Dear Editor,

Canadians have long tired of corporate welfare, whether that comes in the form of ne鈥檈r-do-well companies accepting government aid, or the type of pork barrel politics that results in multi-billion-dollar companies receiving millions of dollars of free money for new refrigerators.

It beggars belief that a government could be so tone deaf to the economic reality of so many Canadians, but this is life in Justin Trudeau鈥檚 Canada, where virtue-signalling to a coveted Liberal Party demographic takes precedence over fiscal responsibility.

Federally, we are currently debt-servicing to the tune of over $25 billion per year. We are making a giant pile of taxpayers鈥� dollars and setting fire to it, year after year, for no other reason than that politicians have lost the ability to say 鈥渘o鈥� to every request for taxpayer money. And today鈥檚 youth will carry the burden of making the payments on the proverbial credit card that we鈥檝e proven too irresponsible to own 鈥� but that they refuse to cut up by voting the profligate spenders out of office.

Canadian taxpayers have seen the results of that moral hazard known as 鈥淭oo Big To Fail鈥� through corporate welfare payouts to Air Canada, Bombardier, GM, and many others. We never see value for our so-called investments, but worse still is the cultural effect these stop-gap measures have at the governance level of these corporations. Rather than being grateful and reforming themselves, they begin to depend on 鈥� and then demand 鈥� more money whenever they fail to formulate sound plans for their employees and shareholders.

Canadians deserve protection against private companies crying, 鈥淭oo Big To Fail!鈥� We need to know that we will not be on the hook for their wealth managers kicking the can down the road and refusing to tell their employees to expect less, pay more, or move from a defined benefit to a defined contribution plan.

Steve Schafer, 91原创 City

[Steve Schafer is seeking the Conservative Party of Canada nomination in 91原创-Aldergrove.]