Those are rookie numbers...
The Waste File:
Counted in full, every dollar out that bought nothing of equal value comes to
$114.2 billion to
$147.9 billion. That is cost past the price announced, debts Ottawa has written off, and money its own books expect not to come back. Then the file, from
ArriveCAN, an app whose first version cost
$80,000 and whose total the Auditor General put at
$59.5M, to a Phoenix pay system that still can't pay everyone on time. Every entry links to its source.
Every dollar out that bought nothing of equal value: $114.2B to $147.9B, from costs past the price announced, debts written off and money Ottawa expects to lose. Ottawa's own count is the narrowest way to count it.
drained.ca
As always, Caveat Lector
A couple of observations:
This anonymous website was launched in support of the Alberta referendum on 28 Sep 26.
The sources are very valid.
The individual facts on that page are mostly accurate and properly sourced.
The headline number is not. “$114.2B to $147.9B of waste” is a figure the site constructed.
It depends on a definition of “waste” that most auditors and economists would reject. Roughly
two-thirds of it is cost growth on defence and infrastructure projects, much of it not yet spent, plus a loan-forgiveness feature the government designed on purpose.
1. It counts cost escalation as “waste.” Part 1 ($60.9B to $94.6B) treats the gap between a first price and today’s estimate as “money spent for nothing extra.” That doesn’t hold up:
- CSC: It compares a 2008 then-year budget with a 2022 PBO projection that covers development and acquisition. Scope, inflation and design all changed in between, and most of that money has not been spent yet. The page admits this in the fine print, then counts it anyway.
- F-35: The AG did not call the increase waste. She attributed some of it to factors outside the department’s control, such as inflation and foreign exchange. The government’s own breakdown shows contingency rising from $2.0 billion to $6.2 billion. A larger reserve is not a loss. oag-bvgcanada
- TMX: The overrun is real and badly managed. But the pipeline is a revenue-earning asset. Counting the whole overrun as “bought nothing of equal value” ignores what the asset is worth. The economic loss is the gap between cost and sale value, which is much smaller.
2. It counts deliberate policy as “waste.” The $12.6B in CEBA forgiveness was built into the loan terms as a grant component. You can argue it was bad policy. It isn’t waste in the audit sense.
3. Provisions are not losses. Part 3 ($35.7B) is accounting allowances. The site acknowledges this, then adds them to the total anyway.
4. Gross versus net. The $14B COVID figure includes money already recovered. The CRA says roughly $10 billion is still owed after it recovered about $4 billion.
southasiandaily
5. Internal inconsistency. The page runs two totals ($110.3B and $114.2B to $147.9B) with different TMX baselines. The FAQ cites $5.1B for Phoenix while the body uses $5.7B. A single headline figure that moves depending on which section you read is a credibility problem.
6. Curation. The ethics and scandal section is entirely Trudeau-era. The 2012 AG findings on the Harper-era F-35 process and the Senate expenses affair are absent, even though CSC (a 2008 decision) is counted in the dollar total. The facts are accurate, but the selection is one-sided.
Bottom line: The footnotes are good and lead to real AG, PBO and Public Accounts documents.
The framing is advocacy. A defensible “waste” figure would be limited to documented improper payments, ineligible recipients and audited mismanagement: CEBA ineligibles, the AG’s $4.6B in individual overpayments (net of recoveries), ArriveCAN, SDTC and Phoenix overruns.
That puts it in the low tens of billions at most, not $114B to $148B.
My 2 shekels
