Poverty Through Unwitting Charitable Kindness...

A Dive into AB Finances.

I had an absolutely amazing day today…

Finally got to kick back and listen to some Christmas Tunes on the radio…sit by the Christmas Tree and spend the afternoon wrapping presents.

And given my last couple of weeks, I absolutely needed this as a reset.

Everyday, feeling like another day on the hamster wheel…

Run fast and never caught up…and you can see from my last couple of postings…I’ve been sliding backwards since Tuesday…only able to report on the Calgary Rezoning Court Case today…still not touching on the Trade War that the Feds and some provinces want to get into with Trump, instead of fixing the borders and reining in crime and drugs (Smith being one of the reasonable ones looking to work solutions with the incoming 47th US Administration…Rachel Notley resigning her seat, most likely to give Nenshi a safe run zone…university district in Edmonton - which seats Heather McPherson, NDP MP and Federal Party Whip. Lethbridge byelection…The impacts of the Postal Strike on the 185,000 passports that aren’t going to arrive before Christmas, stranding people from their seasonal travel plans…the Millions lost to small businesses by not being able to compete in the online economy against Amazon…the Shamble that is the GST vacation, where…in the final hours before it’s launch, yesterday…the feds aren’t mandating this as some smaller shops can’t change over the Point of Sales with the flip of a switch…something that would cost 10s of thousands of dollars to implement, not forgetting the confusion raised by the GST exempt items. Like…if you buy Pokémon Cards - GST Exempt. Hockey Cards - Not GST Exempt.

Pure Lunacy!

Freeland getting thrown under the bus.

The deficit report to be larger than expected, still not delivered.

I mean…how can anybody realistically even keep up with just the headlines alone?

So…after poking my head up for air, getting back into the season if only for a moment…

I had to dig into a few breadcrumbs that have been thrown over to me over the last short period of time.

I’ll not say what I am looking for until I can fully bust it out, but will reveal what I find as I find it…and this most recent nugget (only the tip of this iceberg), is actually quite shocking.

You see…after realizing that the Feds piss away about $150 BILLION per year, giving our money away - where over a decade long period we’d given away $1.5 Trillion Dollars to various charities…

Where over $600 Million of that went to ‘PROMOTE’ the LGBTQ communities…

Somebody had invited me to have a little closer look into what happens on a Provincial Level - of course referring to our home province - Alberta.

So…for shitz n gigglez, feeling recharged on the day…I did.

And came into the provincial Grant Report for 2023/24 fiscal year…where in report summaries, you can easily tally up the last decade of Grants inside of the province to be over $1 Billion bucks:

Or around $100 Million per year…a lot less being spent over the last few years than we’d seen Pre-Pandemic.

And digging through this report was a little irritating. Not gunna lie.

Because while this really only works out to be about $30/taxpayer, in spending per year…I have a tough time being an unwitting contributor to a lot of things that I’d seen listed.

Like these guys…Parachute For Pets:

$125,000 for a “Facility Upgrade”, in their Pet Advocacy Centre.

Personally…I’ve always taken issue with pet charities…seeing people who will step over a homeless person, begging for change on the sidewalk, to throw a few bucks at their favorite animal charity.

But…what you do with your cash is really none of my business.

It’s only when it comes to throwing my cash at this that I get agitated.

There are a lot of others on this list that really start to drive my blood pressure…but can appreciate that there are some that I really have no issues with.

Food Banks in Chestermere, Edson, Lethbridge, Medicine Hat, Vegreville and Wetaskiwin…

The Mustard Seed - in Calgary…

A lot of shelters for women and those who need a place to come in from the cold.

I mean, sure…I’m frugal, but not heartless…

HOWEVER…it was easy to figure out that this wasn’t the full picture for the province giving away our cash because…the I’d never seen anything on the Crowd Funding that the Province and the Feds had…matching donations to help those burned out of their community, homes and businesses in Jasper.

Fiscal Year Cutoff Before?

I didn’t know…but this was easy to find.

Looks like the Province and the Feds will be shucking out about $8 Million, each to match donations, ‘Raised by the Red Cross’ (don’t even get me started).

Which still pisses me off that in addition to being forced into $150 Billion per year in federal taxes being donated to some of the most ludicrous charitable programs, a lot of these not even being in Canada…citizens still had to crowdfund Jasper, to get money matched by the province and the feds - where the feds shit the sheets on the National Park, stopped crews from moving in early, failed to maintain the parks, which seen 33,048 hectares scorched to ash costing, seeing 1/4 of the town burned and $880 million in insured damages. Note - these are “Insured Damages”. Not full costs where complete decimation and total loss to those who’ve had to opt out of insurance or not have adequate insurance to cover their losses - because they had to choose between Heat and Food.

Moving Along…

Blood Pressure Rising - fortunately I have a lot more presents to wrap and even more Christmas Tracks streaming tomorrow…

There were a few other things missing on the Grants report to let me know that there was still some mileage in the breadcrumb trail to cover.

Pour yourself a stiff beverage…get comfortable because I need you to be safe when you read the next part of this and stay somewhat calm. Tis the Season and all, right?

Here We Go!

Information that is not easy to find, if you’re not familiar with how the Province Sets up its budget reports…and finding these as line items, no simple task.

Luckily, I found a report that busted this all out…

And in their latest report - current to 2022, published in April of this year, summary states:

The Province gave $28.5 Billion to Charity, which makes up 74.4% of their total revenues.

Both of these things are troubling…but especially seeing that three quarters of charity money was provided by your taxpayer dollars from the province, alone…

The next…I want to lend some perspective to…

The LARGEST provincial budget item is Healthcare.

In 2022, same fiscal year as the Charitable Contributions Breakdown…the Province spent $38.7 Billion, which equates to $8,545 per Albertan:

You see where I’m going with this, right?

Unwittingly, you’re taxes paid out $28.5 to Charities…which, according to this same report would mean that the Province gave away $6,293 PER ALBERTAN, to people who should, by qualifier - they’re CHARITIES, be raising THEIR OWN FUNDS.

This is in a single year.

If this was the same through 2023 and 2024 (reasonable assumption)…since this last publication, the Provincial Government has made charitable contributions, in your name, to charities that you may not even know exist, never mind - NOT SUPPORT, to the tune of $18,000(ish).

Let me ask you something…

If we didn’t do this instead and just left this $18k in your pocket…could you find a good home for it…during an affordability crisis?

I’m just going to leave you with this for a while, to ponder…

This should be enough for you to take to the streets with a pitchfork or torch…however, if you’re not already sufficiently pissed off by all of this…You will be when I’m able to bust this all out and why I was led on this path to begin with, if fleshes out.

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Some of you are already ‘in the know’ as to what I’m searching for.

IYKYK.

Throw a brother a few crumbs to follow in the comments.

;)