Prime Minister Trudeau’s India trip wins Teddy Waste Awards

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation today held its 21st annual Teddy Waste Awards ceremony, celebrating the best of the worst in government waste from the past year.

The Teddy, a pig-shaped award given annually by the CTF to government’s worst waste offenders, is named for Ted Weatherill, a former federal appointee who was fired in 1999 for submitting a panoply of dubious expense claims, including a $700 lunch for two.

“It was bad enough to watch the prime minister’s costume changes and dance moves during his trip to India, but seeing the bill was even worse and we’re giving him Teddy Waste Award for the debacle. “British Columbia won in the provincial category for legislative officials who spent taxpayers’ money on everything from watches to baseball games and B.C. also got the municipal award for Vancouver’s email-a-tree program.

“In an unprecedented example of enduring waste, former-governor general Adrienne Clarkson won a second lifetime achievement award for billing taxpayers for $1.1 million in expenses after leaving office.”

Federal Teddy Winner: Prime Minister Trudeau’s India trip

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s eight-day visit to India in February, 2018, cost taxpayers at least $1.6 million, even though only a half day of official government-to-government business was scheduled. While on the trip, it emerged that a Canadian man convicted in a failed attempt to assassinate an Indian cabinet minister in 1986 was invited to attend one of the prime minister’s events in Mumbai, and the prime minister brought a Vancouver-based celebrity chef to India to prepare Indian cuisine at the Canadian High Commission, at a cost of $17,000 to taxpayers.