The Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) held its annual Teddy Waste Awards ceremony in Calgary on Wednesday, highlighting the most egregious examples of government spending waste. The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) and the City of Toronto took top honors in their respective categories.
Federal winner: Canada Revenue Agency
The CRA received the federal Teddy Waste Award for providing correct tax advice only 17% of the time, despite spending millions on over 4,500 call center agents. A scathing report from Canada's auditor general revealed this dismal accuracy rate. "Bureaucrats at the CRA are winning a Teddy Award because they give out so many wrong answers that Canadians might as well ask a Magic 8 Ball for tax advice," said CTF Federal Director Franco Terrazzano.
Municipal winner: City of Toronto
Toronto won the municipal award for spending $1,936 on a commemorative plaque honoring Conrad the raccoon, who died in 2015 and lay on a sidewalk for 15 hours before removal. "Toronto bureaucrats spent taxpayers' money on a plaque for a raccoon that died 10 years ago so they're getting a trophy they deserve: A Teddy Waste Award," Terrazzano said. Other municipal nominees included Saskatoon's $26,000 AI garbage can that worked only a third of the time, Cape Breton's $23,000 policing of a peaceful protest, Richmond's $78,000 bureaucrat trip to Switzerland, Calgary's $4.8 million rebranding, and Sainte-Thérèse's $226,000 water slide.
Provincial winner: British Columbia
B.C. Premier David Eby won the provincial award for spending $354,000 on three "wood-leather" soccer balls for display. Other nominees included $7 million on questionable art projects (including $5,000 for a film titled "F–k"), Newfoundland's $756,000 AI-hallucinated report, Quebec's $190,000 duplicate gas price website, and Ontario's $3.7 billion Finch West LRT with slower travel times than buses.
Lifetime Achievement Award
The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) received the lifetime achievement award for spending over $1 billion annually on studies of questionable value, including $105,000 on urban grocery cart life cycles, $20,000 on Peruvian rock music gender politics, and $74,000 on Canada's kink community. "For answering questions that nobody asked and costing taxpayers $1 billion a year, the SSHRC is a worthy recipient of this year's Lifetime Achievement Award for Waste," Terrazzano said.
The Teddy Waste Award trophy is a golden pig named after former Canadian Labour Relations Board Chair Ted Weatherill, who lost his job in the 1990s after nearly $150,000 in expenses, including a $700 lunch. The ceremony featured mascot Porky the Waste Hater in a white-gloved tuxedo.
