We’ve previously brought you items 1-18, on subsidies and infrastructure, 19-34, on food and job creation, followed by 35-55, the environment, animals, and money for nothing, and 56-73, culture and tourism. Here’s the wrap-up, a sample of questionable spending on employee expenses, patronage, makeovers, studies, polls and surveys as well as lawsuits and lawyers.

Canada’s finances may be the envy of the world, but the bar is awfully low these days. Whether it’s Ottawa, the provinces or municipalities, governments across the country face horrendous deficits. We must tighten our belts, say the politicians. Austerity and cutbacks are the order of the day.

Only, you wouldn’t know it looking at this list. What follows is but a slice of the silly, wasteful, craven and often outright stupid ways governments at all levels spent taxpayers’ money over the last year. To find our 99 items, Maclean’s scoured press releases and auditor generals’ reports, contacted watchdog groups like the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, and waded through news reports, looking for examples where the money was either spent or announced in 2011. We also included a handful of egregious instances of waste that only came to light in the past 12 months, even if the actual cash was doled out in previous years.

Not everyone will agree with all these items being on the list. Some will justify handouts to companies and sports teams as necessary to “promote economic activity,” or they’ll say a camping program for new immigrants was a nice thing to do. Sure, it would be great if we could afford everything, but at a time when government spending is under the knife, when services and jobs are being cut, it’s clear many of those with their hands on the public purse have yet to come to terms with Canada’s new fiscal reality.

THE PAY SCALES OF JUSTICE — Spending on lawyers and judges

97 Holy unreasonable: The City of Calgary spent more than $65,000 fighting a controversial street preacher in court over a $100 bylaw fine.

 http://www2.macleans.ca/2012/01/11/99-stupid-things-the-government-spent-your-money-on-v/

Todd Kaufman Jan 24, 2012 20:59:28 PM

A Calgary street preacher known for holding impromptu outdoor services for the homeless outside City Hall is in trouble once again.

Art Pawlowski has been banned for a year from City Hall after he and his supporters were arrested on Tuesday for trespassing when they held a prayer circle in the atrium of the Municipal Building.

He says this is not the first time the city has put in unconstitutional bylaws or laws that prohibit people from exercising their rights and that's why they're challenging it because it is unacceptable.

He adds, he doesn't understand what they're trying to accomplish because all they're doing is just ticking more and more Christian people off.

Pawlowski tells 660News, they are now preparing to take legal action and vow to return next week to pray and exercise their democratic right.

He says the Supreme Court has spoken loud and clear saying if members of the public had no right to distribute leaflets or engage in other expressive activities on government owned property then there would be little or no opportunity to exercise their right to freedom of expression.

He calls the mayor a hypocrite after tolerating Occupy Calgary protestors, and then taking a totally different stance against his gatherings.

Pawlowski has been challenging the constitutionality of the city's bylaws prohibiting the use of loudspeakers during his outdoor preaching however a Court of Queen's Bench judge ruled last year his religious rights weren't being violated.

http://www.660news.com/news/local/article/323301--street-preacher-given-one-year-ban-from-city-hall

Kneeling inside the city hall atrium, his two fists joined together, a city street preacher asked police to arrest him following a prayer service Tuesday.

Artur Pawlowski, pastor of the Street Church Ministries, told cops who descended on the illegal noon-hour gathering that he and his followers have the right to gather in the municipal complex to express their faith because they’re protected by Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

As police tried to move the group, which has sparred with the city on several occasions, Pawlowski refused to comply with the order to disperse.

“OK officer, take me or shoot me outside because I’m not leaving!” screamed the pastor.

“No one, not you, not (the) prime minister or the mayor of this city is going to deprive me as citizen of this country of my guaranteed constitutional law.”

More than two dozens members and supporters of the street church showed up at city hall for the sermon, held 30 days after the group was banned from city hall for a month.

The group conducted a service featuring prayers, preaching and singing.

Minutes before they proceeded with the service, a city official told them they’re allowed to gather peacefully, but preaching is prohibited in the civic space.

Owen Key, manager of corporate security, said five members of the church, including Pawlowski, were given notices banning them from the municipal complex for a year while five others were given a 30-day prohibition from stepping into the building.

Key said those slapped with the year-long prohibition had already been handed previous warnings for violating city bylaws, prompting the longer ban.

“They didn’t follow the procedure for the atrium, therefore they’re breaching the bylaw,” said Key.

A city bylaw prohibits religious activities during business hours, along with political demonstrations and public rallies, among others.

Key said the group is not being discriminated against, but the same rules apply to all who gather in city hall.

On Dec. 20, Pawlowski and four others were slapped with a notice not to set foot on the property for 30 days.

When that prohibition expired, the pastor, equipped with a video camera, and his supporters went back to the atrium and held the service.

The street church, whose flock gathers outside the historic city hall four times a week, has been battling the city for seven years.

The move to conduct a service inside the municipal building is part of that battle, said Pawlowski.

“We were able to pray, and remind people of our constitutional rights and sing few songs and we were interrupted again,” he said.

“We have views about Jesus Christ, we take (them) to the place where people gather.”

The pastor vowed to defy the vow, pledging to return next Tuesday with a larger crowd.

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http://www.calgarysun.com/2012/01/24/preacher-banished-from-calgary-city-hall-after-noon-hour-sermon

By Michael Platt ,Calgary Sun First posted: Tuesday, January 24,

Street preacher Artur Pawlowski talks to reporters outside court in 2009. (File photo THE CALGARY SUN)

It’s a crusade alright — one man’s massive ego versus a very weary establishment.

Art Pawlowski is clearly winning, if success is measured in satisfying the need to be seen and heard by as many people as possible, to spread a message you feel compelled to share.

The word of Jesus? If only it was, his message might be more forgivable.

But this preacher uses Christian charity as crutch for his real sermon — and that’s Art Pawlowski, and just how cruel the establishment is to Art Pawlowski, as Art Pawlowski fights to save the world.

Art Pawlowski, of course, says it best.

“I have stood over 70 times in the courts. We have been charged over 100 times. Eight arrests,” is how the man himself once described the struggle before his favourite congregation — the media.

“Just because I believe in Jesus Christ, I’m treated differently.”

It’s the same sermon he’s repeated before countless cameras, the claim that Calgary’s municipal government is somehow anti-Jesus, and targets Christians for persecution.

He said as much again on Tuesday, as his latest attention-seeking stunt at city hall resulted in more police, and more trespassing orders against Pawlowski and his church.

Just a month after being banned from the Municipal Building for holding a loud and disruptive prayer meeting without a permit, Pawlowski and his Street Church flock came back for more of the same.

Predictably, the publicity-hound preacher turned the spotlight on himself by dramatically falling to his knees and asking if police were going to use their Tasers.

The man clearly loves attention — but there was no such luck for the self-styled martyr, who was left with nothing more than a ticket to back his claim that Christians are treated differently.

It’s a claim that’s fooled many, but the truth is, Christians aren’t treated differently in Calgary.

Jackasses though, certainly are.

“It’s nothing to do with his preaching, or his message — it’s about not following the rules of society,” said one senior city official, who asked to remain anonymous.

They’re pretty shell-shocked at the city, having battled the pesky preacher for years, with dozens of public complaints filed about Street Church Ministries and its tactics.

First it was blocked sidewalks and signs hanging from city property, and then it turned into a squabble over why Pawlowski needed a blaring speaker system to spread the gospel in public parks.

With each conflict, there was Pawlowski, playing it up for his beloved cameras — and never once explaining why the preaching had to be so publicly disruptive. Jesus managed without electricity.

Last year, the city finally won a Court of Queen’s Bench appeal which ruled Pawlowski’s religious freedoms weren’t impeded by the ban on amplifiers, which rattled windows as far away as Bridgeland.

There was hope it might silence the preacher, who has turned his Street Church website into a predictable shrine to the man he admires most: Art Pawlowski.

But then city hall fumbled the Occupy Calgary protest late last year, allowing anti-capitalist squatters to spend weeks illegally camping in a public park, and then chanting in the municipal complex atrium.

Never one to miss a good publicity stunt, Pawlowski pounced, turning the badly-handled Occupy debacle into an opportunity to “prove” city hall hates Christians.

So he disrupts business in a public building, and he rants when told to quit it.

Offered a chance to hold prayer meetings in the atrium after hours, with a paid permit, Pawlowski has refused — because following rules means no media attention, and no Art Pawlowski in the paper.

It’s actually very easy to get along with city hall: just ask the thousands of Christian congregations who operate around Calgary, holding events in parks and public spaces, without a peep of hassle or publicity.

If city hall is anti-Christian, it’s news to most people in this predominantly Christian city.

But anti-Art Pawlowski?

Possibly. If Pawlowski once had a message for good, it’s been lost — and now city hall is fighting against a man on a personal crusade for publicity.

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http://www.calgarysun.com/2012/01/24/ego-fuelled-crusade-at-centre-of-city-hall-rights-squabble

Art Pawlowski challenges authorities

By Jason Markusoff, Calgary Herald January 24, 2012 4:48 PM