The Canada Revenue Agency is this year’s recipient of the not-so-coveted Teddy Award, a pig-shaped statuette awarded each year to municipal, provincial and federal departments deemed the most wasteful by a right-leaning taxpayer advocacy group.
The CRA was in the Canadian Taxpayers Federation’s crosshairs this year for reimbursing an employee $538,000 in expenses for a 191-kilometre move from Richmond Hill, Ont. to Belleville, Ont.
READ MORE: Trudeau sidesteps questions on $200,000 moving bill for top aides
According to the federation, $340,000 of the reimbursement was for “price protection” on the sale of a home, and $168,000 went to realtor fees.
“The CTF calculated taxpayers forked out half a million taxpayer dollars to cover the sale of a bureaucrat’s $3.4-million house,” federal director Aaron Wudrick said on Wednesday.
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“Suffice to say, dinging taxpayers for half a million dollars for a 200-kilometre move isn’t likely to improve the CRA’s popularity with Canadians.”
That was the most expensive move the Canadian Taxpayers Federation found in documents it obtained through Access to Information laws.
READ MORE: Federal employee’s move to Winnipeg cost taxpayers more than $178K
Other relatively expense reimbursements from their documents included $198,619 for a move from Ottawa to Victoria, $178,251 for a move from Toronto to Winnipeg, and $149,919 for a move from Ottawa to Calgary.
A spokesperson for National Revenue Minister Diane Lebouthillier said that although the agency followed relocation policies, the minister asked for a review.
Moving expenses were also in the headlines this year when it was revealed that two of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s top aides charged taxpayers $200,000 in relocation expenses for their move to Ottawa.
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Trudeau’s principal secretary Gerald Butts and his chief of staff Katie Telford eventually issued an apology for their respective moving expenses and said they would repay some of the costs.
The Teddy Award is named for Ted Weatherill, a former federal appointee who was fired in 1999 for submitting a slew of dubious expense claims, including a $700 lunch for two.
Other award winners this year included:
- The Ontario government for spending more than $39 million on subsidies for electric vehicles over the past six years, including $14 million for vehicles retailing at more than $70,000.
- The City of Victoria for its over budget and delayed plan to replace its 93-year-old Johnson St. Bridge. That budget has ballooned to $105 million from the original $63 million in 2009.
- Ontario’s provincial government was also honoured with the Lifetime Achievement Award for its handling of the energy file. In her 2015 annual report, Ontario’s auditor general found consumers paid $37 billion above market price for energy between 2006 and 2014, and estimated that current energy policies would cost Ontarians another $133 billion by 2032, according to the taxpayers federation.
WATCH: City of Victoria, B.C. wins Canadian Taxpayers Federation award for municipal waste
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