🇨🇦 CRA can track your tips, not its own $40 million blunder

A northern Ontario ironworker files fantasy tax returns, literally phones CRA to explain the scheme, and Ottawa still starts wiring him money two weeks later, including a $10 million deposit. That is not just incompetence, it is a regime that treats ordinary Canadians like suspects but operates its own machinery like a casino cashier. Even better, CRA now says it cannot tell how much it paid out under this racket because it does not track fraud by intent, as reported.

The real punchline is scale. Internal records tied nearly $300 million in bogus claims to the same scheme between May 2023 and January 2024, and Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne says he was unaware. Of course he was. This is late Trudeau-era Canada in one story: endless bureaucracy, zero accountability, and officials who can micromanage speech, carbon, and compliance but cannot validate a refund before spraying public money out the door. The state is always razor-sharp when squeezing productive citizens and mysteriously helpless when guarding the treasury.

🍁 Maple Chronicles