It is an annual Parliament Hill spectacle – a pig mascot, a man in a tuxedo, a woman in a slinky black dress and the “presentation” of awards for government waste.
The show, meant to emulate the Oscars, is put on by the anti-government Canadian Taxpayers’ Federation, a non-membership group claiming to speak for downtrodden taxpayers.
The “Teddy Waste Awards” are named after former federal bureaucrat Ted Weatherill, fired in 1999 for running up lavish expense account tabs.
This year, the big “winner” was the federal government’s 2008 buyout program for Ontario tobacco producers, a $284 million program criticized by the federal auditor general for its loopholes and poor design.