Public Purses & Wallets Are Being Looted by Greedy Governments
- cz1635
- Jun 3
- 5 min read
Updated: Jun 18
By Wes Mussio, Managing Partner, Mussio Goodman Law. A condensed version of this ran on June 15, 2026 in Western Standard News.
Did you hear that Surrey, BC school district's superintendent Mark Pearmain is now pulling in $527,363 a year in salary and benefits? That's nearly on par with the United States' presidential pay of $400,000 USD (about $553,000 CDN). CBS News notes: "The U.S. President hasn't been given a raise in more than 20 years."
However, Pearmain’s remuneration last year was already $447,199, reflecting a 26% increase from the previous year's $354,066, the Vancouver Sun confirmed.
Not to be outdone, Toronto city council recently voted themselves a 24% raise. Federally, provincially, municipally and regionally, politicians and bureaucrats are living large on your dime. These generous compensation packages are funded by struggling taxpayers who aren't seeing similar increases in pay. At the same time, Canadian small businesses cite taxes (for these growing public sector pay hikes) as one of their biggest costs. Many are close to bankruptcy while Canadian residents are hitting charitable food banks in record numbers. Food Banks Canada cites nearly 2.2 million Canadian food bank visits per month. This represents a 5.2% increase from the previous year and a whopping 99.37% increase since 2019. Governments know that the public rarely checks their gross (before tax) versus net pay (after taxes) until annual tax return time or when property tax bills are due. Then, people often grumble and remit payment. You wonder why your favourite coffee shop latte now costs $6? It's because those higher property taxes or federal/provincial payroll taxes the business owner pays to various governments are also passed down to you, the consumer. Taxpayer Land Acknowledgment
One frustrated taxpayer in Toronto, Daniel Tate, has loudly pushed back with a one-minute Taxpayer Land Acknowledgement viral video.
Tate starts his video by "acknowledging the people who fund this municipal enterprise, the Toronto taxpayer,” also featured in the Toronto Sun.
“Let’s reflect and remember that every word spoken in this chamber, every light bulb and every salary paid, including those of city councilors, is funded almost entirely by the hard work and earnings of taxpayers and property owners.”
He went on to say that only a handful of citizens, the councillors, get to decide how much of our hard-earned money they will take to fund the city.
“We pay respect to those taxpayers, because without them, this institution could not indulge in ideological excesses like renaming streets and public squares, painting roads with inferior and environmentally damaging red paint, nor fund harm reduction programs that result in a steady stream of drug paraphernalia littering our streets, sidewalks, parks, playgrounds,” he said, a direct criticism of their mandate expansion from core traditional civic services to ideological projects, similar to what many cities are seeing. "The deal is we give you a part of our hard-earned money, and you provide the services we need. You provide nice parks and clean streets and good transit and safety in a beautiful city,” Tate said.
Toronto Tax Hikes of 34% Last Five Years
"Including the latest 2.2% tax hike proposed by Mayor Olivia Chow, Toronto’s tax rates will have gone up by 34% over the last five years and 20% of that is just Chow in the last three years," the Sun noted. Chow is the wife of deceased federal socialist NDP leader Jack Layton.
"Spending is out of control at City Hall and Toronto residents aren’t getting the services they pay for. They are getting virtue signalling." City of Vancouver Property Tax Increases Last 10 Years Vancouver has a similar record of creating more questionable programs and rules that simply grow staff bureaucracies beyond usual civic core priorities like first responders, garbage, parks and libraries—what municipal property taxes are designed to fund.
Vancouver property taxes have increased by more than double inflation in many of the last ten years.
A 2020 Canadian academic study found Vancouver single-family homeowners paid the highest property taxes in Canada. Suspect that dubious record hasn't changed.
Notably, the promised zero per cent property tax increase in 2026 is in a municipal election year in British Columbia. Taxes for other regional governments like Metro Vancouver and TransLink will still raise your Vancouver property taxes over and above the "zero per cent" commitment by Vancouver City Council. Vancouver Property Taxes VS. Consumer Price Index (CPI) Average Inflation Rate Last 10 Years
People in power are rewarding themselves first, growing giant bureaucracies that create more rules needing armies of public sector staff, while asking everyone else to tighten their belts and make sacrifices. Party on the Government's Private Plane. You Pay The Bill.
Canadians have made sacrifices while seeing leaders like Prime Minister Mark Carney drink fine wine, and enjoy luxurious, gourmet meals during globetrotting meetings signing meaningless MOUs (Memorandums of Understanding) which our giddy government-funded media misrepresents as trade deals. They are not.
Then there's BC's Premier David Eby's staff party enjoying a $35,000 catered event including an open bar with United States booze that's banned from BC liquor stores for public purchase.
With gas prices as high as they are stemming from the Iran War and the fact there's still TWO Canadian CARBON TAXES embedded in fuel production, people can't even afford to travel in their own province. Optimism is sinking as Canada is now in a recession (two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth). Two more negative quarters means it's officially a "depression" folks. We are the only G7 country in a recession. As economics isn't a required study subject in schools or in politics that means greater job losses, wage freezes, stock market volatility, reduced consumer spending, increased personal and business bankruptcies and mortgage defaults to name a few impacts.
When asked about the Canadian recession by a CTV reporter recently, our Prime Minister fled the interview saying "I think the, uh....". No "elbows up"? And notably, still no trade deal with our largest trading partner, the United States as our economy grinds to a halt.
Meanwhile:
Housing is still unaffordable to build, buy or rent. So our federal Housing Minister spends $1.2M of our tax money on buying homeless people cameras.
Grocery prices are punishing, as people make difficult choices to manage dwindling budgets. Toronto proposes "government-run" grocery stores because Communism works well in so many countries right?
Taxes keep climbing well above wage increases.
Public services like health care are collapsing.
Yet our governments keep making promises that don't build anything but bureaucracy, bigger pay cheques and higher debt, while you fall further behind financially.
That’s not leadership. That’s incompetence and arrogance.
We welcome your thoughts. Please take our poll!
Follow us @HomesNotBankMachines Share if you care.
Fiscal insanity reigns in Canada now. The private sector is shrinking under the burden of combined government taxes, fees and regulations. Citizens that lack economic sense seem to have no idea of the impacts of repeatedly voting for more socialism. Look at Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea, Vietnam, China, Russia. How well did socialism and communism work there? Wake up people. Or go live a year in one of those countries then come back and tell us how you'd vote.