Defund the Office of the Governor General

There are many positions in government that provide dubious value to Canadians. The Governor General is one of them and it should not be funded through taxation.

Today’s message from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation requested that I take action. So I did.

The opening sentence of the message read:

“The governor general is allowed to go on a shopping spree with $130,000 of taxpayers’ money and you need to tell the government to shut that down.”

Then this followed…

“Could you send an email to the MPs on the committee asking them to put a cap on the governor general's outrageous expenses?
 
Here are their email addresses:

• Julie Vignola, Bloc Québécois committee member: julie.vignola@parl.gc.ca

• Majid Jowhari, Liberal Committee Member: majid.jowhari@parl.gc.ca

• Kelly McCauley, Conservative member of the committee: kelly.mccauley@parl.gc.ca

• Gord Johns, NDP Committee Member: gord.johns@parl.gc.ca

Taxpayers should not have to pay for the governor general's wardrobe.

If you want to copy and paste all these email addresses at once, we thought we’d make it  for you. Here it is: julie.vignola@parl.gc.ca, majid.jowhari@parl.gc.ca, kelly.mccauley@parl.gc.ca, gord.johns@parl.gc.ca “

My letter:

Hello Julie, Majid, Kelly and Gord. 

I believe that the privileges which go with the job of Governor General are excessive and unfair to average Canadians.

In fact, I also believe that all government-paid positions are compensated excessively when compared to every other citizen who is employed in the private sector. Inflation-protected, defined-benefits pensions are bad enough, especially when you consider that average Canadians enjoy no such benefit, but adding expense accounts of $130,000 for clothing, accessories, makeup, salon services, shoe-shining, etcetera is both insulting and grossly unfair. 

I worked 43 years in the private sector. I built a retirement account upon which I depend today. I perceive no personal value from the taxes I have paid to the Office of the Governor General. As such, I would gladly cease paying any taxes towards that office if that option was available to me. 

Suggestion to each of you.

Please commit to repealing all legislation that coerces Canadians to fund the Office of the Governor General (OGG) by taxation. Instead, raise the funds from voluntary contributions made by interested Canadians through a crowd-funding platform or a subscription service.  Every Canadian deserves the Freedom of Informed Choice to contribute willingly rather than by tax coercision. The amount to donations raised annually will be a true measure of the value that citizens perceive in that OGG, the work done therein and the overly generous expense accounts provided to present the office-holder as a privileged member of Canada’s elite public servants. 

Noting that all of you are also paid from taxation, I suspect that my suggestion will not be well received. A lifetime of work in the public sector can easily shape one’s perception of value they provide to the public. Many public servants complain about how hard they work and justify their privileged compensation plans on this argument. I see myself as their “customer” and would gladly pay them according to the value of services (i.e. results) they provide to me personally. Value should be concrete and measurable. For example, I worked for 28 years on a 100% sales commission plan as a professional IT Recruiter. I was paid ONLY on success (filling jobs), NOT on effort. 

Many in the public service virtue signal by claiming to “serve the greater good”, but that’s a crock! The value many government offices provide to Canadians is dubious at best which is why they commonly report only “tax dollars spent”. Their report shows no accounting for how it was spent, by whom, and what results they achieved on a per dollar basis or any other performance metric.

The easiest thing in the world to do is to spend other peoples money (OPM), and thousands of photos have been taken of politicians and public officials doing just that! 

Please act to defund the Office of the Governor General. After you achieve that goal and have reported the measurable results, we can talk about defunding the CBC and other public institutions that should be funded by voluntary contributions. 

Sincerely

Gene Balfour,

Kawartha Lakes, Ontario K0M 1N0

PS. The idea presented above is a derivative of The Bigfoot Show concept presented in by book “What to do about Climate Change, A Libertarian Proposal” published on Amazon Kindle in March 2023. I hope you read it. I will send a free copy to any of you who request it by email.