The CHP has long advocated against corporate welfare. We don’t believe that governments should use taxpayer dollars to prop up failing corporations or to bribe successful ones to locate their businesses in our country or province . . . in order to gain political points with voters. Apparently, the Prime Minister thinks differently. By handing out $13+ billion to Volkswagen for their proposed electric vehicle (EV) battery plant, he claims to be doing something of value for Canadians and helping the environment at the same time.

The plant is expected to employ 3,000 workers. At that rate, the $13 billion works out to about $4.3 million per job! But that’s not all; between April, when the handout was first announced and June 15, the estimated cost has already jumped to $16.3 billion. That means every one of those 3,000 jobs is going to cost taxpayers $5.4 million, according to the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. And that’s assuming the project doesn’t continue to go over budget.

Again, thanks to the good folks at CTF, we can contextualize that amount of money as the equivalent of building 15 brand-new hospitals in Canada or paying the entire tax bill for 67,000 Canadians.

Canada is already deeply in debt. We owe approximately $1.2 trillion or about $30,000 for every man woman and child in Canada. That debt is costing Canadian taxpayers about $95 million in interest alone every single day! And there seems to be no control levers in Ottawa. Our federal government keeps using the credit card and adding to the national debt . . . over $109 million per day! We can’t keep bailing out international corporations while our own economy is sinking and average, hard-working Canadians are struggling to deal with inflation, put gas in the tank and food on the table.

Rather than bailing out corporations with borrowed money, Canada should adopt the CHP’s Fair Tax policy that would eliminate the personal income tax and corporate taxes and replace that revenue with a fair tax on consumer goods. Canadians would no longer be punished for working longer and harder and would have more money to save, spend and invest. Companies like Volkswagen wouldn’t need to be bribed; they’d want to build in Canada where taxes are assessed on purchases, not earnings.

Of course, the only way to stop this runaway train is to stop spending money we don’t have. CHP Canada would also implement mandatory balanced budgets and would use savings and surpluses to pay down the debt and eventually eliminate the horrendous waste of taxpayer dollars paying interest to the big banks.

As for the so-called environmental benefits of building an EV battery factory in Canada? There are none. There is a high price world-wide—both socially and environmentally—for the privilege of driving an EV. Canada does not have near enough available electricity to charge the cars they are planning to produce. Acres of arable land are being sacrificed to wind farms and solar panels; and worn-out turbine blades cannot be recycled but only create another landfill problem. But the PM and his cabinet are all about feel-good optics and virtue-signalling in regard to the environment. For a snapshot of some of the Liberal government’s other worst “achievements” in the past year, check out this short video clip from Lorne Gunter at the Toronto Sun.

Sadly, the NDP continues to prop up this corrupt Liberal government no matter how whacky and unrealistic their schemes. Jagmeet Singh sputters about grocery store chains overcharging but says nothing about a $16.3 billion taxpayer handout to a German auto company. Time for a change. Time for some integrity and some common-sense fiscal management in Ottawa. The CHP has better solutions and the integrity to implement them.