Tax Talk with the Canadian Taxpayers Federation

It's our first ever Lacey-cast, as CTF Atlantic Director Kevin Lacey makes his long-awaited, highly-anticipated Tax Talk debut. B.C. Director and host Jordan Bateman picks Kevin's brain on some recent exhorbitant spending on a premiers' meeting in Nova Scotia, and on the relative health of each of the four maritime provinces.

Plus our usual features: Comment of the Cast, Waste of the Week, and Stat of the Cast.

Love is in the air, and with Valentine's Day around the corner, CTF B.C. Director and Tax Talk host Jordan Bateman and Alberta Director Derek Fildebrandt decided it was time to recognize a few political figures who have done the right thing for taxpayers over the previous year. These individuals aren't perfect, but are definitely deserving of some recognition on key files.

Plus our usual features - Comment of the Cast, Waste of the Week and the Stat of the Cast!

The Canadian labour movement showed both their hypocrisy and poor understanding of practical business principles last week when they lashed Canadian companies for hoarding cash.

Hypocritical because union members' pension funds own hundreds of millions of dollars in the very companies they criticize. And poor understanding because they cited examples of companies that created jobs, set up funds to cover off the kind of disastrous downturns that doomed Nortel, and ignored brilliant borrowing strategies that lowered long term cost.

CTF federal director Gregory Thomas has been following all this, and joined Tax Talk host Jordan Bateman to talk about these vital economic issues.

Plus our usual features: Comment of the Cast, Waste of the Week and Stat of the Cast!

CTF B.C. Director and Tax Talk host Jordan Bateman was recently a guest on The David Berner Show, where the veteran journalist interviewed him on a myriad of taxation issues, most notably politicians' determination to spend big bucks on anything remotely green. David has graciously allowed us to air that interview in our middle segment - plus our usual features: Comment of the Cast, Waste of the Week and the Stat of the Cast.

While most of us dread opening our property tax bill and seeing increases higher than the rate of inflation, the people of Penticton, B.C., are in the midst of a three-year tax freeze, thanks to the hard work of their City Hall. Penticton Mayor Dan Ashton and CAO Anette Antoniak join CTF B.C. Director and Tax Talk host Jordan Bateman to tell us how they did it.

Plus our usual features--Comment of the Cast, Waste of the Week and some Stats of the Cast that will break your heart.

British Columbia is pushing ahead with a new B.C. Services card - a new ID and information management card that will combine health, driver and other government information, potentially putting your personal information at risk. This will cost a fortune - and is being done by the same government that bungled a new Intergrated Case Management system and the BCeSIS student information boondoggle. Worse yet, the rest of Canada may follow suit.

B.C. Director Jordan Bateman is joined by Freedom of Information and Privacy Association executive director Vincent Gogolek to talk about the ID cards - and why government seems so willing to suck up more of our information, without revealing any of theirs.

Plus our usual features - Comment of the Cast, Waste of the Week and Stat of the Cast - and stay tuned for a post-end theme song "Easter Egg": the 156 books read by a Manitoba bureaucrat while cahsing taxpayer cheques for three years.

Canadian Taxpayers Federation Alberta Director Derek Fildebrandt joins Tax Talk host and B.C. Director Jordan Bateman to talk about his new report into contraband tobacco sales on Ontario native reserves, which cost taxpayers $1.2 billion a year. Every man, woman and child on Ontario reserves would have to smoke three packs a day to explaint he number of tax-free cigarettes sold in Ontario reserve smoke shacks. This lost revenue could help federal and Ontario taxpayers and give a new revenue source to native bands.

Plus our usual features: Comment of the Cast, Waste of the Week and the Stat of the Cast.

If the Canadian Taxpayers Federation were to build a Mount Rushmore of public policy successes, these four would be strong contenders to make the mountain: MP pension reform, the mid-1990s federal budgets, Bill C-27 (First Nations Accountability Act) and the Alberta flat tax system. CTF President and CEO Troy Lanigan joins B.C. Director Jordan Bateman to chat about these big success stories, and the CTF's role in them.

Plus our usual features - Comment of the Cast, Waste of the Week and the Stat of the Cast.

Canadian Taxpayers Federation president and CEO Troy Lanigan joins B.C. director Jordan Bateman this week to talk about the CTF's roots, current status and vision for the future. If you've ever had a question about the CTF and how we operate, this is the episode for you.

Plus our usual features: Comment of the Cast, Waste of the Week and the Stat of the Cast!

It's quarterly report time in British Columbia and Alberta, and both provincial governments are spending, spending, spending, spending. And Alberta is breaking its own reporting laws by keeping taxpayers in the dark on their spending. Alberta director Derek Fildebrandt pops by to talk about Alberta's problems, and the shocking news that the once-high and mighty province will likely be in debt within three years. Plus B.C. Director Jordan Bateman spells out the B.C. Liberals' own spending problems.

Derek also shares a funny story about the debt clock and the lowest-speed police chase in Canadian history.

We also debut a new segment--Watse of the Week, plus our Comment and Stat of the Cast!