From calling a river, to monitoring the life of a shopping cart, highly-taxed Canadians are getting a closer look at where their money is going.

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) hosted their 2025 Teddy Waste Awards on Wednesday in Calgary. The event showcases funny (and sad) uses of Canadian taxpayer dollars. With a large swathe of candidates to review, it truly is an honour to be a winner here.

Former PM Trudeau, New Brunswick, Calgary, and Global Affairs Canada were all awarded this year.

Take a look at this year's winners:

Municipal Teddy Winner: The City of Calgary

In most cities, you can only send a message in a bottle down a river. But not in Calgary, where the city spent $65,000 so people can phone the Bow River to hear its sounds.

Provincial Teddy Winner: New Brunswick

New Brunswick spent $77,000 on an eight-day trip to Europe to get Europeans to visit the province. The ads created to promote New Brunswick to Europeans were full of gaffs and incorrect information about the province.

Federal Teddy Winner: Global Affairs Canada

The federal department of Global Affairs Canada spends an average of $51,000 per month on booze, according to records obtained by the CTF. Perhaps all that alcohol explains the department’s crazy spending, like an $8,800 sex toy show in Germany and a $1,700 musical featuring lesbian pirates.

Lifetime Achievement Teddy Waste Award Winner: Former prime minister Justin Trudeau

On his way to doubling the federal debt in less than a decade, Trudeau added 99,000 federal bureaucrats and wasted taxpayers’ money all over the world on fancy feasts and hotel suites.

We interviewed the CTF's Federal Director, Franco Terrazzano, to provide a forecast on Prime Minister Mark Carney's expected spending of taxpayer dollars.

"What we've seen from Carney so far is bad news for taxpayers but also for our kids and grandkids," Terrazzano said. Higher spending promises than that of his predecessor paired with the fact that a federal budget has not been presented on time, or at all since Carney took office, spell a worrysome tale for Canada's future finances.

We also spoke with the CTF's Alberta Director, Kris Sims, to review both the province of Alberta, and the City of Calgary's spending patterns. A provincial $5.2 billion-dollar deficit is no laughing matter, and is something Sims hopes Premier Smith will ameliorate.

With Mayor Gondek's City of Calgary winning the municipal waste award, property tax increases for locals and crumbling infrastructure demands seem all the more offensive. Instead of having basic needs met, we spend big on obscure "art" projects funded outside the domain of reasonable municipal budgetary necessities.

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