Dianne Francis: An investment guru once told me that when a public company provides a jet, cars and drivers for its executives, and spends a fortune on consultants, it’s time to short the stock. The same applies to Canada, a nation state with lousy leadership and soaring consultant fees, because few, if any, of our federal political leaders know what they’re doing.
Last month, my colleague Jesse Snyder wrote a piece about the staggering increase in public salaries and third-party consultancy fees paid by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government since 2015. According to the latest budget, the costs for “professional and special services” are expected to hit $16.4 billion by 2022, which is up from $9.5 billion when Trudeau took over in 2015 and represents the highest level of spending on consultants since the 1990s.
Why do the Liberals need so many public servants and consultants? The underlying reason for all this is that the Trudeau government cannot run a pop stand and his cabinet is run by amateurs. Many ministers — who make $270,000 a year plus a huge expense account, along with a car and driver — are there for one of two reasons: they are either buddies of the prime minister, or Gerald Butts, Trudeau’s former chief of staff.
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