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  "description": "I’m sick to death of hearing about the pocket change we send to Ukraine while Pension Poilievre lives in a taxpayer-funded mansion. You should be, too.",
  "path": "/adams-if-were-gutting-foreign-aid-to-save-pennies-why-are-we-still-polishing-stornoway/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-04-18T18:10:45.000Z",
  "site": "https://provincialtimes.ca",
  "tags": [
    "small donation.",
    "Read our Content Policy here."
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  "textContent": "I saw a Facebook comment this week that made me want to flip the table over, but since we're adults and we're here to write, I'll settle for explaining the arithmetic and the architecture of this particular grift.\n\nThe comment was a response to a repost I made about Russia's ongoing cultural genocide in Ukraine—specifically the kidnapping of children and their forced adoption into Russian families. The commenter, a former friend with a terminal case of online brain rot, said the usual thing: _“We shouldn't spend a dime on foreign aid while Canadians are homeless/unemployed/starving.”_\n\nOn paper, this sounds like fiscal prudence. It's the political equivalent of saying you're going to pay off your credit card by canceling your Spotify subscription. It makes you feel like you're making a hard choice when, in reality, you're just ignoring the mortgage payment on the second house you don't think you should be paying for.\n\n## Subscribe for issues and perspectives that mainstream outlets often ignore\n\nOntario's New Voice for Independent News\n\nSubscribe\n\nEmail sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup.\n\nWe bring insights, analysis, and news that challenge the status quo.\n\nThe linguistic trick here is to make you think Canada's international assistance is a bottomless slush fund, when that couldn't be further from the truth. In 2024, total federal expenses were $534.5 billion. Canada's entire envelope for international assistance—every grant, every humanitarian dollar, every cent spent on attempting to stabilize regions so they don't devolve into the kind of chaos that creates _more_ refugees at our border—was $11.1 billion.\n\nThat is only **2.1% of total spending.**\n\nYou know what's even more frivolous than 2% of the federal budget? The taxpayer-funded 9,500-square-foot mansion in Rockcliffe Park known as Stornoway.\n\nWe are told to get outraged about foreign aid—which, by the way, i**s a post-WWII insurance policy against Fascism 2.0** —but we are supposed to remain silent about the fact that the Leader of the Opposition (the _losing party_) lives in a gated estate that **costs the public a minimum of $170,000 a year just to maintain**. Not to live in. To maintain. The heating bill for the garage alone is probably more than some families' annual grocery spend.\n\nYou cannot, with a straight face, tell me that the $28.92 per Canadian we spend to ensure Ukraine doesn't fall to a revanchist empire is the reason you can't afford gas, while simultaneously sleeping soundly knowing the guy who wants to be Prime Minister is getting his floors waxed on your dime.\n\nThis is what I like to call the _“MANSIONGATE Fallacy.”_ It's the selective amnesia that grips the political right whenever a Conservative leader is involved. They'll screenshot Jagmeet Singh's pension accrual (which is, to be fair, _a legitimate conversation_ about MP benefits), **but they will never,_ever_ demand that Pierre Poilievre give up Stornoway and rent a two-bedroom condo near Panchvati Supermarket like a normal MP.**\n\nThe commenter in question had a meltdown on my page previously when I posted about enforcing the Canada Health Act. His response was, verbatim, _“nobody cares about that,”_ followed by a rant about the price of gas.\n\nThis is the modern political right in a nutshell: _I don't care about the structural integrity of the system unless the price at the pump changes by a nickel._ He's worried about $1.60 a litre while turning a blind eye to a residence that costs more to operate annually than the median Canadian household earns in two years.\n\nHere's the truth Pension Poilievre doesn't want you to hear: **You can help Ukrainians defend their sovereignty _and_ build houses for homeless Canadians.** The government is not a household with a fixed cookie jar. It's a sovereign entity with the capacity to do both if the political will exists. But the political will doesn't exist because it's easier to scream about \"foreigners\" than it is to tax the massive, record-shattering profits of the oil and gas sector that are _actually_ causing the high price of gas my former friend is so worried about.\n\nAnd since we're doing either/or fallacies, let me play the game: I would rather have $20 per-person on foreign aid yearly than strap on a suit of body armour and go to war. See? It's easy. It's also stupid.\n\n**If we are serious about cutting _“frivolous spending,”_ the first sacrifice must come from the political class.** Sell Stornoway. Cap MP pensions before they hit six figures. Cut the travel budgets for the people who fly business class to tell us we can't afford to buy groceries.\n\nYou don't get to play the fiscal hawk while living in a gilded nest. And you don't get to lecture me about the cost of helping a child escape a war zone while you're sitting in a taxpayer-funded living room the size of a basketball court.\n\n**Start with the mansion. Then we can talk about the pocket change.**\n\n## Tired of seeing important stories swept under the rug by the right-wing establishment media?\n\nSubscribe and get the full picture. Stay updated, stay informed, and join a community that values truth and transparency. Subscribe to The Provincial Times for free to receive new stories and support our work!\n\nSubscribe\n\nEmail sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup.\n\nDid you like this article? Consider a small donation.\n\n* * *\n\n_This piece is an**archival work** of the author, originally published elsewhere, and is presented here for historical record. The views expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of the Provincial Times. _Read our Content Policy here.",
  "title": "ADAMS: If we’re gutting foreign aid to save pennies, why are we still polishing Stornoway?",
  "updatedAt": "2026-04-18T18:10:46.844Z"
}