Since Prime Minister Trudeau took office, one thing has become clear: he is like his father, Pierre, in that he has no money sense. His father left Canada in such deep debt that it took the country nearly twenty years to pull itself out from that hole.

Young Trudeau seems to have his father’s careless approach to money. It helps, one supposes, that having been born to wealth, one is able to be indifferent to the consequences of spending it. How else to explain Trudeau’s recent extravagant financial largesse? He has been acting like a child left in charge of a candy store, throwing candies around for all his friends and favourite people. Only it is not candy he is distributing with such abandon, but rather, the taxpayers’ hard earned cash.

• At the Commonwealth summit, held in Malta at the end of November, Trudeau announced that Canada would pay $2.65 billion over the next five years to facilitate combatting climate change in developing countries – a doubling of previous funding.

• The week before, Trudeau announced that Canada would contribute $1.2 million to the UN to help them with the refugee situation.  This brings Canada’s contribution there close to $1 billion since the Syrian crisis began.  This is not to object to helping refugees: it is the Liberals’ lack of transparency that is so disturbing.  The Liberal government claims that these refugees will cost the taxpayers only $678 million.  This latter sum is ludicrous as it will not even cover the medical costs of the refugees.  The government has stated that refugees with infectious diseases will not be turned away. Many Syrians have amputations and other war injuries, are nursing chronic diseases that have gone under-treated for years, or cope with psychological conditions from insomnia to post-traumatic stress and severe depression.  Their medical problems are endless and will be a never ending cost to the taxpayers.  According to a government document, “Responding to the Syrian Refugee Crisis”, the Immigration department alone will need $528.4 million this year and the Defence department $98.7 million.  The document states that the refugee resettlement will cost $1.1 billion in additional money between now and 2021. One can be certain that the sum is undoubtedly an underestimate of the true costs.

• The Canadian delegation to the Paris climate change conference consisted of more than 300 politicians, government staff and bureaucrats.

The Canadian delegation was double the US team which consisted of fewer than 150 officials and was triple that of the UK’s team of about 100 attendees.

According to figures provided by CTV, the federal government budgeted more than $650,000 for Canadian government delegates sent to the conference.  Of those funds, about $200,000 was allocated for accommodation, $48,000 for flights, $105,967 for meals and incidentals, and $200,000 for “other” (transport, office and equipment rental, telecommunications, shipping and hospitality), according to an Environment Canada official.

In addition, an estimated $121,500 was provided to other Canadian delegates – – including youth, NGOs, Aboriginal organizations, and opposition MPs – – who were invited to Paris by the Liberal government:

Several provincial premiers also attended the conference paying their own way, accompanied by only a handful of staff.

• Trudeau may now be considering the possibility of spending billions and billions of dollars on a national day care program, modestly estimated at $15 billion annually. The Liberal election platform stated “we will meet with provinces, territories, and indigenous communities to begin work on a new National Early Learning and Child Care Framework, to deliver affordable, high-quality, flexible, and fully inclusive child care for Canadian families.”

Jean Yves Duclos, the Minister for Families, Children and Social Development in Trudeau’s government was quoted in the Toronto Star on November 17, 2015:

It was too early to get into specifics, but . . . the Liberal government is open to the program being universal.

All options are open and most importantly, we are open and eager to discuss with provinces and municipalities to find the best thing for Canadians.

It sounds suspiciously as if a national daycare plan is shaping up. If the plan is to provide child care funds directly to “qualified” (i.e. middle class parents, whoever they may be) and to poor parents, this will be an expensive administrative task. The Conservatives provided child care funds to all parents, regardless of income, and then clawed back the money from the better-off families by way of income taxes. This approach was a less expensive way to fund families, rather than targeting categories of parents as proposed by the Liberals.

Also, it is noted that Trudeau campaigned on the policy that wealthy parents, such as himself, should not receive child care payments. Trudeau receives a salary of over $334,000 per year as Prime Minister, yet he is charging the taxpayers for the costs of the two nannies he has employed to care for his children. The payment to the nannies was by cabinet order and back dated to November 4, 2015, the day Trudeau was sworn in. Trudeau’s children aren’t the country’s children, and it is not the taxpayers’ job to raise them. Although Trudeau never likely completed his own income tax returns, he must have known that he would be taxed back on his daycare benefits just like all other “wealthy” parents. It was the spin that mattered, not the facts.

Daycare is a provincial matter, not a federal one. Each province is different about meeting the needs of its families. A one-size fits all daycare plan, proposed during the election by NDP leader, Thomas Mulcair was a non-starter. Hopefully, that will remain the case with the Liberal government’s grandiose plans for daycare (whatever they turn out to be). You can count on it being a heavy expense for the taxpayers since money never seems to be a problem for the Liberals – only for the taxpayers.

Please write to:

The Right Honourable Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
80 Wellington Street
Ottawa, ON Canada K1A 0A2

The Honourable Jean-Yves Duclos
Minister of Family, Children and Social Development
House of Commons
Ottawa, Ontario Canada K1A 0A6

and your Member of Parliament (MP)  

Advise them that daycare funding should go directly to the parents who should decide how their child should be cared for – in the home by a parent, by a family member, a neighbour, for profit daycare or not for profit daycare, etc. The parents know the child best and his/her needs, as well as that of the family, and it is parents, not the state, who should be determining the care of their child.

REALity   Volume XXXV Issue N0.1 January 2016