....from google: "The annual inflation rate in Canada fell to 1.6% in September of 2024 from 2% in the previous month, the lowest since February of 2021, and well below the market consensus of 1.9%." This is the "facts" Trudeau's government gives us.
This explains why a can of beans, at No Frills, that used to be 88 cents, is now $1.59. (down from $1.79 last month). HUH!!???
Trudeau / Freeland economics policy is simply : Lie, make up whatever numbers fit your agenda, broadcast them as the truth, and make future plans based on your fiction. This way, "Budgets balance themselves".
Canada’s federal debt has now reached over 1,328 billion dollars. This is the equivalent of $32,568.15 of debt per Canadian, or $41,139.50 per taxpayer who fills out a tax return. https://www.iedm.org/canadian-debt-clock/
There’s nothing to worry about folks Josie and Dan both figured that they can spend as much as they want on civic government. All you have to do is raise the taxes to get the money you want to spend.
Not only are property taxes increasing, but our utility fees are through the roof now as well, with the addition of the new wastewater treatment plant. The squeeze is definitely being felt!
Your property taxes and utility fees provide ample funds to support local water, sewer, roads, fire dept, police, and schools. Pay parking should be raking in an additional million bucks a year. However, this doesn't provide enough to support the gaggle of grossly overpaid "friends" who have installed themselves, UNELECTED, in the D.O.T. office, under the title of "staff". I've been told that there are more than two dozen office staff in the district office, "managing" the business of a village of less than 2500 souls. They even hired a "co-ordinator", so they can all keep their stories straight.
Until the electotate of Tofino vote in a mayor with some gonads and a council to back him/her up, and clean up the waste, graft, and corruption in the district office, things are not going to change. Hell, even Al Anderson will probably get elected to another term. It's hopeless.
Why doesn’t our mayor listen to this blog and start the office staff reduction ball rolling??? It is simple. A hiring freeze. If office paper shuffling people quit, don’t replace them. The remaining staff will have to do more and become efficient. If they don’t like it, they too can quit. Just don’t spend the savings and instead pass them back to the taxpayers.
Good idea but ....... ....there's 25 or more of them, and they're organized and rehearsed, and they're expert at circling the wagons and can supply oceans and oceans of "facts" and "valid reasons" why their positions are irreplaceable and vital to the community. They'll probably sue and launch investigations and human rights complaints and God know what else....and Dan is just one guy and he's afraid of all this crap, which would no doubt consume his entire life, and it's easier to just go along and go home at night to his family. Remember when the parks and rec lady was fired? Whoa!! Shit hit the fan then, over just one employee. She was popular in some circles. So are some of these "staff", and they're a lot better entrenched and organized than that lady ever was.
You need “ Fuck You” money to take on the establishment, and Dan doesn’t have that. Unfortunately, no one with that kind money wants to get involved. It is easier to just do what they do. The ironic aspect is pretty much all government employees are too short sighted to realize that their woke agendas are eating themselves. They may be profiting short term, but few will realize “ Fuck You” wealth, and they’ or thier children will lose in the end as well. The path we’re on is not sustainable.
Important to not put "staff" and "council" in the same bucket. Council was elected, the people agreed to have them there, and their paycheque is minimal. Thank you for your service. (even though I believe they could do better)
But "staff", that's a differnt story. "detached from reality"? Not on payday. They know exactly what's going on. "Not bad people".....perhaps. Or perhaps greedy, self serving, opportunistic, secretive, manipulative, selfish, scheming, dishonest and deceptive.
"Vancouver Island's economy is stable in the short term, but can't continue to rely on the public sector for growth over the long term, say business leaders.
The Vancouver Island Economic Alliance's annual summit is being held this week at Nanaimo's Vancouver Island Conference Centre, and the keynote talk Wednesday, Oct. 23, looked at potential over-reliance on the public sector as an economic driver.
"In the short term, things don't look too bad, especially when you think about the shocks that we've been through," said Susan Mowbray, partner with MNP's consulting group. "But once you start to dig in a little deeper, you see that the foundation is starting to crumble. We're not seeing significant private-sector investment that's going to generate that increase in income for households, businesses and government in the longer term. As a result, growth is stalling at the same time that our public sector is expanding."
"Everywhere you look – from the Prime Minister’s Office to the Crown corporations to the departments – the cost and size of the bureaucracy is up.
Take the federal c-suite, which has increased by 42 per cent under the watch of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
There were 6,414 executives in the federal government when Trudeau took power.
Fast forward to today, and that number has jumped to 9,155.
That means Trudeau isn’t just ballooning the size of government in general, he’s also swelling the ranks of its most expensive bureaucrats.
Records obtained by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation reveal growth among every class of executive under Trudeau.
The salaries for those executives range from $134,827 to $255,607 per year, not including benefits or bonuses.
And you better believe those executives are taking bonuses.
About 90 per cent of federal executives get a bonus each year, according to additional records obtained by the CTF.
In fact, Trudeau dished out $202 million in bonuses in 2022, with the average bonus among executives being $18,252.
All told, compensation for federal executives was $1.95 billion that year, which represented a 41 per cent increase over 2015.
The size of the entire federal bureaucracy has also increased by 42 per cent under Trudeau, with more than 108,000 new bureaucrats added to the taxpayer dole.
Spending on federal bureaucrats hit a record high last year, at $67.4 billion, representing a 68 per cent increase since 2016.
Meanwhile, spending on consultants has also reached a record high, with expenditures for 2023 sitting at $21.6 billion.
So let’s get this straight.
Trudeau ballooned the government c-suite by 42 per cent.
He’s added 108,000 new bureaucrats.
He’s spending 68 per cent more on those bureaucrats, while also dropping more money on outside consultants than any prime minister in Canadian history.
And yet, despite all this new staff, all this outside help, and all this spending, government departments still can’t hit 50 per cent of their performance targets each year.
How is that even possible?
Can someone – anyone – explain what the heck is going on?
Because only one thing is for certain: taxpayers are getting screwed. "
our local government started out pretty small and worked well for many years… Until tourism became the preferred alternative to a resource and employment based economy. Suddenly, the local government wasn't good enough. Within a few short years, the district became a major employer right up there with restaurants, hotels, and the co-op. It's not known at this point where the vast number of District employees came from to fill the new positions that miraculously appeared... like the head of a department, the assistant to the head of the department, the executive assistant to the head of the department, the secretary for the department and a person to go get the coffee and donuts. These mysterious departments produced reports, engaged consultants to conduct impact assessments, long range impacts, action plans, budgets, then stood before council, uttering many words of blah blah taking up 1/4 of a district council meeting. The results,? Paycheques for everybody. The benefits to the quality of life of the community? More red tape as if red tape is good. It's not. We are paying people to strangle a lot of.beneficial activity in Tofino. Someone somewhere is making these decisions to create all these unnecessary expensive departments. We can't afford them anymore.
You folks don't need to worry. Tofino has announced a new "Limits to Growth" policy. Oh sorry, my mistake. That has nothing to do with limiting local bureaucracy and levels of taxation. It's only about preventing private sector housing development that could broaden the tax base and alleviate the burden for local people and provide much needed housing. You just have to look at these things the right way to appreciate what's going on.
12:20 could be making a very interesting point that possibly 80% of the land base in Tofino is excluded from further housing development while properties owned by the Mayor, CAO and Head of Public Works are all identified as areas where you can actually develop private property for housing. That must just be a coincidence right?
from Canadian Taxpayers Federation.... Meet the bureaucrats burning through millions of your tax dollars producing government podcasts nobody listens to. In recent years, dozens of federal departments have launched dozens of podcasts, including: Agriculture and Agri-Food; Fisheries and Oceans; the Canada Revenue Agency; and, the Public Health Agency. Let’s start with the Eh Sayers Podcast from Statistics Canada. It has cost you nearly $1 million. One episode was titled, “I got 99 problems but being misgendered on the Census isn’t one.” It opens with a “drag story time” reading from “drag king” Cyril Cinder. On another episode about misinformation, the host and guest talk about the problem with giving “both sides of an issue equal time or consideration.” Another episode focuses on “the arts and crafts movement across Canada, its renaissance and its necessity.” And remember this is a podcast from Statistics Canada. What does arts and crafts, gender ideology and misinformation have to do with gathering statistics? Your guess is as good as ours. But there is one bright side: almost nobody is listening. Statistics Canada’s podcast has racked up 229 “estimated” subscribers, averages 1,414 downloads per episode and has 39 reviews on Apple. During the podcast’s run, there have been anywhere from three to five full-time Statistics Canada employees assigned to it. (Remember: federal bureaucrats take home, on average, $125,000 a year when you add up their salaries and benefits). And that’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to this colossal waste of your tax dollars. Take CCI and CHIN: In Our Words from Canadian Heritage. That podcast seeks to “preserve” the departmental history of Canadian Heritage through “interviews with current and former staff members.” Right… Because what Canadians are totally clamouring for is a navel-gazing deep dive into the history of a government department. Healthy Canadians from the Public Health Agency of Canada has four full-time employees assigned to it. They also dropped $34,000 on “podcast strategy” and “editorial planning.” Business Unusual, a podcast from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, had 13 employees working on it, including two deputy ministers and two executives. And on and on it goes, to the tune of millions. If you need any more proof that Ottawa has too many bureaucrats with too much time and tax dollars on their hands, look no further than these podcasts.
....from google: "The annual inflation rate in Canada fell to 1.6% in September of 2024 from 2% in the previous month, the lowest since February of 2021, and well below the market consensus of 1.9%."
ReplyDeleteThis is the "facts" Trudeau's government gives us.
This explains why a can of beans, at No Frills, that used to be
88 cents, is now $1.59. (down from $1.79 last month). HUH!!???
Trudeau / Freeland economics policy is simply : Lie, make up whatever numbers fit your agenda, broadcast them as the truth, and make future plans based on your fiction.
This way, "Budgets balance themselves".
Canada’s federal debt has now reached over 1,328 billion dollars. This is the equivalent of $32,568.15 of debt per Canadian, or $41,139.50 per taxpayer who fills out a tax return.
https://www.iedm.org/canadian-debt-clock/
There’s nothing to worry about folks Josie and Dan both figured that they can spend as much as they want on civic government. All you have to do is raise the taxes to get the money you want to spend.
ReplyDeleteNot only are property taxes increasing, but our utility fees are through the roof now as well, with the addition of the new wastewater treatment plant. The squeeze is definitely being felt!
ReplyDeleteYour property taxes and utility fees provide ample funds to support local water, sewer, roads, fire dept, police, and schools. Pay parking should be raking in an additional million bucks a year.
ReplyDeleteHowever, this doesn't provide enough to support the gaggle of grossly overpaid "friends" who have installed themselves, UNELECTED, in the D.O.T. office, under the title of "staff". I've been told that there are more than two dozen office staff in the district office, "managing" the business of a village of less than 2500 souls. They even hired a "co-ordinator", so they can all keep their stories straight.
Until the electotate of Tofino vote in a mayor with some gonads and a council to back him/her up, and clean up the waste, graft, and corruption in the district office, things are not going to change. Hell, even Al Anderson will probably get elected to another term. It's hopeless.
Why doesn’t our mayor listen to this blog and start the office staff reduction ball rolling???
ReplyDeleteIt is simple.
A hiring freeze.
If office paper shuffling people quit, don’t replace them. The remaining staff will
have to do more and become efficient. If they don’t like it, they too can quit.
Just don’t spend the savings and instead pass them back to the taxpayers.
Good idea but .......
Delete....there's 25 or more of them, and they're organized and rehearsed, and they're expert at circling the wagons and can supply oceans and oceans of "facts" and "valid reasons" why their positions are irreplaceable and vital to the community. They'll probably sue and launch investigations and human rights complaints and God know what else....and Dan is just one guy and he's afraid of all this crap, which would no doubt consume his entire life, and it's easier to just go along and go home at night to his family.
Remember when the parks and rec lady was fired? Whoa!! Shit hit the fan then, over just one employee. She was popular in some circles. So are some of these "staff", and they're a lot better entrenched and organized than that lady ever was.
You need “ Fuck You” money to take on the establishment, and Dan doesn’t have that. Unfortunately, no one with that kind money wants to get involved. It is easier to just do what they do. The ironic aspect is pretty much all government employees are too short sighted to realize that their woke agendas are eating themselves. They may be profiting short term, but few will realize “ Fuck You” wealth, and they’ or thier children will lose in the end as well. The path we’re on is not sustainable.
ReplyDeleteANNNND the taxes and fees go up. Dot staff and council detached from reality. Not bad people just bad thinkers. Time for a change
ReplyDeleteImportant to not put "staff" and "council" in the same bucket. Council was elected, the people agreed to have them there, and their paycheque is minimal. Thank you for your service. (even though I believe they could do better)
DeleteBut "staff", that's a differnt story.
"detached from reality"? Not on payday. They know exactly what's going on.
"Not bad people".....perhaps. Or perhaps greedy, self serving, opportunistic, secretive, manipulative, selfish, scheming, dishonest and deceptive.
"Vancouver Island's economy is stable in the short term, but can't continue to rely on the public sector for growth over the long term, say business leaders.
ReplyDeleteThe Vancouver Island Economic Alliance's annual summit is being held this week at Nanaimo's Vancouver Island Conference Centre, and the keynote talk Wednesday, Oct. 23, looked at potential over-reliance on the public sector as an economic driver.
"In the short term, things don't look too bad, especially when you think about the shocks that we've been through," said Susan Mowbray, partner with MNP's consulting group. "But once you start to dig in a little deeper, you see that the foundation is starting to crumble. We're not seeing significant private-sector investment that's going to generate that increase in income for households, businesses and government in the longer term. As a result, growth is stalling at the same time that our public sector is expanding."
See full article in Nanaimo News Bulletin
from Canadian Taxpayers Federation...
ReplyDelete"Everywhere you look – from the Prime Minister’s Office to the Crown corporations to the departments – the cost and size of the bureaucracy is up.
Take the federal c-suite, which has increased by 42 per cent under the watch of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
There were 6,414 executives in the federal government when Trudeau took power.
Fast forward to today, and that number has jumped to 9,155.
That means Trudeau isn’t just ballooning the size of government in general, he’s also swelling the ranks of its most expensive bureaucrats.
Records obtained by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation reveal growth among every class of executive under Trudeau.
The salaries for those executives range from $134,827 to $255,607 per year, not including benefits or bonuses.
And you better believe those executives are taking bonuses.
About 90 per cent of federal executives get a bonus each year, according to additional records obtained by the CTF.
In fact, Trudeau dished out $202 million in bonuses in 2022, with the average bonus among executives being $18,252.
All told, compensation for federal executives was $1.95 billion that year, which represented a 41 per cent increase over 2015.
The size of the entire federal bureaucracy has also increased by 42 per cent under Trudeau, with more than 108,000 new bureaucrats added to the taxpayer dole.
Spending on federal bureaucrats hit a record high last year, at $67.4 billion, representing a 68 per cent increase since 2016.
Meanwhile, spending on consultants has also reached a record high, with expenditures for 2023 sitting at $21.6 billion.
So let’s get this straight.
Trudeau ballooned the government c-suite by 42 per cent.
He’s added 108,000 new bureaucrats.
He’s spending 68 per cent more on those bureaucrats, while also dropping more money on outside consultants than any prime minister in Canadian history.
And yet, despite all this new staff, all this outside help, and all this spending, government departments still can’t hit 50 per cent of their performance targets each year.
How is that even possible?
Can someone – anyone – explain what the heck is going on?
Because only one thing is for certain: taxpayers are getting screwed. "
D.O.T office: same thing, smaller scale
our local government started out pretty small and worked well for many years… Until tourism became the preferred alternative to a resource and employment based economy. Suddenly, the local government wasn't good enough. Within a few short years, the district became a major employer right up there with restaurants, hotels, and the co-op. It's not known at this point where the vast number of District employees came from to fill the new positions that miraculously appeared... like the head of a department, the assistant to the head of the department, the executive assistant to the head of the department, the secretary for the department and a person to go get the coffee and donuts. These mysterious departments produced reports, engaged consultants to conduct impact assessments, long range impacts, action plans, budgets, then stood before council, uttering many words of blah blah taking up 1/4 of a district council meeting. The results,? Paycheques for everybody. The benefits to the quality of life of the community? More red tape as if red tape is good. It's not. We are paying people to strangle a lot of.beneficial activity in Tofino. Someone somewhere is making these decisions to create all these unnecessary expensive departments. We can't afford them anymore.
ReplyDeleteYou folks don't need to worry. Tofino has announced a new "Limits to Growth" policy. Oh sorry, my mistake. That has nothing to do with limiting local bureaucracy and levels of taxation. It's only about preventing private sector housing development that could broaden the tax base and alleviate the burden for local people and provide much needed housing. You just have to look at these things the right way to appreciate what's going on.
ReplyDelete12:20 could be making a very interesting point that possibly 80% of the land base in Tofino is excluded from further housing development while properties owned by the Mayor, CAO and Head of Public Works are all identified as areas where you can actually develop private property for housing. That must just be a coincidence right?
ReplyDeletereally? what a strange coincidence.
ReplyDeletefrom Canadian Taxpayers Federation....
ReplyDeleteMeet the bureaucrats burning through millions of your tax dollars producing government podcasts nobody listens to.
In recent years, dozens of federal departments have launched dozens of podcasts, including: Agriculture and Agri-Food; Fisheries and Oceans; the Canada Revenue Agency; and, the Public Health Agency.
Let’s start with the Eh Sayers Podcast from Statistics Canada. It has cost you nearly $1 million.
One episode was titled, “I got 99 problems but being misgendered on the Census isn’t one.” It opens with a “drag story time” reading from “drag king” Cyril Cinder.
On another episode about misinformation, the host and guest talk about the problem with giving “both sides of an issue equal time or consideration.”
Another episode focuses on “the arts and crafts movement across Canada, its renaissance and its necessity.”
And remember this is a podcast from Statistics Canada. What does arts and crafts, gender ideology and misinformation have to do with gathering statistics?
Your guess is as good as ours. But there is one bright side: almost nobody is listening.
Statistics Canada’s podcast has racked up 229 “estimated” subscribers, averages 1,414 downloads per episode and has 39 reviews on Apple.
During the podcast’s run, there have been anywhere from three to five full-time Statistics Canada employees assigned to it. (Remember: federal bureaucrats take home, on average, $125,000 a year when you add up their salaries and benefits).
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to this colossal waste of your tax dollars.
Take CCI and CHIN: In Our Words from Canadian Heritage.
That podcast seeks to “preserve” the departmental history of Canadian Heritage through “interviews with current and former staff members.”
Right…
Because what Canadians are totally clamouring for is a navel-gazing deep dive into the history of a government department.
Healthy Canadians from the Public Health Agency of Canada has four full-time employees assigned to it. They also dropped $34,000 on “podcast strategy” and “editorial planning.”
Business Unusual, a podcast from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, had 13 employees working on it, including two deputy ministers and two executives.
And on and on it goes, to the tune of millions.
If you need any more proof that Ottawa has too many bureaucrats with too much time and tax dollars on their hands, look no further than these podcasts.