Saskatchewan, Scott Moe, for "for making Saskatchewan carbon tax free.""Moe set the industrial carbon tax rate to zero, making Saskatchewan the first carbon tax free province in all of Canada," said Terrazzano."Moe, by setting and removing the carbon tax from Sask power bills is saving Saskatchewan families hundreds of dollars now.""Rumor has it, Santa is thinking about moving his toy production to northern Saskatchewan to escape the Grinch's industrial carbon tax.".And of course, the CTF couldn't forget about one more premier — the Premier right here in Alberta, Danielle Smith.Smith made the list "for refusing to spend $2 billion more to satisfy the Alberta Teachers Association (ATA)," stated Terrazzano."The patron saint of children, when he found out that Alberta's kids were missing school for nearly a month and their parents — Alberta taxpayers — were getting shaken down for an extra $2 billion by a big government union, the jolly old elf was getting less jolly by the minute.""Smith made Santa's nice list for saving Alberta taxpayers a ton of cookie-dough and for getting kids back into classrooms.".One person who really stood out, always seeming to be working for taxpayers this year and is thus, on the nice list is "Jason Jakes. — this is his first year, he's the interim PBO," Terrazzano stated."This is his first year on the nice list, and he also topped it.""One of the reasons, the PBO is because they're constantly, holding government accountable by producing the budget reports.""In the past, the PBO called out the government spin on the carbon tax.""The PBO has been on the taxpayer's nice list for quite some time, and well-deserved."
