Nuanced. - 107. Kris Sims: How Taxes Are Causing Financial Stress!

Episode Date: May 8, 2023

Aaron and Kris Sims delve into the topic of taxation, exploring its effects, advantages, and obstacles. During their conversation, they delve into municipal, provincial, and federal taxes. Kris, who is affiliated with the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, sheds light on certain taxes that adversely affect impoverished individuals, farmers, and entrepreneurs. Specifically, she highlights the Carbon Tax, Provincial Sales Tax, and Government Sales Tax (GST) and their ramifications.Kris Sims, a small-town British Columbia native, has been working and paying taxes since age 12, taking on jobs in horse stables, fast food joints, and gas stations. After attending BCIT's journalism school, she worked in radio on Vancouver Island and as a legislative assistant on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. She then joined News Talk Radio 580 CFRA as a producer, reporter, and anchor, ultimately becoming a journalist for the CTV Parliamentary Bureau. Sims was a founding reporter for Sun News Network, covering issues of personal liberty, big government, and the rights of small town and rural Canadians until the network shut down. She later served as a director of communications on Parliament Hill and as a senior producer for Evan Solomon at CFRA Radio. Sims is passionate about advocating for taxpayers' rights and has deep family roots in Alberta's rodeo country. When not busy with her work, she enjoys reading Ayn Rand with her husband and two children on a riverbank.Chapters:0:00 Introduction3:09 Philosophy of Taxes6:39 Origin of Taxes11:14 Kris's Passion for Taxes19:44 Municipal, Provincial & Federal Taxes30:08 Political Parties & Taxes37:07 Why Balance the Budgets?44:06 Tax the Rich?48:45 Canadian Taxpayers Federation54:28 Standing Up For Taxpayer Rights59:23 Tim's TakeSend us a textThe "What's Going On?" PodcastThink casual, relatable discussions like you'd overhear in a barbershop....Listen on: Apple Podcasts   SpotifySupport the shownuancedmedia.ca

We're back with another episode of The Bigger Than Me podcast. Here is your host, Aaron. Do you enjoy paying taxes? Are you confused about how it gets spent and where the money goes? My guest today works with the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, and we dive into how taxes are spent, municipally, provincially, and federally, and what could be done to make it more affordable for Canadians. My guest today is Chris Sims.

Chris Sims, such a pleasure to sit down with you. I'm so excited. I know that people can struggle with this topic. It can be discouraging at times, but you're an individual. I've been having the pleasure of following for some time now since your interview with Daryl Plekis. I watched that one all the way through, and I really enjoyed how insightful you were, how thoughtful you were about how government should operate best case scenario. And so I'm wondering if we could start maybe with an introduction of yourself so people can get to know you. Oh, thank you so much. So my name is Chris Sims. I'm the Alberta director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. For folks who haven't heard of us before, we are a not-for-profit grassroots citizens organization. We started back in 1990. And our purpose is to advocate for lower taxes, less waste, and more accountable government. And myself personally, most of my adult life has been spent as a journalist, largely on Parliament Hill. I was a longtime member of the press gallery. I've worked in television, radio, and newspaper print as well as here is online. So I'm still kind of in that space, as they say, but it's switched more to advocacy now rather than direct journalism. When did taxes become something that you were interested in? It's an area that can be challenging for people, and I'm just curious as to when this caught your attention.

That's a great question. It actually first came up when I was a little kid. And so this is going to date myself with probably a lot of your audience. But when the GST was first brought in, I remember distinctly I was lining up to rent a videotape at a video rental store with my dad. And the GST had just been introduced. And the gentleman who is a small shopkeeper, small business owner, was so mad about the GST that he had this huge, like, elephant-sized bag of peanuts in the shell sitting there next to the counter. And it was super weird. And as a little kid, I'm like, that's interesting.

You know, can I have a peanut? And if you bought a $2 peanut from this man, he would lend you a video for free. Now, he was doing that because he was so angry about having to charge his customers, GST. And that was my first impression of advocacy, of fighting back and of taxes. And so I don't love my calculator, like tax time. I despise tax time like everybody else does. It is awful. I would literally rather. have a root canal. But what I do really love is freedom and individualism and the ability for people and their families to be left alone. I think government should be small enough to shove into a shoebox. And taxes are the government's way of getting you. And so that's the real constant connection between government and people is taxes. They charge you taxes on your property. They charge you taxes on your income. They charge you taxes on your business. And they charge you taxes now on carbon tax, which is basically just living your life. And so, to me, taxes are a tool of government. And it's one that we have to make sure is as small and blunt as possible. So that's when I got into taxes was when I had that awakening of realizing the power the government wields using taxes. I love this because we're almost starting with the philosophical underpinnings of what tax. are to perhaps disagreeable people, they might say, well, think of all the social programs we're

about to get. Think of all the social net, the safety net that we're going to receive it through those programs and through those taxes. What thoughts do you have on the idea that the more taxes, the more we level the playing field, the more everybody gets a little bit, we're stopping the rich from getting richer, and everybody's getting a small piece of the pie now. In a perfect world, that sounds like it makes sense, right? But government, government is not run by some pure-minded algorithm. Government is run by people. Government is made up of bureaucrats, so people who never have to face the electorate,

and politicians. Those are the two major branches of government that we deal with every day. There's also the law courts, but that's a bit different. And so between the bureaucrats and the politicians, a lot of our money gets wasted. So if this were all just, you know, pure as the driven snow, as they say, and it was only going, you know, to help people with their health care and provide great schools and nice, sturdy bridges. I don't think many normal people would have a problem with that. And so that's why we say lower taxes, not no taxes. I know that, you know, we can't live in my, you know, New Hampshire, live a little utopia on a gravel road somewhere. A lot of people use public transit and they use stuff like that. They use schools. So we understand that reality. Our problem is that a lot of times, this money is wasted. And I'm not just talking a glass of orange juice here and there. We're talking

billions of dollars being handed out in corporate welfare and also just big screw-ups. Like the Phoenix pay system, for example, is a federal example. In a nutshell, the Phoenix pay system is software. Software used to manage the payroll of the federal government. So they've got thousands of employees. They have to get paid. They pulled the plug too fast on this thing called the Phoenix pay system and it's cost taxpayers billions of dollars now with a B. Like we could build hospitals for the amount of money that they wasted on this silly computer program. And so that's where I would differ of yes, everyone likes to have nice things. But number one, that answer doesn't always have to come from government. Sometimes we can

get it elsewhere. And two, government wastes way too much of that money. I tend to agree with you. And I think that that's the sentiment there's so many Canadians and British Columbians and Albertans have is this feeling that I could probably spend it better being frugal and cost effective than the government. And you hear about some of the systems they've rolled out in terms of the airline system and the problems that it's brought is that they seem to do things fairly inefficiently. But this also leads to the idea, the bringing of the GST tax brings this to this idea that taxes are brought in always with the best of intentions, always with flowers and rainbows on the way.

and some of them are brought in, and from my understanding, were brought in, said, this was only going to be for a period of time, and then we're going to roll it out and we're going to get rid of it. And then it doesn't seem to go anywhere. Are you able to talk about some of the taxes that came in with this idea of until the end of the war, until at the end of this, and then we're going to get rid of it, and then they've somehow just stuck around. Very famously, and you're obviously clearly alluding to it. The income tax was meant to only be around during the First World War or the Great War, depending on what term you want to use. was supposed to be temporary. That was only supposed to get us through the really tough spot of the First World War. But of course, we all pay income tax now federally here in Canada. So that was the opposite of being temporary. I think it was, I think it was Milton Friedman,

who said that one of the silliest things we do is judge policies based on their intentions rather than their outcomes. So the outcome of this is that we're spending more than 40% of our income if you combine all the taxes and fees and all that stuff based on what the Fraser Institute has researched. We're now spending more than 40% of our income in taxes and handing it to an ever increasing and ever bloating government. And we're still not getting the sunshine and rainbows in many cases that we were promised. I don't know about you, but I don't really know anyone who's super happy with our health care system, for example. And it's been ruled several times that access to a wait list is not access to health care. And yet every time anybody tries to have a conversation of maybe

we should change our system or look at Europe, for example, figure this out, figure it a better way to deliver good care and make it efficient. People get upset and they call you, you know, a fearmonger and say that you just want people to die in the street. And that's not an intelligent conversation. Trying to say something like, you know what, my family member had to wait for months to even see a cancer care specialist. And we had to fight like crazy people to even get him in front of a doctor. This is someone who's, you know, owned a business and paid taxes his entire life. He's 64 years old now in a first world country that shouldn't have to be the case. But I know that there's millions of people in our same position. And so many times the government

will come out with this parade of saying this is going to solve all of our problems. I'll give you another example, very recent and in British Columbia. Back in 2008, the BC liberal government led by then Premier Gordon Campbell introduced the first carbon tax. So back then, they told us many things. They said it was going to stop at $30 a ton, that it was going to be revenue neutral, that it was going to create a plethora of affordable alternative energies that would be abundance. They'd be on every street corner, chicken in every pot. And they said it was going to reduce emissions. Today, none of that is true. Not one of those promises is true. It is now the mandatory minimum of $65 per ton. Alternative energy sources are scarce and super expensive for most

people. And it's not revenue neutral. It was only revenue neutral for the first couple years, where they did a corresponding income tax cut. But it only took them a couple of years, and they started fiddling with the books. Right in the budget, you can go back and look at them. They started cooking the books to make it magic math and look like it was balanced and look like it was revenue neutral. And the way they did that actually, if you don't mind me nerving out, they took old tax credits. So tax credits for fitness, converting farm property to school, just random weird old tax credits. And they filed them in the revenue column for the carbon taxed and made it balance out to zero. Yeah.

Super sneaky stuff. And so we caught them at it after a couple of years. And then largely, this is the big one, for a lot of people, emissions keep going up. If you go back and look at the BC government's own data, except for a little blip when people were locked in their homes in 2020, emissions keep on going up steadily in BC, even with the highest carbon taxes in North America. Why? Because people need to get to work and they need to heat their homes and they need to eat. So the carbon tax is the most recent, one where we were sold a bill of goods. And of course, historically, I would say the income tax is the most famous.

When did this become something you were like, I'm going to focus on this? I'm really interested in trying to address these problems on helping people understand them. Because I love that you have a podcast about this. I love that you're breaking things down for people because when I think of taxes, I don't know if you follow corner gas, but I always think of Oscar Leroy being like, my taxes pay for this. And so many people lose that kind of connection to it, but it is true that as much as you pay taxes, you're contributing to the roads, but you're also seeing it misspent. And that can be frustrating for people. So when did this become something that you were passionate enough about to focus on? So I started out in small town radio and Courtney in British Columbia. And there I talked to, well, I'm from rural working class like the woods. So I grew up in Hope. And then I lived in the woods and outside of Courtney in Vancouver Island from. many years. And so all of my family is like working class, blue collar trades people type people. And so I always paid close attention to what folks from that world were saying. And so I kept tabs on

that. And then I moved to Parliament Hill and I was working for the CTV Bureau there as a producer. And I was booking interviews on kind of highfalutin things on, you know, balancing the budget or international trade agreements and stuff like that. But I always kept a good tab on like what things were costing at the grocery store on what a heating bill costs people. But then I really got a chance to be active about it when I was hosting talk radio. And that's where you're really listening to people. They're getting up in the morning. They're going to work. They're driving home. They're worried about picking up their kids. And if they're going to be able to afford like the bike that their kid wants in the spring or how much their heating bill is going up. And what

really crystallized it for me was when I was hosting a CFRA radio. And I was listening to people, especially people on fixed income and single moms and stuff, who were phoning because they couldn't afford their power bill. And so this sounds like it's not connected to carbon tax, but it is because they were phoning and saying crazy things. Like, I have taped off the doorways in my house in the winter, so I'm only in one room. I'm not kidding. This one older lady said that she'd gone back to her oil lamp. like I couldn't believe the stuff I was hearing and it was because the then Ontario liberal government had made hydroelectricity so unaffordable that these people could not make it just anecdotally our tiny three bedroom rental in Ottawa were it wasn't included with heat this was just LED lights and I was doing dishes at midnight type thing that was more than $400 a month and that was like 10 years ago. So the reason why I'm telling the story about the power bill is because that was a direct cause of government.

Government did that because they signed these ridiculously overpriced contracts for solar and wind energy that wasn't available. They made people pay a 78 cent per kilowatt hour markup for no energy they were using. It was madness. Those same people are the ones who constructed the federal carbon tax. So when I break it down for people and explain, it's costing you $15. extra every time you're filling up your light duty pickup truck, just in the carbon tax. And that's real money. That's a roast chicken and a jug of milk right out of your grocery cart. When I tell them that it's $30 extra for a heavy duty pickup, so I'm here in Lethbridge, Alberta, there's lots of people

driving heavy duty pickups because they're hauling horses or they've got their trades tools and stuff like that. 30 bucks, that's a lot of money extra. And so it was when I was really hearing those phone calls literally in my in my headphones day after day after day and people saying that I'm working a job but I still need to go to the food bank because I can't afford the power bill and it was the government's doing that's when that really I would say activated me and I I mostly want to give people hope by telling them they're the boss they're the ones in charge As a taxpayer, you are the boss of your member of parliament or your MLA. You are not a feudal serf.

These are not dukes. Okay. They are elected to represent you and to be a voice for you in parliament, parlay to talk. They're there to speak for you. You pay them quite handsomely. And so I wanted to be able to give people back that voice and that agency because I was hearing a lot of hopelessness. So I would say that's what caused it. It was about 10 years ago and it was hearing folks with their power bills.

That story really resonates with me because I'm, my community is Chihuahua First Nation right near Hope. And the challenge that I see is that we talk a lot about First Nation communities, but not in the realities of what they're facing. So the challenge is the fact that their rent bills are less than their hydro bills. The fact that they don't have large incomes. So when there is increases, it puts a lot of strain on them financially. When I saw Serb coming in, my concern was this is going to inevitably, eventually lead to inflation. And we were promised that that wouldn't happen that there was a plan in place. And then, and everybody's so excited about these government programs.

And again, I think for a good reason, I don't think you can fault people for being like more money coming in, thank goodness. Sure. But these decisions have long-term consequences and it's hard to tangibly see it. And then when governments say we're going to do what we can to reduce any impact, we're not really worried about inflation, and then here we are a few years later. And all of those government programs are coming to an end. And the impacts are starting to show, people don't see the connection between the two. Do you ever find that it's challenging to help people see the beginning and the end and the effects in between? Oh, you nailed it. You nailed it perfectly there. And I didn't realize that we were almost neighbors. So yeah, I grew up actually just near the First Nation near Yale. So right up the highway there.

a Frasier Canyon between Hope and Yale. So that's wonderful. I didn't realize we were that close. Yeah, there's a big misunderstanding there. There's a big gap. And I think it's because most working people are so busy, right? They're raising their family. They might be having problems with their family, God forbid.

They're working really hard. They're fixing their house or doing something. They're always busy living their lives. And then government is just this big, ever-growing machine over here somewhere. And I think because government does so much or is so ubiquitous, I think people start misunderstanding the nature of government. I think they start thinking that it generates wealth. It does not.

So it's not like you can give the government a dollar and they take it for you and make a really wise investment and then cash it in and then give it back to you at like $1.80. That's not what happens. So taxpayers, us, all of us talking, all of your listeners, all of us who pay taxes, we're the ones. That's our money. We're the ones giving that money to the government often by force because you don't have a choice. And it goes into this pool and then the government redistributes it. And so while I do not begrudge anyone who needed Serb because their business was shot down by force by the state or, you know, they absolutely needed the help. That's understandable. But it's coming from everybody else. And we're going to have to pay that bill. And in Trudeau's case, in Prime Minister Trudeau's case, he just printed money out of thin air. So he printed around, I think it was $300 billion with a B. And every time you get more dollars chasing fewer goods, you're going to have inflation because you are naturally reducing the value of that stuff. That stuff happens to

be dollars, right? And so, yeah, the Serb has contributed to inflation and the printing of the money has contributed to inflation. And then if he turns around and he starts hiking carbon taxes on top of all of that, you know, that's a really bad, perfect storm for a lot of normal average working people, which is why we are seeing the affordability crisis right now. We've been bouncing around a little bit, but there's three different levels, usually municipal, provincial, and federal, is there, you've focused on, on all of them at certain points, I'm just curious, what are the right kind of sweet spots living in Chiluac? I do feel like our municipal government here is actually very frugal and works to keep taxes

where they've been, and they often say that municipal governments impact people day-to-day lives, likely the most, probably in a unique case, healthcare being one that stands out as a differentiator, but often we feel the effects of our road being paved or our lights being on or a new park being built in our communities, whereas a lot of the larger federal government spending is harder to tangibly connect ourselves with. What are some of the sweet spots you see for a municipal provincial and a federal government? That's a really good question. And so I like to envision it. So if I use Chilliwack as an example, you're right. It's local government that affects you most immediately. So say you walk out your front door.

your recycling bin and your garbage can are there. That's municipal. And now let's walk down the street. You go past the hospital. Okay, that's provincial, okay? Schools as well. That's a mix of local and provincial, depending on funding and slash governance. And then keep walking, though. Keep walking all the way out to Sardis and keep walking all the way out. Go all the way down to the border crossing near Abbotsford. Boom, there's federal. Okay? What you can take across the border back and forth. You know, what job you could have, green cards, all that stuff. And so that's a good way to visualize the levels of government and how it affects you. So right outside your front door on your front lawn, that's local, that's municipal. A little bit into your town that's often provincial, especially for major infrastructure. Once you hit the border, of course, now you're dealing with things like national defense and all that stuff. And so it depends, right? So locally, if You say Chilliwax doing a good job so far. That's great. I find quite often it's easier for local governments to be more accountable because they're literally living there with you. So like a city counselor, ideally is going to be someone like a retired police officer, a retired teacher, a local business owner. Maybe they're a former, you know, maybe they're a faith leader or something. Maybe they were a stay-at-home mom their whole lives and now they've got time to give back. And so all, of those folks, you don't get more local than that. And so it's easier for them to be accountable

because it's like, hey, Bob, why did you increase our property taxes by, you know, 6%. It's like, oh, that gets awkward. Whereas provincially, Bob's not there most of the time. Bob's over in Victoria. And Bob has his apartment paid for and he's got a travel expanse and see the separation now. There's that separation where people feel that they don't have as tight a hold of and their politicians. And then you go federal. Well, heck, they're way over there in the Emerald City known as Ottawa. And most people haven't even been there. I'll never forget the feeling when I stepped off the plane wide-eyed from Courtney. I'd never been to Ottawa before. And I felt like Dorothy in Oz. And it's like, oh, this is where all the money lands and all

the power lands. And so there it's harder, quite a bit harder for average folks to keep their federal parliamentarians in check. And so I would say generally speaking, local governments do a better job of having a balanced budget, that and they can't run deficits. They're not allowed to, technically. They're more accountable because they're there in your town. And they're dealing with more immediate issues like policing, garbage pickup, potholes, all that stuff. Whereas with federal, they can keep on getting bigger. And they are under Prime Minister Trudeau, government is expanding at a rapid rate. And you can get more philosophical. Then you start getting into kind of like international agreements and treaties and how much do we really need for national defense. And

you get into a lot more arguments there. You know, it's not as obvious as a pothwell. And so it's easier than to fill that gap with misspending of money. So generally speaking, local is more accountable. On the note of provincial politics, you've worked in BC. You're now in Alberta. I'm just curious, obviously Alberta's gone through, let's call it some waves of different political viewpoints. I'm just curious, do you feel like certain regions, certain provinces do a better job that are more financially accountable, that are more open to scrutiny? What are your perspectives on some of the provincial challenges that communities can face. So at the Taxpayers Federation, we think all of the expenses should be posted online all the time.

So it's your money. It is your money. It's your producer's money. It's your listener's money. Every politician or bureaucrat ministry head who spends your money, so in hospitality, travel, anything like that, that should all be public. Immediately. It's called proactive disclosure. You shouldn't have to ask for it.

Um, Alberta is pretty good for that. Now, the Taxpayers Federation was born in 1990 and they were born out of a merger between the Alberta Rate Payers Association and the Saskatchewan Rate Payers Association, largely in protest against Brian Mulroney's GST because the prairie populists who started our group didn't want to pay the GST, very similar to the gentleman with the bag of peanuts that I talked about. Um, and so nowhere is perfect. But, for example, here in Alberta, we have something called the Taxpayer Protection Act. The Taxpayer Protection Act is a provincial law that says politicians, a government, cannot impose a PST on us, provincial sales tax, without winning a referendum first. Good luck with that. Yeah, that is why we don't have a PST. So that's why when you're driving over from Cranbroke and you come over the border and you come visit me here in Loughbridge, everything is at least seven. percent cheaper than it is in BC because we don't have a PST. Now, I call that pretty good accountability. Also, our MLAs, our members of the legislature have to constantly post their expenses.

It's pretty open as far as committee hearings go. Again, it's not perfect. I'm not saying anywhere's perfect. Ottawa was getting pretty good under the Accountability Act. There was a big cooling off period between when politicians left office and could become lobbyists, for example. example, you had to always proactively post your expenses. They're still technically need to, but I've noticed that a lot of crown corporations aren't bothering anymore. So when you go to something like the National Capital Commission or the, I forget what it's called, it's something like the Department of Bridges and Crossings, like there is any crown corporations you pay for you've never heard of. But if you go to their expenses, they have something called proactive

disclosure and that's where they're supposed to tell you how much they're spending on hospitality, travel, education. So Ottawa was doing pretty good. It's slipping a lot lately in the last few years. BC is kind of in the middle. And so I must say when I land, I'm from BC originally and when I landed back home in BC from Ottawa, I was a little bit surprised because they were not posting their expenses super seriously. Their committee that manages in-house spending was pretty secretive in, in Victoria. So that was a bit disappointing. And what really surprised me was actually at the local level in Metro Vancouver. Here, here's one that sticks out. So Metro Vancouver is the kind of group of city governments that spreads from about Langley

to North Vancouver. So what people used to call the GVRD is now called Metro Vancouver. And it's a collection of mayors and city councillors from those various areas, and they all sit together on a council. Now, this is going back a few years. It's probably about six years ago. Just before a two-week-long spring break for school, I'm talking the Friday afternoon. They voted themselves a leaving bonus. Uh-huh. Like, a $1,600 leaving bonus. And I have to be clear, these are mayors who are paid a salary, a big one by the taxpayers all they're doing is sitting on their backsides every two weeks at a meeting for like four hours a time they voted themselves this big sweetheart goodbye bonus of when you decide to no longer run for mayor anymore you're hanging up the the caller thank you very much taxpayers were taking this bonus money and i actually was a whistleblower phoned me somebody had seen it and somebody was working in the office and phoned me and said they just voted for this thing. And what surprised me was I phoned them. So I phoned the clerk. I contacted the office and I said, okay, I just need the voting record. So I needed to know

which mayor voted for the bonuses. And he said, oh, we don't keep that. I said, what are you talking about? You don't keep it. I said, give me the voting record. Just forward it to my email. It's like, no, no, no, we, it was verbal. I said, you had a spending motion and it was a verbal? I said, give me the voting record. He's like, no, no, you'll have to go back and look at the video and see if you can see people's hands in the air. Like, freeze, frame it, count. There, I could not believe that. So that was a big lack of accountability. That was at, to be fair, that was at the municipal level. And so, and that was in BC. Now, I think they're recording their votes now. I hope so, because we made a pretty big fuss over it. So I guess to answer your question,

is it depends on where you are. There are some city councils that are really good and they're really proactive and they keep all their stuff online. And there's others like I just described to you that are furtive at best. Do you feel like often conservatives get kind of the claim that they're more fiscally conservative, that they're more financially responsible? Do you find that that actually takes place, that that actually follows through? You kind of talked about Gordon Campbell, obviously more conservative.

bringing in and helping support the carbon tax. So when we're thinking about this, often people simplify and go, well, left-leaning people, people on the left of the aisle, they are more likely to spend money on social programs, on community programs and stuff. And then the conservatives are always, let's balance the budget. Do you find that that actually comes true, or is there a mixed bag? I find that that can be typical in their messaging, but it isn't necessarily true when it comes to. to results. So here, I can think of a few examples. So early on in 20, I think, believe it was 2017, because I had just landed back in B.C. And it was then NDP Premier John Horgan. He initially had said no to FIFA, for example. Here's a good example. They were balancing the budgets. I wasn't thrilled with a lot of things they were doing. Not going to be wrong. I didn't

like the carbon taxes. I didn't like the reversal on those things. They were spending a lot of money. Fair enough. But they initially were balancing the budget. And then, for example, they said no to FIFA, getting taxpayers money to hold some of their soccer games there in the Vancouver area. But that was many years ago. And they happened to be NDP. But we still praised them because they were saving taxpayers money and balancing the budget. Like, that's a good thing. Now, again, their overall spending was going up. The debt was going up. They were hiding in capital expenditures, nobody's purest of driven snow. But credit where it's due, and NDP government did say initially no to something like spending money on FIFA. Now, fast forward, and they are spending

money on FIFA, they are giving taxpayers money, and it's basically the same government. It's the same party. It's just E.B. now instead of Oregon. And so I'll put it this way. I find people who identify themselves as conservatives, usually will also be fiscal conservatives. Or they will say that tax cuts and balanced budgets are important to them, more typically. Whereas someone who is more left-wing, if they describe themselves as, say, NDP or Green Party, usually tax cuts, balance budgets aren't the first things out of their mouths. Usually it is spending. on social programs and stuff like that. But there's one thing, well, there's two things I find that usually brings both sides of the aisle, so to speak together. And that is government waste.

So I don't know anybody who loves government waste, as we saw with Speaker Plexus, really doing an amazing job blowing the whistle on horrendous waste that was happening at the legislature. Both people I know from left and right typically don't like government waste. And two, maybe I'm dating myself, but it used to be the case that both folks on the left and the right supported free expression and free speech. I unfortunately find that to be slipping a lot lately. I have found that it's mostly folks on the right who are against something like C-11, for example, which is basically a federal government censorship bill, which will restrict to what you can see here and share online on the internet, which is really dangerous.

But 15 years ago, I knew lots of folks on the left who would have been up in arms over something like this because you can't have the state telling you what you can express online from a heritage perspective. Like, if you do something terrible, that's criminal. That's already in the criminal code. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about free expression. But those folks are largely silent now.

And I don't, I honestly don't know why. Like, where are the Occupy Wall Street folks? Where are the ad busters reading people who want free expression and smaller government? They really need to step up here and speak up for free expression. So I find spending wise, mostly it's conservatives who say they want to have balanced budgets and lower taxes and smaller government. If that comes true with the government that the government that the people, depends. And that's what our, what our job is. We're the watchdog. So conservative parties can promise things, but then they can turn around and get into government and blow your money like

anybody else can. And it's our job to chase them around and hold them to account and embarrass them publicly and hold them to their promises. I'll give you another example. Very recently, the former leader of the federal conservative party, Aaron O'Toole, had promised that he was going to scrap the carbon tax and always oppose a federal carbon tax if he became leader of the party. He signed our pledge. It's one of the tools we use of the Taxpayers Federation to get politicians on the record. Then he became leader and then he completely did a 180. He flip-locked. And he said, oh, well, I'm going to put in my own snazzy carbon tax, but I'm going to call it a levy and it's going to be a fee and it's not going to, right, that didn't fly. People got super

mad. They saw that he had broken his promise. They saw that he had signed on the dotted line and then reversed himself. And we held him to account and so did his party members. And he's no longer leader. And then years ago, we gave former liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin a tax fighter award because he slayed the deficit. That was great. He balanced the budget. And he was wearing a liberal red jersey at the time. And so to answer your question, typically it's people who support and vote for conservatives who say they like things like balanced budgets and low tax. whether or not when they form government, they keep those promises, is up for debate. And that's mainly what of our main roles is, is holding politicians accountable.

I want to get to the Canadian Taxpayers Federation and talk about that. But on this note, I think it's really useful just to kind of understand our relationship with these organizations because it can feel, it's often described that conservatives are the selfish people, are the people who don't care about the middle class or these individuals. and I'm just curious how we hear all the time, we want to take care of the middle class and we're losing the middle class and what are we going to do about the middle class and obviously those in poverty. What do you feel like are some standout steps that governments could actually take to support people in the middle class, people struggling paycheck to paycheck? Is there something clear in your mind where you're like, if you did this, it wouldn't fix it, but we'd be moving in the direction of actually helping people, regular people, regular trades workers get by? Darn Tutin. One, balance the budgets, both federally and provincially.

What does that do? That, number one, stops you from running your printing press over time, like I just described. So you're not printing $300 billion out of thin air and causing inflation, which is causing everything in our stores to cost more money. Okay, that's something Trudeau has done, okay? And it's one of the reasons why our interest rates have gone up to. Okay, so stop doing that. Quit printing money, quit running deficits, balance those budgets. It also saves all of us money because we pay interest on the debt.

So that's not magic money. We have to pay that back somehow or some way someday. And we pay interest on that. In fact, depending on what stats you're looking at, the interest we pay on the federal debt right now is a larger line item than the money allocated in some cases to the Department of National Defense. Dude, I know. It's a huge tax bill.

crazy. It is crazy. I had to check it six times myself. Now, this might be different from procurement and stuff, but it was a line item right in the budget. It said Department of National Defense. So, and like, then you look up, it's called debt servicing cost is what they call it in Newspeak in the budget. What that is is the interest charge, right? It's like the government credit card. So balance the budgets. One. Two, scrap the carbon taxes. Scrap them right now. So I'll give you an example of what that would do, to the middle class and the working class people you just explained. And like my brothers are all trades people like I get it. And we hear from people all the time on this. So getting rid of the carbon tax, that saves you like I said, 15 bucks per pickup truck, 30 bucks per heavy duty pickup truck. So somebody pulling a duly or, you know, a trailer or something. That's 30 bucks a time. It's around $300 you're saving just every year in your heating bill. Okay. And then there's the stuff that it's really hard to quantify because the carbon tax makes everything cost more. So let's go through a thought process. The farmer, say up north in BC, a farmer uses a grain dryer, okay,

to dry their product. That's propane and natural gas. Boom, carbon tax, okay? It goes onto a truck, boom, diesel, carbon tax. Goes onto a train in Prince George. Boom, there's diesel again, carbon tax. Now you're on to another truck. And now you're driving to the grocery store. all of those steps has been carbon taxed, okay, before you even put something in your cart. And then in many cases, the store itself is running on natural gas for heating and cooling. Again, there's the tax. And so that would have an immediate effect on the working class and the middle class. That would save them a lot of money every single year.

If I'm speaking specifically for British Columbia, and I'm speaking especially for low-income, people, if I could wave a magic wand, I would get rid of your PST. And I'll tell you why. I'm from BC originally and I'm living here in Alberta. Every time I go to the cashier now, I'm wincing a bit and it's not so bad. It's an experience every single time. And that's because I was lived in BC for so long. And in BC, I find the PST to be the worst because it's high. It's 7%, the 7%. And on something like a used car, it's 12%. It's gross. So say, you know, Mitchell, you know, is buying his new Lamborghini downtown.

He doesn't care about a PST. Why would he care about a PST? He literally can afford a Lamborghini. But Mike in Chilowak, who saved up six grand for that used tow to Corolla, He cares about the PST because now he's spending about $730 more on the PST for his used car that he is pinched and saved up for. That is an attack on the poor. A lot of people don't know this, but the BC government charges PST on thrift shop items. Yeah, so you're shopping at a thrift shop or even a business.

big one like value village or something and you're buying your clothes as an adult you're going to work you got some work boots that are used um you got some books maybe you've got some like a small appliances or something you needed a blender you're charged pst on all that stuff even though you're shopping second hand even though it was already charged a sales tax that's disgusting and i'll even give you a visual of why this affects the poor more okay and I use the poor because I want to be clear in my language. I'm not using it derogatorily. I find when we use terms like lower income that it euphemizes things and governments get away with robbing them blind. So if you are a poorer person or, you know, a lower income person, this is what it means to live paycheck to paycheck.

And trust me, finance ministers and academics living in university campuses have lost touch with what this means most of the time. If you live paycheck to paycheck, all of your money is out there in the world paying for stuff. It's paying for your heating bill. It's paying for your clothes. It's paying for your books. It's paying for that car that you saved up for, like I just said. It's paying for internet bills. It's paying for cat food.

All of it's spoken for. If you increase the price of all of this stuff with a sales tax, that's money directly out of your pocket. You have to make up that cost somewhere else now. You have to cut it out of your grocery bill. You have to find a cheaper place to live. Good luck in B.C. It's gone.

And so that is why a PST is really, really bad for lower income people because it is a direct increase in their cost of living. It's not like they've got a few savings accounts and they just got to move some money around like other people apparently are able to do because they don't live paycheck to paycheck. And, you know, it's, you know, shaving off the margins or whatever terms that economists like to use when they're defending something like a PST. No, for lower income and poorer people, that's literally a 7% increase in their costs for everything. So it has to give somewhere. They're going to go into debt to pay for it

or it's going to cut into their grocery bill. So if I could wave a magic wand, I would federally, I would say balance the budget and scrap the carbon taxes. Provincially for BC, if I could make a special one, I would say scrap the PST. That's really interesting. One thing we're hearing more and more about is this idea of tax the rich. It's more predominant, I would say, in the U.S., but we're starting to hear it more and more here. What are your thoughts? Is this the magic bullet?

Is this going to fix things? I wish it were because, you know, wouldn't affect me. And I'm guessing it wouldn't affect you. It doesn't affect a lot of normal people. But here's why that doesn't work is because Uber ultra-craest, pants, wealthy people, like if you're imagining, like, you know, I forget the dude's name that runs Loblaws. He was just giving testimony there. Or, you know, the Elon Musks of the world or somebody who runs, you know, Ford Motor Company, they'll just leave. Or they'll just

figure out a way to not pay it. So super crazy rich people that we like watch on TV, they've got an army of accountants and lawyers. Okay. They'll figure out a way to not pay the thing while they're living here in Canada, or they'll just leave. And there goes that magic golden goose of wealth that we thought was going to be our way out of this mess. So it doesn't work. So I understand the appeal of, hey, let's go grab that monopoly man running down the street with a big bag of money and just shake him. And then we'll take that money and distribute it like Robin Hood. You know, it sounds fun. But number one, that money runs out. Number two, it just doesn't work

because he always has a getaway van in fact France tried this France tried this and I don't know if it was Macron one of their leaders

said and I'm paraphrasing because it was in French one of their leaders said we have turned France into a Cuba just without the sunshine and beaches

so they managed to what in his view reduced their wealth because these rich people just ran away to some other jurisdiction, and they had nothing to show for it. And in all seriousness, not all, but lots of really, really wealthy people are job creators. In many of these cases, their money is parked in, like, major businesses

that employ people and innovate and invent stuff and make good things happen. So not all wealthy people are these like maniacic, people twirling their mustaches, right, and figuring out a way to afford to get another cigar. Sometimes there are really big entrepreneurs and business people. And that means they're employing people like you and me and our brothers and our sisters and our cousins and stuff. And there's also spin-off industries too. There's a lady that's running the sandwich truck that's parked next to that guy's job site.

There's the place that's selling the boots down the street from all the people he employs. There's all of these really important jobs that are created around. these wealthy people and if they just leave those jobs could be gone too so again it's it's easy to understand the appeal of hey there's somebody with a bag of money let's go take the money but it doesn't work yeah i do think that one of the challenges we face is that it's easy to hate the rich and not really genuinely care about people who are struggling paycheck to paycheck it's much more glamorous to be like let's just go after that guy because he's richer than me rather than looking at some of these policies for what they're worth. Yeah, exactly. You know, if people really,

like, if these politicians want to put their money where their mouths are, don't take pay hikes. Stop hiking your own pay. These MPs in Ottawa have taken three pay hikes during this COVID mess. I know tons of people who took pay cuts, who lost their jobs entirely, who lost their businesses, like it was rough. And a lot of them aren't even recovered from it because of those lockdowns and what happened. And these politicians are giving themselves pay hikes, and they're already making. I think right now after the pay hike, I think it's $193,000 per year plus benefits that would make you faint. Like, they pay for their heating bill. They pay for all their fuel and for transportation. They pay for their food. They pay for their housing when they're in Ottawa. Like all that day-to-day stuff you and I were just

talking about, that's covered. And they get these crazy salaries and a pretty fat pension. So, yeah, If they really care, it'd be better for them to not take those pay hikes, figure out ways to balance their budgets, scrap these taxes like carbon taxes, instead of grilling Galen Weston because he's one dude and going after him is not going to solve our problems. Can you talk about the role of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation? I think it's so valuable to have an organization that's able to help individuals who aren't able to get their mind around all of these complex issues that are able to, support a voice that's willing to do that work to help them stay informed? Can you talk about working with this organization and the work you do? Well, I really appreciate that because it's something that, well, one, it gives me hope because it gives people a voice again, I find in many cases. So we get lots of emails. We have more than 235,000 supporters across Canada. And so we get

lots of emails from folks from everywhere from from bc from here in albara out back east um a lot of some of them are retired some of them are farmers some of them are brand new to our organization um and so we are a nonpartisan not-for-profit citizens advocacy organization we're one of the oldest and like i said we've been around since before the internet we started in 1990 and what i love about us is that there's something for everyone. So if you want to scrap carbon taxes, we've got a petition and an email list for that. You can join our standing army. If you really love free speech and you're really worried about what's happening with C-11, we've got a pool of people that are fighting that too. We do the fun stuff. So you might have seen, we do a spoof

awards show every year where we hand out golden pig statues to the politicians who waste your money best. It's fun. Yeah. Because you've got to laugh, right? And so we have these, we have these costumes that we have a mascot called Porky the Waste Hater, this big pink pig. And he stands there with us. And so we'll do that fun stuff. We also have a guy named Fibber, who might look like an old Italian folktale puppet where his nose grows when he doesn't tell the truth. We have chased politicians down the street wearing that costume. So we'll do the fun because if you're not laughing, you might be crying, right? So you've got to keep the happy and the happy warrior. So we make sure to do the fun stuff. And we also do the tough stuff. My colleague,

Franco Tarazano, is the federal director. He's living there in Ottawa. He put out a 70-page pre-budget report, like with graphs and charts and math, all explaining how you can balance the budget. Just by returning to like 2018 spending levels, like we're not going back to 1940 year. Like he, and so he did all that work. We also fight stuff in court. So the No More Pipelines Law, for example, we took that all the way to the Supreme Court. Our lawyer just argued it. So we'll do both things. And so for folks who are listening, especially if you're feeling like things are out of your control and you can't afford stuff and the politicians aren't listening to you, we've got a petition for pretty much anything you could want. Like when I was mentioning a

PST in BC. I've got a petition there, take the PST off of used items. So that directly helps low income people and only low income people. And so like you can sign up in all those different ways. And then what we do is that if something comes up in the news or there's a new law or something's changing, we email that list and say, now is the time. Everybody, email your MP all at once. Phone your MP all at once. Come to this pub night and listen. to us speak and we can really rally the troops. What I like to encourage people to do is to do these things I just explained and then get out there. Like physically get out there. Meet your neighbors. Figure out if you guys all agree on let's oppose this tax hike or push for this school

to be built or whatever it is. And door knock. It's amazing. You get to know your neighbors and you feel empowered. You no longer feel that you are just some some ATM, some piggy bank for taxes. You suddenly feel like you have a voice and you have agency. And so that's what I love about the Taxpayers Federation is you don't need to want a flat tax necessarily and be, you know, a hardcore small government right wing. You can also be more left of center and want to get rid of the PST unused items or have free speech. So there's, there's ways for lots of people to participate in the organization. Can you tell people how they can find you online? Yeah, that's great. Thank you. Just go to taxpayer.com.

That's our website, so singulartaxpayer.com. And again, the best way to get the conversation rolling is just go through, we have a million petitions. Like, it's like a box of chocolates. Some have nuts. Others are like jellies, like take your pick and sign up on those. And that way you'll start getting our updates. And they're not like, you know, we're not flooding your inbox on, you know, give us more money or anything like that. It's action.

It's like, now is the time to email your MP or did you see this video? It's always taking an action. And I like it because it provides fellowship. So I've had ongoing email conversations now with people across the country for years of them sending me their heating bill each winter and checking in on them in the summer and how they're doing. And that's what I would recommend them do. Just go to our website, taxpayer.com, figure out what really appeals to you, sign the corresponding petitions and you can start the conversation. And if you want to, I mean, we've got news releases there. You can go back through like 15 years of stuff that we've said.

You can watch our silly videos, like I said, with Porky to Waste Hater. You can watch our serious videos when we give, we'll give presentations to committee, like on Parliament Hill in suits and stuff. You can watch all that. I love the fellowship aspect because it seems like when people are struggling paycheck to paycheck, it's their failure. And when you see inflation, when you see these challenges coming up with interest rates and being able to get a new mortgage, it feels like, oh, I'm not doing enough.

I'm not making enough money. I'm not stretching my money enough. What more do I need to do? And to your point, creating this community where it's actually, you didn't do anything wrong. Things in our economy have changed such that what you were doing before doesn't work, but not because you as an individual did anything wrong. Oh, that's such a good way of putting that. I'm going to use that next time I'm chatting with people because especially coming from BC, one of the main reasons we moved here is so we could buy a house in our 40s. So, like, I get it.

And I just got to, anybody listening right now feels alone and you're struggling, you're not alone. And this isn't necessarily that you can need to come join my group. Like, go join another group if that feels better for you. But reach out to your neighbors, reach out to your family and friends, find a local service organization. It could be the Lions. You know, it could be the Suroptimus Club. It could be rotary. It could be any of those things.

Just get active and get involved. But from a tax perspective and you struggling financially perspective, it's likely not your fault, man. Like, the government is taking more than 40% of your paycheck. Inflation has robbed you of a lot of your wealth. There's been a lot of missteps on big files like housing and energy that are not your fault. Okay? But there's a way to fix them.

So if we all team up, if we all speak up at the same time, we have a fighting chance of getting rid of things like PST, of getting rid of the carbon tax, which, by the way, you have two of in British Columbia. That's one of the reasons why your fuel hovers around two bucks a liter. You've got the highest fuel prices in all of North America because you got the highest fuel taxes in all of North America. So if we all team up and fight back together, there's a better chance that we'll achieve what we want and lower your cost. And in the meantime, you won't be alone with it anymore. Okay? Because it's not your fault and you shouldn't feel like you're alone.

there are record numbers of working people using food banks now. It's really hard to say that out loud. I know that there's record numbers of people who are within 200 bucks every month now of insolvency. That's really hard. But we can help. And if we don't achieve it immediately, at least we will be in this together. And we can have a little bit of fun along the way and you won't feel so powerless. That would be the perfect place to end it.

But I do have to ask about the Canadian Taxpayers podcast. I just listened to your most recent episode and I really enjoyed it. It was diving into the 2023 budget and all of the challenges with it. Would you mind just telling listeners a little bit about connecting with that podcast? Yeah.

So if you head on over to our website, Taxpayer.com, it should be there. Actually, the best way to find it is on YouTube. So if you go to YouTube and search Canadian Taxpayers' Podcast, it should be up there. And then on your phone, like, just pop it up on, like, if you do Apple Podcasts or whatever term you use, just search for us, Canadian Taxpayers,

Federation podcast. It's got a little kind of hazard symbol of a politician throwing money into fire. So that's our logo. And you can listen to it. I'm on there frequently. So is Franco Tarasano. We've got an amazing new investigative journalist who is full time working with us. His name's Ryan. He's fantastic. He's at a Winnipeg. He's the one that's digging up a lot of these government waste stories. And so if you just find our podcast, you can listen to it. We talk about all sorts of this stuff. So you can dive into the budget. like you just explained, and that's where Franco explains the really ugly level of spending that's happening, and he explains how they could save the money, how they could actually balance

the budget without causing austerity or hardship. And we also do some fun stuff, too. We do a bit of government waste and poke fun at the government, because again, you've got to have a bit of fun. Chris, this has been such a pleasure. I really feel like you know your stuff. It's such an enlightening conversation to have somebody who's able to balance the serious topic with the humor. I've really enjoyed your interviews. I think you're very thoughtful person and you make this accessible for people who are frustrated, who are seeing their money not go as far. And I think what you talked about before about how it's not their fault, I think that that just needs to be said more because when we're talking about inflation, I'm not seeing that on the news. I'm not hearing that

in the newspaper because it's not, it's not perhaps popular to talk about the real impacts on people and how it isn't their fault. They're not doing anything wrong. So I just, I really appreciate your time today. It's been so enlightening and really all-inspiring to hear you talk about these issues in such a plain, simple terms way. I can do it any time and good on you for this podcast. Your questions are really insightful. Thank you. How much do you pay in tax, Tim? Well, it sounds like 40%. A lot and it's on every level. And then even to have the taxes, prepared for the, for our company is astronomical and keeps going up because of the

complexity and yeah, it's, it's one of those things you just sort of want to stick your head in the ground, but I loved her passion and advocacy. I was not familiar with that organization and what they're doing. Yeah, I really am proud to be able to highlight people like that because what a cool organization. I followed them on Twitter and as we mentioned, got to listen to her interview where she was diving into line items and not making it sound abstract of like, oh, you're paying too much tax. It was very clear what the purchases, what the spending, and where it was going wrong. And I do think that people feel this, but they don't have a person able to articulate what the problems are and how it could be changed. And again, I think we talk a lot

about caring about people on fixed incomes. But where's the action? Where are we talking about solutions to that and looking at a petition to get rid of the PST on used clothing from like value village and dirt stores like it's just i didn't even think of that as an issue but when you think about that at scale across a whole province that's going to have a lot of effects yeah tax on tax just drives me bonkers and that's a big prime example i hadn't thought of that as well my kids tend to go to valley village they find great finds there but i didn't necessarily put two and two together. This stuff has already been taxed woods, right?

And used cars. Kind of same idea, right? Every time it moves. Yeah, for sure. All right, well, go check it out. Next podcast dropping next week. It was such a pleasure. Chris Sims, go check out the Canadian Taxpayers' Federation.

Follow them on all the social media platforms. A really important voice in Canada. and I'm sure that there's like-minded organizations in the USA. I know that they came out with a story saying that they had misspent or wasted hundreds of billions of dollars, which is just incomprehensible to my small brain. Bigger than me, podcast, dossier, go check it out there and subscribe on Substack. And Aaron, although that's an amazing end to the podcast, I do have one confession to make, and an editorial correction, if you will.

So if we watched or listened to the last episode where I was completely trashing Aaron for his lack of early 90s music and talking about our own tragically hip and the amazing concert that was broadcasted. I exaggerated. I went and looked up how many people actually watched the last performance of the tragically hip. And it was not 20 million. It was 11.7 million. But I will say that that's almost one-third of the entire country. So I just wanted to set the record straight. That sounds like some federal government mismanagement of money there, just a small

10 million off, eh? But the difference is I can't clean. Oh, okay. So Justin Trudeau walks out, he's like, I'm going to come clean now. Then we just write this and we're just fine with it. Oh my goodness. Wow,

I was throwing some shade at you and I'm getting it back. There you go. It all balances out. We balance to the podcast. There you go. Asta Owego Arived her tea