Canada’s federal government approved more than $190 million in bonuses for Crown corporations in 2024–25, while ordinary Canadians waited in food bank lines to feed their families. The numbers reveal a widening gap between taxpayer sacrifices and executive rewards.
So, who cashed in? Let’s unpack the list
The biggest payouts
The Business Development Bank of Canada walked away with the largest bonus pool, $60.7 million. Every executive received a payout, averaging $216,000 each.
Export Development Canada awarded $45 million to its executives, with nearly 80% pocketing bonuses that averaged $143,000.
The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), an agency that claims its mission is “housing affordability for all,” issued $30.6 million in bonuses. Almost every executive (99%) collected, with the average at $43,000.
The Royal Canadian Mint disbursed $12.1 million, though records didn’t include executive-specific details.
At VIA Rail, every executive collected a bonus averaging $110,000, totaling $11 million. This, despite the railway posting a $385 million operating loss last year and receiving $1.9 billion in government bailouts over the last five years.
The Canada Infrastructure Bank issued $8.6 million in bonuses, with 83% of executives receiving an average of $197,000 each.
Other Crown corporations, including Canada Post and the National Capital Commission, reported “nothing to disclose” for the period.
A pattern of spending
These numbers surfaced through a question filed by Conservative MP Andrew Scheer. They aren’t new. Between 2015 and 2023, federal departments and agencies approved $1.5 billion in bonuses. Shockingly, these payouts flowed even though less than half of performance targets were met in the same year, according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO).
The trend points to a troubling reality: bonuses roll out even when outcomes fall short.
The taxpayer bill
To understand the real cost, I spoke with Franco Tarrazzano, Federal Director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. His warning was blunt.
“There should be a five-alarm siren in the Prime Minister’s office to end the debt-filled spending spree,” he told me. “Taxpayers already cover more than a billion dollars every week in interest charges.”
That interest alone adds up to $55 billion this year—the equivalent of $1,300 taken from every Canadian just to service debt.
Tarrazzano argues the problem isn’t revenue, it’s reckless spending. “The government has added 99,000 bureaucrats since 2016 and ballooned the cost of bureaucracy by 77%. Do Canadians see 77% better services?”
Carney’s Canada
Prime Minister Mark Carney pitched himself as different from Justin Trudeau. Yet, Tarrazzano says Carney plans to borrow even more. That choice, he warned, locks Canadians into decades of repayments. “If this continues, interest charges will reach $80 billion by 2030,” Tarrazzano said. “Your children and grandchildren will be Generation Screwed.”
A bigger question
The controversy raises a moral question: who benefits when wealth grows?
Globally, 58 million people are millionaires, about 1.5% of the world’s adults. As author and church leader Marvin Ashton once asked, how many use their wealth wisely for the public good? Statistics don’t exist for that.
The same question now faces Canada’s leadership. If public money funds private rewards, can ordinary Canadians trust their government to act in the national interest?
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