(0:00 - 2:20) Recently, in a politically motivated move, Mark Carney dropped the consumer carbon tax across Canada, saving us all money at the pump and in our home heating bills. But of course, if he should win the election on the 28th, nothing is stopping him from bringing those carbon taxes back. In the meantime, he's not only kept the carbon tax on corporations, but given strong hints that he plans to increase it. A move that will drive businesses out of and put Canadians out of jobs. Franco Terrazzano is the director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, and he very recently published his book, Axing the Tax, the Rise and Fall of Canada’s Carbon Tax, where he demonstrates that the carbon tax, justified by a false climate alarmist narrative, didn't start with Trudeau and exposing the dirty dealings of the Liberal government, not just with the carbon tax, but with an excessive tax regime that is bankrupting Canadians. A regime we can expect to continue should the Liberals win another term. Franco was in Calgary recently, signing his book, and kindly took time out of his busy schedule to visit my studio for an in-person interview. Franco, thanks so much for coming in today at this interview. Hey, it's my pleasure. And I'm really very flattered because I know you've got a very busy schedule. You're out doing your book signing. So thank you so much for taking the time for this today to come to my studio and do this very important subject. And the first question, though, that I have to ask, fantastic book. You've covered the subject of the carbon taxes and the history of it really well, uncovering the fact that it goes back way farther than Trudeau does. But you've published the book. The published book was published April 10th. Now, of course, it takes time to write a book, get it printed. So at the point in time in which you were writing it, Trudeau was still prime minister. We didn't know Mark Carney was going to make the politically necessary move of dropping the consumer carbon tax. So we'll get into that later. But the first question I have for you is, do you think that's affected sales of the book? Because people think now, okay, well, it's over. It's done. We're not doing it anymore. Yeah, that's a good question. (2:20 - 2:30) Um, I honestly don't know. Right. It's tough to say. It's a counterfactual. Who knows? But here's what I will say. You know, cost of living is still a really big issue for people. (2:30 - 7:56) Right. At the end of the day, I mean, people want to be able to afford their groceries. People are worried about their rents. People are worried about their mortgages. Right. People are still worried about the heating bills that they've had to pay this winter, worried about all the bills that are coming down the road. So I still think cost of living is very important. Like, who knows? Who knows what the sales would have been if the carbon tax was hiked again, April one. Um, but I still think it's a very relevant book. And I know we're going to get into this a little bit later, but, uh, everything in the last chapter, which foreshadows the fight ahead is actually happening and playing out right now. Right. And of course, what this means is that people are buying the book or the people who understand, yeah, it's not over. Um, two things that we can talk about. One, the fact that if Carnegie gets elected on the 28th, there's nothing stopping him from just flipping a switch and bring it back. Yeah. And two, he didn't really drop the carbon tax. He dropped the consumer carbon tax. Yeah. He's going to make up for it with the corporate taxes and this impacts jobs. And it's one of the things that you've written up in your book. This is how many jobs this is costing. And if the companies get hit even harder with these corporate taxes, as their profits start to drop, well, they can't stop paying the tax. So the only thing they can do is lay off employees, cut costs. Yes. This is going to cost. Or not come to Canada. Or not come. Or not come to Canada. Right. You know, there was a rumor just the other day that, that, uh, Honda's planning on packing up their huge plant in Ontario and moving it to the States. Where there is no national carbon tax. Where there is no national. Or think about the fertilizer plant right in, uh, in Manitoba. Right. They're getting hammered with industrial carbon taxes. Guess what? South of the border, no national carbon tax. And, you know, I'm glad you brought that up because one of the reasons I wrote this book is because the fight against carbon taxes is not over. Right. Um, and for two reasons, let's go into the practical right away. Okay. So as you mentioned, Carney dropped the consumer carbon tax rate to zero. And first of all, can I just say how happy I am that even the liberals who up until six minutes ago, that was their favorite tax realized that it was so toxic that they had to drop the consumer tax to zero, but you're right because the law is still on the books. Right. So after the done knock, knock, knocking on the door, singing for their supper, after the election, they could go back into the house of commons and they could crank that carbon tax rate back up even higher because the law is still on the books. But more to the point where I see the fight going is I see politicians, um, I see them trying to relabel repackage and hide carbon taxes. And Carney has been very vague, but what he has been clear about is that he wants to hammer Canadian businesses with huge hidden carbon taxes. And then he hopes you won't notice when your life gets more expensive, right? You've already heard Carney say, Oh, don't worry folks. It's just going to be the large businesses that pay for his carbon tax. But of course that's nuts. And like, let's just talk about the simple reality, right? When the government imposes carbon taxes on refineries, that makes gasoline and diesel more expensive. The same thing happens when the government imposes carbon taxes on utilities, your home heating bill gets more expensive. And then also too, let's go back to that fertilizer plant, right? You increase costs for the fertilizer plant that makes it more expensive for Canadian farmers. And then that makes your grocery trip more expensive at the end of the day. Now let's tie in the economic issue here because the vast majority of countries, here's what the government never wanted to tell you. The vast majority of countries, about 70% don't have national carbon taxes. Okay. So when the government imposes a carbon tax on like oil and gas companies, fertilizer plants, steel manufactories, well that makes them less competitive in Canada. So that encourages those businesses to cut production in Canada, set up shop in other countries, including the United States. So really Carney's hidden carbon tax on business is the worst of all worlds, higher prices and fewer jobs for Canadians. Right. And it's all, let's not forget that Carney was the advisor to Trudeau on a lot of this stuff. Well, he's been pushing for carbon taxes for quite some time. Yes, he has. Okay. So now Carney has dropped that consumer carbon tax, but we know that he's going to ramp up the corporate taxes as you've just been talking about. And in your book, you point out the things that Canadians are really concerned about according to the surveys. And, you know, carbon taxes is way down the list. You know, climate is way down the list. You know, what's at the top of the list? Cost of living. Cost of living. Which is way up there. Healthcare, another one that's way up there. And they're not addressing these things. They're just making them worse with all these taxes. And the thing that I really want people to take away from this interview is that even if Carney, you know, let's, let's say that, and obviously if Poilievre gets elected, I hope we can see that the carbon tax going away entirely. But if that doesn't happen, if Carney gets elected on the 28th, we know that these corporate taxes are going to get increased even farther. As you've pointed out, that increases the cost of everything. So we've already got people struggling to put food on their table, started to heat their homes and it's just going to make it worse. And then of course we've got the job losses. So this is, this is a financial disaster. And the thing that I, you know, keyed into in your book, and I know that some of the viewers know this, but some don't, Canada accounts for 1.5% of global carbon emissions. And as you've just pointed out, 70% of countries don't even have any kind of carbon tax. So it, it does nothing globally. No, it just makes it really expensive for Canadians to live. (7:57 - 9:33) Well, it could, it does either nothing or it could, it can make things worse. Right. Because like, okay. So to go back to that 70% number, okay. The United States doesn't have a national carbon tax. It also doesn't matter who's in the white house, right? Obama didn't bring in a carbon tax. Biden didn't bring in a carbon tax. Hillary Clinton didn't run on a carbon tax. Kamala Harris didn't run into carbon tax. We know Trump hasn't brought in a carbon tax. I think it's safe to say he never will. In fact, in the book, we, we go to an interview with John Podesta, who was a Democrat strategist. And he said, look, we've done polling on carbon taxes. It all sucks. Right. So nobody, it doesn't matter who's in the white house. They're not bringing in a carbon tax. Okay. So you have the US but along with US, you also have these very large emitters, uh, like Russia, India, and Brazil, no national carbon tax yet. Canada has 1.4% of global emissions. So, you know, sometimes it seems like the federal government is going out of their way to shut down all of industry in Canada, but even if they did, it still wouldn't move the big side of the arithmetic, which is emissions in other countries. And, you know, I said that it either does nothing or it can make things worse. And I say that because of this wonky term known as carbon leakage, but it's actually very understandable. And what that term means is that when a jurisdiction, a country, a province, a state has these high energy taxes or high energy regulations, that doesn't necessarily cut emissions because it could just force companies to go to other jurisdictions where there are very lower taxes, very low environmental regulations. (9:34 - 10:33) And you can see that play out in your day-to-day life. Okay. Let's take the example of example of the lower mainland in British Columbia, right? The Vancouver Langley Coquitlam area. Well, there's so many news reports of, because of the high gas prices in British Columbia, you just have like people going south of the border, filling up their Jerry cans with gasoline, right? So the carbon tax does nothing there. Or think about in bigger terms, you might not know this, but when the environmental activists were pushing for a nationwide carbon tax in Canada, they were doing so because they understood carbon leakage, right? They knew that if one province like BC had a carbon tax, well, businesses would just set up shop in Alberta or Saskatchewan or Manitoba or whatever. In fact, and I detail this in the book, is that you have these global organizations, the United Nations, the IMF, the WEF that are pushing for global carbon taxes because they understand carbon leakage. (10:33 - 12:23) They understand that if it's really just Canada with a carbon tax, it does nothing to actually reduce global emissions. Right. And when Trudeau introduced the tax in 2019, he's talking about Canada is going to be a global leader. I mean, to an extent, the liberals did acknowledge our very low carbon emissions in regards to- Yeah, Trudeau did himself. Right. But he said, well, we're going to be a global leader, so everybody's going to follow what we're doing. Except they're not. Nope. I mean, you've got China. Here's an extreme example, probably the biggest polluter in the world who signed onto the Kyoto Accord, but they did it this way. They said, well, okay, at 2030, we'll start reducing our carbon emissions, but until then, we're going to increase them. And so the question that I think Canadians need to be asking of the liberal government, even though Trudeau is not the one in charge of it anymore, is, okay, clear, it's not working, guys. Why are you still doing it? You're just impoverishing Canadians and you're not accomplishing anything. That's exactly it. Look, the fatal flaw of a carbon tax is that it makes life more expensive, it makes the necessities of life increasingly more expensive, and it doesn't work. Okay. Let's go back to 2008. And the reason I say that is British Columbia. That's the first year British Columbia brought in its economy-wide carbon tax. And that's important for a couple of reasons. So number one, BC was essentially used as the model, to use their own terms, for the national carbon tax in Canada, right? Not just that you had media elites and the economists, the New York Times bragging about BC's carbon tax saying, oh, it's so good, it's so good, blah, blah, blah. Okay. So first of all, when the liberal government in British Columbia brought in the carbon tax, they didn't run on it in the election before. You go through the liberal provincial party platform in the previous election, not a single mention of the word carbon. (12:23 - 13:36) The only time they even talk about an environmental tax is cutting taxes. And then they bring in this carbon tax in BC. Okay. And they made two promises. The first promise is that the carbon tax would be revenue neutral, i.e. they would cut income taxes or business taxes to offset the carbon tax collection. So within five years, it was no longer revenue neutral, right? No longer revenue neutral. The revenue neutral promise always was, always will be the wolf in sheep's clothing. But number two, to the part of the conversation that we're having, they promised that the carbon tax would cut emissions by a third by 2020 and every year after. And not only were those political promises, they brought in legislation of the carbon tax cutting emissions by 33%. Well, guess what? Use the government of BC's own data. Surprise, surprise. Emissions have gone up. And why have emissions gone up? I'm going to get wonky here again. Okay. Economists like to throw this term out called inelastic demand. But all that essentially means is that you can't tax away the necessities of life. That's all it means. Because guess what? Fueling up your car, if you live in Coquitlam, but you got to go down to Vancouver to work, that's a necessity. (13:37 - 16:16) Fueling your car to go take your kids to soccer practice, that's a necessity. Heating your home with natural gas is a necessity for people. Putting food on the table, I don't have to tell you, that's a necessity. So when you bring in this type of punishing tax like the carbon tax, you're not reducing emissions, you're just taking money out of people's pockets so they can't afford the other necessities of life. And as you pointed out in your book, they'd not given Canadians any options. Okay, maybe the carbon tax would work to stop people from using fossil fuels if they had a viable alternative, but they don't. And so my take on that, being extremely skeptical of our liberal government especially, if they truly actually cared about the environment, their focus would first have been on finding other options for people rather than just coming out of the chute with all these taxes that are costing people so much money. Okay, let me go two things there. So let's go back to BC for example, because when they first brought it in in 2008, they made all these promises. Oh, don't worry folks, there'll be all these alternatives. You won't have to fuel up, there'll be so many different cleaner alternatives. You can take your unicorn to work. Well, fast forward to now, we're nearly two decades later, and surprise, surprise, people still got to fuel up to get to work. People still need to rely on natural gas or propane or whatever to heat their homes and for other necessities of life, right? And that's nearly two decades after the original promise in British Columbia. Number two, I want to talk about how the environmental activists have actually done a good job framing the debate. Now they're wrong, but strategically speaking, they've done a good job because they've essentially said, look folks, if you care about the environment, if you care about emissions and you want to see emissions go down, well, then you have three bad options. Massive costly regulations, massive costly subsidies, i.e. corporate welfare, or massively costly taxes like carbon taxes. And they've essentially framed the debate like those are your only three options. And if you think in that narrowed window, right, the index card of allowable opinion, well, all those options are bad. But the reality, the truth is that that aren't the only three options. In fact, if you are serious about reducing global emissions, none of those costs on Canadians make sense, right? What we should be doing is displacing dirtier forms of energy being produced or consumed abroad with cleaner forms of energy, right? Natural gas instead of coal or oil and gas instead of coal or whatever, right? That's what we should be doing if you care about reducing global emissions. (16:16 - 16:45) That is really the only way to deal with it if that is your priority. Or number two, allow the market to encourage innovation, which we've seen for centuries, right? And that is another step to actually bring down global emissions. And I love that you just said that because to me, the logical thing here is if we created this environment where there was that motivation for innovation, we would see companies creating alternatives that were actually cheaper. (16:45 - 17:24) Yeah. We also do see that all the time. And if we saw that, if people could see... I mean, for example, the electric car market that they've been pushing, but of course, electric car sales now are just diving because people realize, one, they have very poor range, two, the batteries don't last very long, three, they're expensive. I mean, even our government dropped their own subsidy for them not long ago because people just aren't buying them. Well, they're not buying them because they're actually more expensive. But if you gave people something that was less expensive and worked just as well, and if they took, even to my mind, a fraction of the money that they're taxing Canadians and they invested that into innovation, well, maybe we would come up with things like that. (17:24 - 22:56) And then you wouldn't have to try to push people into alternatives. They just go to them naturally because, hey, it's cheaper. Yeah. I'm glad you brought up taxing people into oblivion. And I do tell in this book, there's a chapter that goes along the lines of inflation, pandemic, and tax fatigue. So even if you take away the carbon tax, Canadians are already overtaxed. No, they are. Because essentially, think about it this way, folks, take your family's income, take the paycheck, rip it in half, because half of it is the taxman's at all three levels of government. So you're looking at close to 50% of your income is going to taxes. And then what happened? A pandemic hit. And the pandemic, what it did is it highlighted what I like to think of a kind of an awful reality here in Canada. And that's the tale of two Canadas, full of economic pain for people in the private sector, whereas financial gain for people behind the golden gates of government. And you saw throughout the pandemic thousands. And look, I remember I was living in Calgary during the start of the pandemic and for years and through the pandemic, especially when the oil price dropped, people were losing their jobs left, right and center, getting government pay raise bonus, tens of thousands of extra government bureaucrats. Right. So that fueled the frustration, especially among small business owners, workers in the private sector. And then inflation reaches a 40 year high. Well, inflation is not an accident, right? Inflation is not an act of God. Inflation happens because of deliberate policy. And one of the key reasons that we've seen inflation, not just in Canada, but in other countries that did similar things, is you had the central bank, the Bank of Canada, print up more than $300 billion of new money at a thin air and dropped it into an economy that essentially had revolving lockdowns for three years, right? And that created inflation. And through this inflation crisis, all Canadians had to do was look left and right and see that other governments were providing relief. Even the BC NDP government paused a carbon tax during the pandemic. And they love the carbon tax. Right. And then look, the Alberta government, they suspended fuel taxes for a long time. The NDP in Manitoba suspended fuel taxes for some time. The PCs in Ontario cut fuel taxes. The Liberal government of Newfoundland and Labrador cut fuel taxes. Then there's a bunch of countries around the world, United Kingdom. You got Israel, Italy. You had Germany, Netherlands, South Korea, India, all cutting fuel taxes during the inflation crisis. What did Ottawa do? Hiked the carbon tax every single year. And they wonder why Canadians were frustrated. Frustrated is the wrong word. Ticked off is probably a better way to describe it. Furious. Furious. Yes. And with good reason. And I'm glad you mentioned that the tax situation, because of course we're here talking about your book, Action to Tax. We're talking about the carbon tax, but you are the director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. And you guys do a lot more than just carbon tax. You're the guys, the watchdogs for what our government is doing with taxes. And here's something from your book. I want to read this because even I kind of knew this, but until I saw the numbers that you put in here, it didn't really hit me. The average Canadian family now spends more of its income on taxes, 43% than it does on basic necessities, such as food, shelter, and clothing combined, 35.6%. By comparison, 33.5% of the average family's income went to pay taxes in 1961, while 56.5% went to basic necessities. Now, why is it? I mean, the tax is going up. That's kind of a no brainer because our government just keeps hiking them. Why are they spending less on necessities? Because they don't have it. Because they're being taxed, yes, as we said, into oblivion. Yeah. And even as prices rise, the tax burden is outpacing inflation. You know what I mean? And everyone knows that inflation has gone up and taxes have gone up. And one of the things as crazy as that stat is, where nearly half of your family's budget is going to taxes at all three levels of government, that's not even the total tax burden because we're not even talking about the debt, right? The $1.2, $1.3 trillion elephant in the room, right? With the Trudeau government, they doubled the national debt in less than a decade. Yes. So more than 100 years of Canada, $600 billion of debt. Yes. And one administration here ran up more debt than all prime ministers previous to him throughout Canadian history. So let me throw out a stat there. Now, we're in beautiful Alberta, no provincial sales tax. I love it here, right? But there is a federal sales tax. Yes. Every dollar you pay in federal sales tax goes to pay interest on the federal debt. Right. Every dollar. Okay. So I've heard Trudeau. I remember Christia Freeland. Oh, future generations, future generations, blah, blah, blah. It's Canadians, kids, and grandkids who are going to be making payments on that debt for the rest of their lives, for the rest of their lives. Okay. So we throw out these numbers and they're staggering in and of themselves. But even left out on that is the true bill to taxpayers today and tomorrow. And that's this debt problem. And the reason that we've seen both an explosion in taxes and an explosion in debt, which is crazy, is because governments have been just spending like crazy. I want to say like drunken sailors, but I have nothing against drunken sailors and they're probably outspending them. And like, look, in less than a decade, the federal government alone increased the bureaucracy by 73%. Right. (22:56 - 23:12) Okay. I think it's pretty safe to say that unless you're paid for by the government, you're not getting 73% better services from the feds, maybe 73% longer wait times, but certainly not 73% better services. So, I mean, the spending has become completely outrageous. (23:13 - 23:58) The debt has become completely outrageous. And then on top of all that, you're already paying close to half of your family's income in taxes. Right. Now let's talk about some of the dirty pool that the liberals have engaged in with the taxes, something you cover in your book. And okay. Once again, folks, sure. Carney's dropped the consumer carbon tax, but not corporate one. They're just going to jack that one up. What you mentioned in your book is they're putting tax on the tax. Let's talk about that. Yeah. So not only do they tax your fuel, they tax those taxes. Okay. So they add all the different taxes that you pay at the gas station. And then the sales tax, the GST, for example, is added on top. Right. And the federal sales tax, it costs about, about close to half a billion dollars a year on top of the carbon tax. Right. (23:58 - 25:43) Let me just put that another way. The carbon tax on tax alone costs Canadians about half a billion dollars a year. Okay. And the government doesn't even pretend to rebate that money back to you. Right. Remember, remember all the spin, remember all the spin coming from Trudeau or Guibo or all their minions or whatever you want to call them saying, Oh, eight out of 10 Canadians get more money back than they pay in the carbon tax. Well, that's BS. Yes. Okay. So number one from the empirical evidence is the parliamentary budget officer, right? The government's own independent nonpartisan budget watchdog, which has published not one, not two, but three separate reports proving that the carbon tax costs average families hundreds of dollars more than the money they get back in rebates. Yes. As you pointed out in your book, $400 a year, 20, 24, 25. And if they continued it and like again, if Carney gets elected, there's nothing stopping him from bringing it back. Yeah. If they continued that pace by 2030, it'd be $900 a year. Yeah. And those are annual costs. You add it up and you're actually looking at thousands of dollars more than the rebates you get back over that time. So that is the, the empirical evidence. Okay. But then let's, let's just talk through the logic for a second here. Right? So not only are you paying the carbon tax, but you're also paying the tax on tax, right? About half a billion dollars a year. None of that money rebated back to you. And then the government also has to spend hundreds of millions of dollars, already 200 million bucks, hiring all the bureaucrats to carbon tax you. Right. Right? So think about it this way. It's impossible for the federal government to impose a carbon tax, charge its sales tax on top of the carbon tax, skim hundreds of millions of dollars off the top to pay for all those bureaucrats, and then somehow make everyone better off with rebates. (25:43 - 25:48) It's magic math. It's completely impossible. It was quite frankly, pure government propaganda. (25:49 - 33:43) And, you know, fortunately Canadians never bought that. Canadians never bought that argument. Canadians were like, okay, okay folks, like there is no way the government's going to take 20 bucks and somehow give me $50 back. Right. But let's just say for the sake of the argument that the government was correct. We know they weren't. There's so much evidence showing they weren't, but for the sake of the argument, let's say the government was correct and you were getting more money than you paid back. What does that mean? You're not getting that money from the government, right? The government doesn't have any money in and of itself. You're taking that money from your neighbor or from the small business down the street. Yes. And as you talked about in your book, a lot of businesses went out of business because of the carbon tax, because of this tax burden, they just couldn't keep operating. And so while we can't know at this point in time, what Carney's got planned for the corporate carbon taxes, we can be pretty sure he's going to jack those up. Yeah. Probably put tax on tax on that one too. No rebates. No rebates. And the thing that that I really want people to get from this is to understand that, okay, sure it's cheaper now at the pump and that's nice. Yeah. But how much gas can you afford when you lose your job? Because the company you work for had to cut costs somewhere because of the tax burden until they had to let you go. And that's a very salient point, but also to the fact that the industrial carbon tax, what Carney's talking about, and he's given every indication that he would increase it. Yes. Every indication. He's been vague. He's offered us a lot of word salads, but every indication is that he would increase it. So it's not only the job losses. And that is very important. And I think something we need to keep talking about, but it's also higher prices. Because as I mentioned, when you impose carbon taxes on refineries, it makes the fuel that you buy at the gas station more expensive. You hammer fertilizer plants with carbon taxes. At the end of the day, that's going to make your food more expensive. And let me just say it one more time. But Carney's carbon tax is the worst of all worlds, which is both higher prices and fewer jobs here for Canada. Oh, and here's a little question for all the green think tanks out there. Okay. If we have an industrial carbon tax that pushes Canadian businesses to set up shop in the United States, how many emissions do you cut when businesses go south of the border? Zero. Yes, exactly. Frankly, because this is a question I got to ask, and it's just sort of tangential to what we're talking about, but in your position with the taxpayers federation and watchdog and the government, and this ridiculous narrative that came from them, that it was going to be a zero balance equation with the carbon tax, people were going to get back more than they gave. I mean, doesn't it, do you think it shows a real contempt for Canadians to think they're that stupid that they would buy that? Well, it kind of, look, if you think that the government is going to take 20 bucks from you and give you 50 bucks back, I've got some ocean view property in Lethbridge to sell you. Like, come on, right? Like, but, but look, I, I, I see what you're saying. And the thing is, too, is what I've come to see moving from Calgary to Ottawa, and I've been in Ottawa for close to four years now, you can probably smell Mordor on me right now, is they completely live in a different world. They completely live in a different world. You've heard the term Ottawa bubble before, and it's, it's apt. They either don't care about the struggles that people are going through outside of the political elite area, or they either don't know or they don't care. And I'm not sure which one's worse. I'm really not sure. But look, the whole idea of the carbon tax is to make the necessities of life more expensive. Higher prices and inflation is not a bug. That's a feature. Right. So when you saw those gas prices with those sky high numbers, those numbers that kept going up, Trudeau, Freeland, Guilbeau, they would be patting themselves on the back because that is the intention of the carbon tax. Exactly. And I'm glad you brought that up because it's got nothing to do with the environment. It's got nothing to do with climate. It's, as far as I can see, it's almost malicious. Well, it's a, it's a tax of control. Right. Right. So what, how I like to boil down what the carbon tax is, not only does it make life more expensive, but is a tax on controlling behavior, right? It's do what we say or pay. But not as we do, because we got Jagmeet Singh driving around a $200,000 car. No, no, no, no, no. Let's go even further than that because, you know, it's, that's one thing. What's worse in my mind is when they use other people's money to live their life of luxury. Right. That's, that's, what's more upsetting to me. And yes, I'm the taxpayer guy, but I also just think that's the fundamental problem, right? So when you hear stories of like Trudeau and his entourage going on a six day tour of the Indo-Pacific region, and then all of that money is paid for by the taxpayer jet fuel taxpayer money. Right. And then they drop $220,000 on airplane food alone. Right. Or when they fly over to like the governor general, the now infamous trip where the governor general went to the Middle East for Expo 2020 in Dubai, it was a week long trip and they dropped $100,000 on airplane food. Again, all of this on the taxpayer bill or Trudeau flies to London, England for the Queen's funeral, which is, you can understand why that, why our head of where the leader of our government would go do that. Of course. Right. However, Trudeau didn't have to bill taxpayer $6,000 per night in a luxury hotel suite. Right. So they're telling people, Hey, pay more for when you go on vacation, pay more when you have to get the kids to soccer practice, or we're just going to jet off around the world, you know, spend with no limit, no constraint because they're spending our money. Yes. That's the thing that really makes me upset where you have young families who are worried about baby formula, a new crib for their second baby, where you have a seniors who are worried that, well, they don't have a nest egg. How are they going to get through their golden years? And then you have the government punishing them with this type of tax, do what we say or pay. And then they go jet off around the world and are dying, living a life of luxury. That's the stuff that really grinds my gears. And Franca, do you think there's any, any solution to that? And I want to put your comments into some perspective. My wife's currently reading a book on Abraham Lincoln. Yeah. Very interesting fact. He had to sell off some of his furniture to be able to afford to go to his own inauguration. You know, this, this was a very different time when the people who were running for office, for the most part, I think actually cared about the people of their country. They actually cared about their country. They wanted to make things better for the people who elected them. And now we've got these governments in Canada that, as you say, they don't give a crap about us. But do you think there's any way to fix that? They have become so financially divorced from the people they're supposed to represent, right? It's called house of commons for a reason. They're supposed to be representative of the common people. Now I mentioned this in the book briefly because it's not a book about government spending per se, but every single year on April one, when they're hiking the carbon tax, members of parliament gave themselves a pay raise. So think about that on the same day that they took money out of your pocket, they were stuffing their own pockets with higher pay. They have become so financially divorced from the realities facing their constituents that they don't understand the pain and damage that they're causing because they can't feel it from their own taxes and over-regulation. So you asked what the solutions are, and I think there are broadly two, right? There's laws that can and should be put on the books, like taxpayer protection laws, right? No tax increases without a referendum. That's something we've been calling on for years. (33:43 - 34:58) And you have that type of legislation in Alberta, for example, right? That would help constrain the costs of government. You have other laws like recall and citizens initiative, right? Recall politicians outside of elections or citizens initiative where you can force a referendum on an issue. That's good direct democracy. Then you have balanced budget legislation, or how about balanced budget legislation with some teeth, requiring the outlaw of deficits. And if there are deficits, politicians get a pay cut automatically. So there are laws and legal systems that you can put in place and should put in place to constrain the costs and growth of government. But at the end of the day, I think it's a cultural thing, right? I think you need to have politicians with just an iota of common sense and caring of the people that they're representing, but more to the point, you need the culture within the people. Right? To hold the politicians accountable so that if they ever are spending $6,000 a night on a hotel suite in another country, that people just don't allow that to happen. So yes, there's laws that could be put into place and policies, but I also think the cultural aspect is just, or if not more important. (34:59 - 35:03) Now you've been living in Ottawa for the last four years. Yeah. And we've got this- Don't hold it against me. (35:03 - 36:21) No, sorry. I was there for the freedom convoy. There's parts of Ottawa that are quite nice, but we've got this election coming up and Canadians have to make this decision. The polls right now say that the liberals are going to win. Now, of course, we don't know whether we can really trust those polls, but there seems to be a lot of- Yeah, it's a close race either way. So a lot of support behind Poilievre. But to contrast these two people, if their policies aside, we had Trudeau who came into office with a net worth of $40 million, left with a net worth of $100 million, try to figure out how that happens on a 200 and some $1,000 a year salary. We've got Mark Carney, who has officially a net worth of 7 million. And then we got Pierre Poilievre, who grew up in a working class family, adopted, probably, I would hope has a much better understanding of what working class Canadians are living with. What's your take on Poilievre? Do you think that he would be substantially better than the liberals? Do you think that he can fix some of these problems? And the reason why I ask this question, and I'm leading to a point here, because you were just talking about all these things that we could do that would fix the system. But first, we would have to have a just government in place that would actually enact those laws and put them on the books. Well, look, I'm not going to speculate into what's in someone's heart or in someone's mind. (36:21 - 36:35) I don't necessarily know. What I will say is just what's on the record. Right, what's on the record. So let's go through a couple of the big policies. Okay, let's go through three. So on carbon taxes, Carney's not scrapping carbon taxes. (36:35 - 36:43) As we've mentioned, he wants to change the carbon tax. He wants to hide the carbon tax on business, and he hopes people won't notice when that means higher prices and fewer jobs. Right. (36:43 - 40:13) Right. Poilievre, he is firmly on the record of ending all carbon taxes. In fact, he's been talking about an axe the tax campaign for years. So like it's going to be. So I so I look, I don't trust any politician, to be honest with you. And I'm highly I'm highly skeptical. But he's been very much on the record and he deserves credit for fighting the carbon tax. I have never seen a federal political leader fight the carbon tax harder than Mr. Poilievre did. And I think he deserves credit for that. And he's on the record not just ending the consumer carbon tax and repealing the but ending the industrial carbon tax and also ending the second carbon tax that Trudeau buried in fuel regulations. So Poilievre is on the record. So Carney supports hidden carbon taxes. He's just upset that you can see the carbon tax on your bill, but Carney supports hidden carbon taxes. Poilievre says he's going to end all carbon taxes. OK, so that's carbon tax. Let's go on income taxes. Carney has promised income tax relief for two income family up to 800 bucks. Poilievre is promising up to 1,800 bucks of income tax relief. Poilievre has also said he would let working seniors keep ten thousand dollars more of their income tax free. OK, he's made some other tax relief promises as well. So that's income taxes. Now, let's look at balancing the books and the debt problem, because I really do think that might actually be the biggest problem that we're facing as a nation as a whole. Right. There's a lot of problems going on, but I really do think we need some adults in the room to tackle the debt problem. OK, well, Carney says he's going to spend less and invest more. I have no idea what that means. But look, everything that he's talked about is that the debt is going to keep going up. Right. Well, like Newsflash, if the debt's going up, you're not balancing the books. Right. Now, Poilievre, he hasn't outlined exactly what he's going to do. I'm assuming platforms will be released shortly. Right. So we'll have to go into the details. But at least Poilievre is giving Canadians an idea of where he's going to cut spending. Right. Defund the state broadcaster. That's good. He's talking about shrinking the size and cost of the bureaucracy, where Trudeau added one hundred eight thousand extra federal government bureaucrats in less than a decade, ballooning the cost of the bureaucracy by 73 percent. OK, good stuff. Talking about cutting the cost of all the consulting contracts, which is good, which is which is good. Right. Because the Trudeau government essentially doubled that cost in less than a decade. And Poilievre, to his credit, he's also talked about stopping the wasteful spending going overseas. So at least Poilievre has identified places in the budget where he's going to look to cut the fat. So on those three issues, that's what they're both promising. All right. Franco, I'd like a couple of minutes left because you've got to run off because you have a very tight schedule. But could you talk for just a few minutes about the Canadian Taxpayers Federation itself? Because I know that some of our viewers probably don't know about the actual work you guys have been doing for years now. Yeah. And it's a lot more than just writing the occasional book on the carbon tax. Yeah. Yeah. So please explain to the viewers what it is that the Canadian Taxpayers Federation does. So for more than 30 years now, we've been fighting for taxpayers for more than 30 years. Right. So we fight what I like to say is three simple but very powerful ideas. Lower taxes, less government waste, more government accountability. And like we have been the leading people pushing for balanced budget laws, taxpayer protection laws, cutting taxes. And look, I know a lot of people are talking about DOGE right now. Right. And what's going on in the United States. We've been we've been uncovering this type of spending for decades. (40:13 - 41:22) Right. Like for example, earmuffs if your children are around. Maybe if Poilievre gets elected, you can be his DOGE leader here. Well, look, look, that's that's funny. But like the homework is already done. Here you go. Copy off the homework. Right. The homework is done. We just need politicians with the spine to actually cut the fat. And let me just give you a couple examples here. I'm so sorry, earmuffs. But our federal government and this is also about wasteful foreign aid spent eighty eight hundred bucks on a sex toy show in Germany. Yes. I reported on that. That's disgusting. Disgusting. That's taxpayers money. Like that's taxpayers money. Or how about this one? Twelve grand. So senior citizens in other countries could talk about their sex lives in front of live audiences. Yes. Not even Canadian seniors. Right. The government's outsourcing old people's sex stories. Right. So the CTF, we've been around for more than 30 years fighting for taxpayer protection laws, balanced budgets, cutting spending, cutting taxes, and of course, more government accountability and more power to the people. So recall legislation, referendum laws, things like that. Okay. So we do have this election coming up on the 28th and this, you know, we're sitting here about two weeks before that, but this interview probably be released about a week in advance. (41:22 - 45:10) Okay. But we're still seeing this before the election. Yeah. And as the watchdog for our governments and not just the liberal government, as you say, the CTF has been around for 30 years. I don't care if you're wearing a purple color, an orange color, a blue color, a red color, you know? Right. But I've always said our governments have no power but what we give them. And we don't give them power when we elect them, but when we choose to obey them and they come along with all these things and you've already mentioned, you know, some of the great ideas of, of we should have a situation where we could recall government if they're not doing the job. And so what would be your message to the voters? Because really we're the ones who determine the course. When we stand up to our governments, when we vote for governments, they're actually going to look after us and look after our interests and people have to go to the polls in a couple of weeks and make this decision. So what is your final thoughts for the viewers on that? Well, you know, I'm going to have a little slice of humble pie and look, I can't tell you who you should vote for, right? That's everyone. I'm not asking you to tell them who to vote for. Yeah. I'm just saying, what kind of factors do you think should be going through Canadian's heads when they're making their decisions? Again, like that's, that's such an individual basis. I'm not trying to skate around the question, but I, but I just believe that's up to each Canadian. I'll tell you about some of the things that I'm worried about, right? Some things I'm worried about. Look, I'm in the cohort now where I would love to eventually raise a family and eventually own a home. Not there yet, but I would love to. So I'm very worried about how expensive life has gotten. I'm very worried about my inability to, and I know a lot of people are in the same, but to save money, to be able to get to the next stage of life. You know, I even have conversations with people on a day-to-day basis, which is crazy to me because like, I feel like six, seven years ago, we didn't have these conversations about just how expensive groceries are, right? So I know it's not just in my head, but also cost of living. It's so out of control. So that's really bad. And I already mentioned this, but I think one of the honest, most important conversations we have to have is around the national debt. And I know a lot of people are worried about today, but I think we also have to be worried about tomorrow. And you know, the fact that the federal government is more money on interest charges than when it sends to the provinces and healthcare transfers is mind-boggling. And you mentioned that people are still worried about healthcare. Well, interest charges on the debt are costing Canadians, or taxpayers, more than a billion dollars every week. So that's a brand new hospital every week that's not getting built because that money is going to the bond fund managers on Bay Street to pay interest on the federal debt, right? So those are kind of things that I'm considering, but my message to the audience is twofold. Number one, the fight against carbon taxes is not over, right? We've shown that if we keep up the pressure, we can force any government to back down, but the fight is not over. The carbon tax law is still in the books. Carney still wants to impose hidden carbon taxes that'll make your life more expensive and mean fewer jobs for your neighbours. But the last message I want to say is just a thank you. I mentioned a couple of the reasons I wrote the book, but the real reason I wrote this book is because I just want to say thank you to all the Canadians who worked tirelessly for years, attending rallies, organising rallies, emailing politicians, signing petitions, putting up bumper stickers. Look, you guys really fought a David versus Goliath battle, where it was essentially all the big political elites, whether it's politicians, bureaucrats, taxpayer-funded academics, even big business, were forcing carbon taxes on you. They were telling you to sit down, be quiet, and pay your carbon tax bills. But countless Canadians did the opposite, kept fighting, pushed back, and I know the fight against the carbon tax is not over yet. (45:11 - 45:27) I know that. But I just want to say thank you so much for not sitting back and for keep fighting for Canadians. Well said. Franco, thank you so much for your time today. Thank you for your book and the excellent work that the Canadian Taxpayers Federation is doing. Hey, this is fun. Thanks for having me on the show. All right.