Finance committee  My name is Franco Terrazzano. I'm the federal director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. We're a non-partisan advocacy group that has been fighting for lower taxes, less waste and more accountable government for more than 30 years. I thank you for inviting us to present today

Finance committee  It's an absolutely staggering amount, and I think what's so eye-watering is that it's not just where the debt is now, but where the debt is going under current projections laid out in the last budget. I mentioned the PBO. I think many Canadians are rightly very concerned about t

Finance committee  It is true that gross debt is much higher than net debt. One thing that I want to bring up, member, with respect, is that I talked about these projections of five decades of deficits. That is startling in and of itself, but the PBO also estimates from their data that it would ta

Finance committee  Absolutely. We have to remember—and this is what I also noted in the full budget submission—that you could balance the federal budget in 2023-24 simply by going back to prepandemic spending of a few years ago, which was already at an all-time high. In 2018-19, you had the federal

Finance committee  It's unfortunate to say this but we're not all in this together. We've seen so many people in the private sector lose their jobs, take a pay cut, maybe even lose their small business, but we've seen no restraint from the federal government from spending more on everything forever

Finance committee  I have not seen that specific proposal, but we do hear from a many farmers and businesses that the additional taxes—carbon taxes, fuel taxes—are really a pain. We've put out an analysis that shows, depending on the province, that between 31% to 42% of the pump price comes through

Finance committee  You know, I've heard that thrown around sometimes, but it's really magic math to think that the government is going to hammer us with a tax and then somehow make people better off. The truth of the matter is that the carbon tax is causing a ton of pain, and so are booze taxes and

Finance committee  The Parliamentary Budget Officer has done a partial analysis, and it could cost $756 million, but that's just a partial cost. That's only to reimburse gun owners. We have seen an analysis done by a professor at Simon Fraser University who says that the biggest cost hasn't even be

Finance committee  That's correct. We have a plan to phase out equalization over 20 years. Next year, some provinces would still get $19 billion. One of the key concerns.... I'm from Calgary. That's where I have lived over the last few years. It's just so unfair. I mean, really, how many more Albe

Finance committee  I think it's very important. We have to remember that even before the pandemic, in 2018 and 2019, the federal government was spending at all-time highs—and that's accounting for inflation and population growth. We're seeing a ton of wasteful spending. We saw the federal governme

Finance committee  You’re going to hear from hundreds of individuals and groups asking for more money. My name is Franco Terrazzano. I’m with the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, and I'm here on behalf of 235,000 Canadian taxpayers asking you to spend less. I'm here today to say no more spending $8

Finance committee  In a recent poll, 72% of Canadians said that they pay too much tax. If we want to encourage work, we need to stop punishing work. What we have seen is that, at the worst possible time, the government raised payroll taxes. If you're making $65,000 this year, then the government is

Finance committee  We represent 235,000 Canadian taxpayers who support our mission to fight for lower taxes, less waste and more government accountability.

Finance committee  What we think is that at the very least, it should have been a no-brainer for the government not to raise taxes in the middle of a pandemic—

Finance committee  —when so many people lost their jobs—