What would Queen Elizabeth I think of Canada’s crazy spending?

Give the highest priority to finance. That was Queen Elizabeth I’s top rule of her famous “nine principles of power.”

Aside from “never marry” — she was the “Virgin Queen” after all — QEI’s rules are as relevant today as they were 500 years ago. Pick wise counsellors. Avoid war. Beware new-fangled innovation for the sake of it. Improve the usefulness of existing institutions.

Before her reign began in 1558, modern ledger accounting had just been invented. Investment banks were in their infancy, and Britain was still partly reliant on barter. Even more astounding, then, is that Elizabeth prioritized “opening opportunities to create wealth.”

What would she make of Canada’s stultified wealth creation and shameless spending? Aside from the tariff turmoil, daily debt-building body blows are so massive, they’re almost abstract. If this Renaissance queen knew that “it’s the economy, stupid,” why do we still not get it?

In the last month alone, Canadians learned:

• The Canada Revenue Agency has spent $190 million on “dysfunctional call centres.”
• The federal government has attempted to block disclosure of the $15-billion subsidy agreements with Stellantis — after the automaker announced it was relocating Jeep production to the US, along with 3,000 jobs.
• Since 2003, Canada has spent $645 million on sustainable development aid to China.

These were all reported by the intrepid Blacklock’s Reporter, not the evening news.

Heading into the federal budget, the estimated deficit was 60% over target, at $68.5 billion. Experts, correctly, pegged it closer to $80 billion. “Something’s going to break,” budget officer Jason Jacques told the Senate finance committee in October. “It’s unsustainable.”

To wit, as Elizabeth I might say, some read-them-and-weep examples:

• Since 2016, federal diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) grants of some $1 billion have included “cultural vegetables to strengthen food security in equity-deserving communities” and Congolese war veterans.
• Since 2016, federal diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) grants of some $1 billion have included “cultural vegetables to strengthen food security in equity-deserving communities” and Congolese war veterans.
• The federal Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, whose grants cost taxpayers over $1 billion last year, funded “studies about Peruvian rock music, grocery carts, selfies, online Harry Potter fan communities, intersectional piano curriculums and gender equity bicycles,” according to the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
• A “haphazardly administered” $1.6 billion for “ecological grief” programs is apparently “insufficient.”
• $10 billion has been committed to “Jordan’s Principle” initiatives to 2028, while attempts to improve record-keeping transparency have met with allegations of racism.

I’ve got lots more.

Across government, federal spending on consultants is about $25 billion. In 2023 alone, the federal employment department tripled consultant spending to $311.8 million — and is now hiring again to gain more “in-depth understanding” of its own student-for-hire program.

Unused youth volunteerism program has cost $204 million to date

This, as an unused 2018 federal youth volunteerism program has cost $204 million to date.

CERB write-offs now total $34 million. COVID ventilators, bought for $1 billion, have been sold for scrap metal. In the $60-million ArriveCAN program, significant fraud detection “gaps” remain, while criminal investigations of alleged billing fraud continue across nine federal departments.

The now-defunct federal “sustainable development” (a.k.a. “green slush”) fund, which awarded $135 million in contracts, failed to comply with basic eligibility and conflict of interest requirements. Outcomes, auditors say, were not “monitored, measured or attributed.”

And on it goes.

The Department of Justice billed $38 million on civil litigation and prosecution of members of the 2022 Freedom Convoy.

An “easy-to-use,” still incomplete website for federal benefits claims, launched in 2017 for $1.8 billion, has cost $6.6 billion.

The Women Entrepreneurship Fund, launched in 2018 for $130 million, hasn’t led to a single start-up.

“Open opportunities to create wealth”? If only. Along with reckless, ill-monitored spending, Canada is burdened by investment-killing regulations. Unrelenting, ideological anti-fossil fuel pressure on banks alone has impacted mergers and acquisitions, competitiveness and social mobility. Research and development, productivity and entrepreneurialism are among the lowest in the G-7.

We need you, Elizabeth I. We need an economic renaissance and a thorough cleansing of the Augean stables.

Bronwyn Eyre is a Senior Fellow at the MEI and a former minister of Energy for Saskatchewan. The views reflected in this opinion piece are her own.