Breadcrumb Links
FP Comment
Supporting hotel pool renovations has no ripple effect on anyone other than guests and owners, and it does not target the poor.
Published on July 10, 2024 • Last updated 38 minutes ago • 4 minute read
To save this article, register for free here, or sign in if you have an account.
Health Minister Mark Holland speaks in Ottawa on May 30. Photo by Adrian Wylde/Canadian Press File
Article Contents
Earlier this year, Liberal Health Minister Mark Holland, who has previously railed against desperate Canadians looking for medical care outside of Canada, blasted Canadians who take summer road trips in the House of Commons. “Don’t worry about doing something for the planet,” he thundered. “Just enjoy 10 hours in your car and burn the planet.” Holland did not address whether prime ministers who fly long distances for far more luxurious vacations, flying more than 100,000 kilometres a year, are also contributing to global warming and burning the planet.
Ad 2
This advertisement has not loaded yet, but article continues below.
This content is available to subscribers only
Subscribe now to read the latest news from your city and across Canada.
Exclusive articles from Barbara Schechter, Joe O’Connor, Gabriel Friedman, Victoria Wells and more. Daily content from the Financial Times, the world’s leading global business publication. One account gives you unlimited online reading of articles from the Financial Post, National Post and 15 other news sites across Canada. The National Post ePaper is an electronic replica of the print edition that you can view, share and comment on on any device. Daily puzzles, including the New York Times crossword.
Subscribe to unlock more articles
Subscribe now to read the latest news from your city and across Canada.
Exclusive articles from Barbara Schechter, Joe O’Connor, Gabriel Friedman, Victoria Wells and more. Daily content from the Financial Times, the world’s leading global business publication. One account gives you unlimited online reading of articles from the Financial Post, National Post and 15 other news sites across Canada. The National Post ePaper is an electronic replica of the print edition that you can view, share and comment on on any device. Daily puzzles, including the New York Times crossword.
Register/Sign in to view more articles
Please create an account or sign in to continue your reading experience.
Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts in the comments and join the conversation. Enjoy additional articles every month. Receive email updates from your favourite authors.
Sign in or create an account
or
Article Contents
The minister’s attack on vacationing Canadians is also odd, given the Trudeau government’s penchant for pouring millions of dollars into tourism subsidies. In June, the government announced a total of $1.3 million in subsidies for 12 tourism events and festivals in southern Ontario. Taxpayers will get $200,000 for Stratford’s Illuminations Festival, and $150,000 for a multi-day “environmental awareness festival” in Oshawa, Clarington and Cobourg.
Other grants include $250,000 for Ottawa’s Chinatown Business Improvement District for events and “culturally distinctive statues,” $75,000 for Talk is Free Theatre (a performing arts venue that is obviously not free to taxpayers) to attract tourists to Barrie, and $30,000 for an arts festival “focused on racialized women and newcomers.” Apparently spending hours in your car burning earth is now a government-subsidized activity, so long as you burn earth on the way to a racialized women’s arts festival in rural Waterloo Region.
In addition to those projects, the Liberals last week announced roughly $1.2 million in grant funding for six additional tourism projects in southern Ontario, including $200,000 to install an inflatable water park in Milton, $200,000 for tourism operator training and other projects in Hamilton and $180,000 for some kind of hologram for Halton’s tourism centre.
Top Stories
Thank you for your registration!
Article Contents
Ad 3
This advertisement has not loaded yet, but article continues below.
Article Contents
Other provinces’ tourist destinations have also received large taxpayer dollars recently from the Liberals. Le Quebec Maritime, which promotes destinations to out-of-province travelers, received $5.7 million in taxpayer money for the organization’s salaries, professional fees and other expenses. Another Quebec tourism organization received $361,738 in aid to buy boats and a hydraulic platform. A third hotel in Rivière-du-Loup received a $400,000 repayable loan to renovate its pool and upgrade other facilities.
Taxpayer grants totaled about $800,000 and went to seven tourism projects in Yukon. A five-star inn on Prince Edward Island received a $220,000 contribution that it has to pay back. Many of these tourism grant announcements were made by the federal tourism minister, in the presence of local councillors and ministers from relevant regional economic development agencies. The minister of tourism is a strange cabinet post if the government thinks holidaymakers are burning up the planet.
Ad 4
This advertisement has not loaded yet, but article continues below.
Article Contents
In fact, the Minister of Tourism should not exist as a Cabinet post, and tourism subsidies should not exist either. Not because it has anything to do with global warming, but simply because it is a huge waste of money and counterproductive central planning. How can a Minister of Tourism who has never met me, never met my family, never spoken to any of us decide for me where to go on holiday? In fact, I don’t even like traveling. Why should we subsidize people who do like traveling?
There are two standard economic justifications for government subsidies. One is that they have a positive externality: people visiting a tourist destination benefit third parties who are not involved in the transaction. If this were true, there would not be enough tourism in a free market without subsidies. But an environmental awareness festival in Oshawa, a hotel swimming pool in Quebec, or a campground facility in a mountain cabin in Yukon do not create a positive externality.
Another common justification for subsidies is that they redistribute resources to the poor. But poor Canadians who can’t pay rent and who regularly visit food banks are unlikely to travel within or outside their province to visit tourist attractions. Quite the opposite: tourism subsidies exemplify governments’ tendency for vote-buying spending to target the populous and highly voted middle class at the expense of the wealthy, who pay the most taxes, and the poor, who have the least political power.
Editor’s recommendation
100% tariffs on Chinese-made EVs are a 100% bad idea
Climate alarmism shouldn’t dominate economic analysis
I have two pieces of advice for the Liberal Party: first, end the wasteful tourism subsidies. Second, tell Holland to shut up. His silence would improve the quality of political debate in Ottawa.
Support our journalism by bookmarking our website. Don’t miss out on the business news you need to know. Bookmark financialpost.com and sign up for our newsletter here.
Article Contents
Share this article on social networks
