All told, taxpayers like you were on the hook for 182 people to fly to Dubai for COP28.Â
Here’s the Trudeau government’s five-step, fool-proof plan to save the planet.
Step 1: Gather up hundreds of politicians and bureaucrats.
Step 2: Load them onto jets and fly them halfway around the world.
Step 3: Book stays at five-star hotels and order up hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of food and drinks.
Step 4: Drop more than a million bucks on a pavilion to brag about the carbon tax and get a white guy to rap about “climate disinformation.”
Step 5: Send the bill to you (of course).
The feds spent $3 million flying hundreds of people to COP28 in Dubai, according to government records obtained by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
The costs include $825,000 for transportation, $472,000 for accommodations, $295,000 for meals and incidentals, and $1.3 million for a “Canada Pavilion.”
The purpose of the pavilion was to “showcase the breadth of Canadian climate leadership and innovation.”
So naturally, the government got a little-known rapper, Baba Brinkman, who just so happens to be the son of Liberal MP Joyce Murray, to perform a rap on “climate disinformation,” while giving a shoutout to Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault.
Yes, that really happened. We watched the video so you don’t have to. But here’s a little taste of Brinkman’s performance in case your curious:
“Climate disinformation, get that immunization, the vaccine for bad meme infiltration. Climate misinformation, it leads to polarization, which leads to radical conspiracy ideation.”
All told, taxpayers like you were on the hook for 182 people to fly to Dubai for COP28.
The summit was held from Nov. 30 to Dec. 12, 2023, with Canadian delegates primarily staying at the Dubai Marriott and the Premier Inn at the Dubai Investment Park, where rooms ranged from $150 to $400 per night.
But the most expensive digs you paid for was a $816-per-night suite at the Pullman Dubai Jumeriah Lakes Towers, a five-star hotel offering “upscale accommodations.”
The cost for the Dubai junket could rise even higher than $3 million, as the records obtained by the CTF make clear that certain invoices “have yet to be processed.”
CTF note: Nothing screams fighting climate change like the feds flying around the world burning through jet fuel and millions of your tax dollars.Â
MPs exploit loophole to bill you for partisan travel
Members of Parliament have been exploiting a loophole in the House of Commons’ spending rules to bill you for travel to party conventions.
To the tune of more than $500,000 over the past year alone.
MPs aren’t allowed to bill you for travel to partisan political events. However, MPs used a loophole to bill you for hundreds of thousand dollars in flights, accommodations and meals when attending caucus meetings that just happened to coincide with party conventions outside Ottawa.
Let’s call a spade a spade: some MPs used your money to subsidize their trips to party conventions.
Included in that figure is $84,000 spent flying out so-called “designated travellers,” which more often than not means their spouses.
Political parties already take massive subsidies from taxpayers. In fact, subsidies to federal political parties have cost taxpayers $230 million between 2017 and 2023.
They have more than enough money to pay their own way on these trips.
Read more:Â https://www.cbc.ca/news/
CTF note: The government must close this loophole and MPs or political parties need to pay this money back.
VIDEO:Â CTF exclusive sit down with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith
CTF President and CEO Scott Hennig sat down for a wide-ranging, one-on-one interview with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith for the upcoming edition of The Taxpayer magazine. You can watch the full video by clicking the link below.
Watch here:Â https://www.youtube.com/watch?
Share This:
