In a truly shocking new Liberal scandal, the Trudeau government has allowed online scammers to steal over $10 million from municipalities across Canada. Even more shocking, some of the stolen taxpayer funds were brazenly looted by a former police officer now working as a lawyer.
This crooked ex-cop shamelessly pocketed millions alongside an accomplice in an online scam, attempting to wire the plundered money overseas.
The fact that a once sworn officer of the law turned to openly robbing taxpayers is a national disgrace and an unprecedented betrayal of public trust.
Even after being warned many times and seeing other cities get tricked, the Liberals completely failed to put in place basic controls to stop these scams. They left the door wide open for sophisticated online scammers to target local governments. And then they covered it up.
The Liberals must explain why they allowed an ex-cop lawyer to freely take city funds. Trudeau’s negligence has put Canadians in danger and weakened trust in public organizations.
The Liberals need to explain why they lazily let criminals brazenly take money from public coffers and left citizens to cover the huge bill. How could they let this happen in a modern, developed country?
The recent revelations that Canadian municipalities and First Nations have lost over $10 million to online fraudsters is yet another example of the Trudeau government’s complete mismanagement of the nation’s finances.
While the Liberals pat themselves on the back for their excessive spending, public money has been disappearing out the back door through security flaws and lack of oversight.
According to an analysis by the Toronto Star, at least six cities and two First Nations have fallen victim to sophisticated online scams and had millions of taxpayer dollars stolen in just the last five years.
The methods used by the fraudsters were varied but followed a similar pattern – impersonating city contractors or staff, hacking into email accounts, and tricking municipal employees to send money to fraudulent bank accounts.
The scale of the thefts is astounding. The City of Kelowna in British Columbia was conned out of over $4 million when scammers pretended to be from a construction company contracted by the city.
Surrey, another Vancouver suburb, had $2 million stolen by fraudsters posing as a city contractor’s assistant. And in Ontario, the City of Ottawa lost $558,000 when a scammer impersonated the Salvation Army.
Even more disturbing is that some of the municipalities chose not to disclose the fraud to the public at all. Kelowna defended its decision not to notify taxpayers because “the majority of funds were recovered.”
However, they still lost nearly $20,000 of public money. And Surrey only admitted the theft had occurred after being contacted by the media. This pattern shows a complete lack of transparency and accountability to citizens.
These cases reveal huge gaps in security protocols, auditing, and financial controls in many municipal governments across Canada. As forensic accountant Al Rosen stated, “It’s a major Canadian problem.” He accused municipalities of being “willing victims” by not having proper protections in place.
Ultimately, the blame for this rampant fraud lands squarely at the feet of the Trudeau Liberals. They have failed to provide oversight or accountability when it comes to public funds.
The federal government should be ensuring that all municipalities and First Nations have stringent standards and controls for digital security and financial transactions. But they have neglected this responsibility.
This carelessness is even more upsetting when you think about the huge deficits and debt that have piled up under Trudeau’s leadership. Trudeau keeps spending money recklessly, running up record high deficits even before the pandemic started. But somehow there’s no money to help cities and First Nations prevent fraud.
The government can hand out billions in corporate bailouts and wasteful projects, but has failed to provide enough funding for cybersecurity and auditing that’s needed to safeguard public money.
At some point, the Prime Minister has to take responsibility. It’s the federal government’s responsibility to make sure public money is spent responsibly and tracked properly. With deficits spinning out of control, it’s total madness that no resources have been given to help cities and First Nations improve their digital security and financial controls.
Justin Trudeau likes to act morally superior and talk about supporting good causes. But when it’s time to actually protect taxpayer money from fraud and theft, his government is nowhere to be found. Passing the blame and making excuses while millions disappear is not responsible leadership. Canadians deserve much better management of their hard-earned money.
First Nations have been particularly hard hit by the recent wave of online scams. The Cross Lake Band in Manitoba lost nearly $850,000 to fraudsters impersonating a contractor. Naskapi Nation of Kawawachikamach in Quebec had $65,860 stolen after hackers broke into the police chief’s email. And these are just two examples. Indigenous communities often lack the resources and technical expertise to defend against these types of sophisticated cyber crimes.
The Trudeau government says they are dedicated to reconciliation and improving opportunities for First Nations. Yet they have given zero help to assist Indigenous communities protect their money from fraud. This is unacceptable. No other government or private organization would be expected to withstand these attacks without help. The federal government’s lack of concern about this issue is putting First Nations’ self-governance in danger.
Municipalities and First Nations across Canada are clearly facing an epidemic of online fraud that is draining precious public dollars. And the Trudeau Liberals have offered nothing but indifference. Their complete lack of leadership on this issue demonstrates gross incompetence and fiscal mismanagement.
The rampant fraud bleeding money from municipalities and First Nations is bad enough. But the Trudeau government’s negligence and lack of oversight seems to know no bounds. Their indifference to cybersecurity threats has also now left Canadian banks dangerously exposed to attacks by fraudsters and hackers.
Another recent revelation that high-impact cyberattacks on Canadian banks have nearly tripled in the past year is extremely concerning. It seems fraudsters and hackers are having a field day targeting our financial institutions while the Trudeau government fails to take meaningful action.
This shocking increase in successful cyber breaches comes on the heels of the Liberal government’s complete negligence that enabled over $10 million to be stolen from municipalities and First Nations through online fraud. There seems to be a pattern emerging of the Liberals leaving public institutions and now the banking sector vulnerable to attack.
While the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions or OSFI is worried about the spike in priority on cyber incidents against banks, the Trudeau government continues to drag its feet on implementing robust cybersecurity requirements. Their Bill C-26 is too little too late, full of half-measures and loopholes. This leaves banks and ultimately Canadian deposits dangerously exposed.
Canadians trust banks to safeguard their hard-earned money and financial information. The Trudeau Liberals are betraying that trust through weak oversight and indifference to the growing cyberthreat. Successful attacks put customers’ sensitive data at risk and could have devastating financial consequences.
The Liberals claim to support the middle class but their failure to act allows hackers to target the savings of hard-working Canadians. While the government spends recklessly and runs up record debt, it refuses to make cybersecurity a priority and protect peoples’ money and information.
The Liberals must end their culture of secrecy and come clean about the true scale of losses from online scams. Taxpayers deserve full transparency, not coverups. It’s time Trudeau stops betraying the public trust by concealing embarrassing frauds. Canadians demand accountability for every dollar lost to incompetence and indifference.
But Trudeau’s time is up. Canadians will no longer tolerate his government’s criminal negligence and fraud cover ups that have drained billions from taxpayers.
Canadians work hard for the tax dollars that support their communities and keep governments operating. Having those precious dollars stolen out of incompetence and neglect is unacceptable. Justin Trudeau needs to get serious about protecting public funds from fraud. That starts with taking responsibility for these failures instead of brushing them under the rug.
The Liberal government’s poor handling of finances and out-of-control spending has increased deficits and debt even with taxes at all-time highs. Now their carelessness and lack of supervision has allowed millions to be drained away by scammers. This just proves that under Trudeau, public money is treated like a slush fund rather than the valuable resource it is.
The time for excuses and blaming others is over. Justin Trudeau and his government must be held responsible for their shocking failure to protect Canadians and their money from widespread fraud and cybercrime. On Trudeau’s watch, millions and millions have been stolen from hard-working taxpayers through carelessness and lack of concern. He has betrayed the trust of all Canadians.
Enough fancy but empty talk and hollow promises – it’s clear that Trudeau is unable or unwilling to take real action. His days of dodging his serious duty to safeguard public funds and critical systems must end. The future financial security of Canadians hangs in the balance. We will no longer accept this unprecedented plundering of our communities and institutions. The Trudeau era of reckless endangerment is over.
