And the Award for Wasting Taxpayer Money Goes To…

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation rolled out the red carpet this week for its annual Teddy Waste Awards, a tongue-in-cheek ceremony celebrating what it considers the most outrageous examples of government spending across Canada.

Think of it as the Oscars... if every winner left taxpayers wondering where their money went.

The awards are named after Ted Weatherill, a former federal labour board chair who became infamous in the 1990s for racking up nearly $150,000 in expenses, including a lunch in France that cost about $700 for two people. His legacy now lives on in the form of a golden pig trophy.

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This Year's “Winners"

Municipal Waste Award

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The City of Toronto took home top honours after spending nearly $2,000 on a commemorative plaque marking the 10th anniversary of Conrad the Raccoon.

If you don't remember Conrad, he was the raccoon whose body lay on a Toronto sidewalk for hours in 2015, becoming an unlikely internet celebrity. Apparently, someone decided that milestone deserved a plaque.

Other municipal nominees included:

• Saskatoon's $26,000 AI garbage can that reportedly worked properly only about one-third of the time.
  
• Calgary's $4.8 million "Blue Sky City" rebrand.
  
• Richmond, B.C., spending $78,000 to send officials to Switzerland for a 10-minute speech.
  
• A Quebec town spending $226,000 to install a single waterslide.
  

Provincial Waste Award

British Columbia Premier David Eby's government claimed the provincial prize after spending $354,000 on three specialty "wood-leather" soccer balls.

That's roughly $118,000 per soccer ball. At that price, you'd expect them to score goals on their own.

Other nominees included:

• Newfoundland and Labrador spending $756,000 on a report that reportedly contained AI-generated errors.
  
• Quebec spending $190,000 on a gas-price website that duplicated information already available elsewhere.
  
• Ontario's $3.7 billion Finch West LRT project, which critics say may not actually save commuters any time compared to existing bus service.
  

Federal Waste Award

The Canada Revenue Agency was named the federal winner after an Auditor General report found taxpayers received the correct answer from CRA call centres only 17 per cent of the time.

At those odds, you might have better luck asking your neighbour, your dog, or a Magic 8 Ball for tax advice.

Other federal nominees included:

• $12,000 spent on an outside contractor to help write the federal budget speech.
  
• $307,000 in funding for a politically connected book publisher.
  
• CBC spending $93,000 to nominate itself for industry awards.

Lifetime Achievement Award

The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council earned the lifetime achievement award for waste.

The organization distributes more than $1 billion annually in research funding and was singled out for studies that included:

• The life cycle of urban grocery carts.
  
• The gender politics of Peruvian rock music.
  
• Research into Canada's kink community.
  

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation says the studies may be interesting, but questions whether taxpayers should be footing the bill.

One thing is certain: if government spending were an Olympic sport, Canada would apparently be bringing home gold.