VANCOUVER -- Two B.C.-based bureaucratic organizations have been nominated for a sarcastic prize.

The City of Vancouver and TransLink, the region's transit provider, made the short-list for the annual Teddy Waste Awards.

The annual "awards" are given out by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation to the bureaucrats behind financial decisions the CTF deems wasteful.

While the winners of the 23rd annual Teddy Awards were not based in B.C., the province had some "strong contenders," the CTF said Monday.

Among the nominees in the municipal category were Vancouver city councillors who spent $316,000 of taxpayer money on designer office furniture.

The purchase was made around the same time the city's mayor appealed to the federal and provincial governments for funding to keep the city afloat.

It was in the early days of the pandemic, between January and May, at a time when Mayor Kennedy Stewart was issuing dire warnings about the city's finances.

He said at the time the spending was made public that he had asked the city manager to review what the CTF referred to as a "shopping spree," but that the furniture was part of the city's capital plan to upgrade city hall. 

He said he was "disappointed like others" to see that the renovation project had been approved by a committee of senior leaders during the pandemic. City staff said their rationale was the work was already underway, and that it would be less disruptive to continue with it during the pandemic as many were working from home.

At the time, CTF's B.C. Director Kris Sims called it "gross at the best of times," and even worse during the pandemic when thousands, including those employed by the city, were struggling with reduced salaries.

In the provincial category, Metro Vancouver's transit operator was criticized for reneging on a promise to cut executives' pay.

The CTF said TransLink promised to reduce executives' salaries by 10 per cent during the pandemic. But according information obtained by the federation, TransLink executives then used federal and provincial emergency funding to make up the difference. 

The winners of this year's Teddy Awards were not in B.C., however.

First prize, federally, went to former governor-general Julie Payette for the $650,000 bill from her swearing-in ceremony, and "another half a million" on renovations on the residence she never actually moved in to, the CTF said.

Additionally, an investigation into her management style cost $393,000, and even after leaving the role, Payette can bill taxpayers up to $200,000 a year for office expenses, according to the federation.

The provincial winner was the government of Quebec, which purchased a ship to shuttle people across the St. Lawrence described by the CTF as a $175 million "lemon." The government had to buy another ship, which was crashed twice in its first month and written off. A third ship was bought later, and has hit a dock twice, the federation said.

The municipal prize was claimed by the City of Toronto, which spent about $160,000 to build bike lanes, then decided to tear them out five months later, costing another $80,000.

The Teddy Awards are named after Ted Weatherill, whom the CTF describes as a "former federal appointee who was fired in 1999 for submitting a panoply of dubious expense claims, including a $700 lunch for two."