The Canadian Taxpayers Federation has announced the winners of its annual Teddy Waste Awards, calling out what it says are the worst examples of government waste in Canada, including spending on booze, botched tourism ads and a novelty river hotline.Former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was awarded the lifetime achievement Teddy for nearly a decade of what the CTF describes as excessive federal waste, including billing taxpayers $6,000 per night for a hotel suite in England, spending six figures on airplane food after pledging to cut costs, and adding 99,000 federal bureaucrats while nearly doubling the national debt."Trudeau never met a problem he didn’t try to fix by wasting more tax dollars." said the CTF.As inflation reached a 40-year high, Trudeau took his cabinet ministers on three “affordability retreats” in a single year. Those retreats cost taxpayers more than $1 million.Trudeau also wasted taxpayers’ money all around the world.He spent $61,000 on Manhattan hotel rooms during a two-day star-studded anti-poverty conference. “Bureaucrats at Global Affairs Canada are winning a Teddy Award because they are wasting money on booze faster than taxpayers can say bottoms up,” said Franco Terrazzano, federal director of the CTF.The bill included spending $56,684 on “wine purchases from special store” in Washington, DC. Other large orders include $9,815 worth of wine expensed by bureaucrats in Beijing, China, in March 2021, and $8,912 worth of wine expensed by bureaucrats in New Delhi, India, in May 2022. Orders flown off to bureaucrats in far flung locales like Oslo, Tokyo, Moscow and London routinely run into the thousands of dollars per shipment.Global Affairs Canada took the federal Teddy for spending an average of $51,000 per month on alcohol. The CTF also criticized the department for funding an $8,800 sex toy show in Germany and a $1,700 musical about lesbian pirates.The City of Calgary was named municipal Teddy winner for spending $65,000 on a phone line that allows callers to “talk” to the Bow River.Calgarians could call the toll-free line to hear different recordings of the river, depending on the time they called."Now, Calgarians can hear what wasting tax dollars truly sounds like."New Brunswick won the provincial Teddy for spending $77,000 on an eight-day European trip to promote the province. The CTF said the resulting ads were riddled with factual errors, suggesting the ad creators didn’t know much about New Brunswick.The ads repeatedly referred to Saint John as the capital and largest city. It is, in fact, neither of these.Even worse, closed attractions like the Cherry Brook Zoo and the New Brunswick Museum (which is undergoing lengthy renovations) were promoted as open for business.The annual awards are named after Ted Weatherill, a former federal appointee dismissed in 1999 after filing questionable expenses, including a $700 lunch for two. Winners receive a golden pig-shaped trophy, and this year’s ceremony featured the CTF’s tuxedo-wearing mascot, Porky the Waste Hater.
