Alarm bells likely went off in empty government offices this week when Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre promised to shrink the size of the bureaucracy.
“There are way too many bureaucrats,” Poilievre said. “I’m going to reduce the size of the bureaucracy and the state.”
Poilievre is right to reduce Ottawa’s taxpayer-funded payroll. And his ability to live up to his promise to “fix the budget and bring Canadians the relief they desperately need” will be directly tied to his ability to shrink the bureaucracy. That’s because the bureaucracy now consumes half of the federal government’s day-to-day spending.
The size of the bureaucracy exploded under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. He added a jaw-dropping 108,000 employees to the federal payroll, with the cost of the bureaucracy soaring 73%.
Ask yourself: Are you getting 73% better service from the feds? Unless you work for the government and collect a bigger taxpayer-funded paycheque, the answer is a big fat NO.
If Poilievre were to cut back the size of the bureaucracy to 2016 levels, adjusted for population growth, taxpayers would save about $9 billion a year.
That would make a huge dent in the deficit and help Poilievre deliver on balancing the books and cutting taxes.
But Poilievre can’t stop at cutting the size of the bureaucracy. He must end the government’s practice of rewarding failure with taxpayer cash.
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Less than half of the government’s own performance targets are consistently met by federal departments each year, according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer. And yet the feds handed out $1.5 billion in bonuses since 2015.
One egregious example is the $102 million in bonuses the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. handed out since 2020, despite a housing affordability crisis.
Another is the Bank of Canada printing up $20 million in bonus cheques in 2022, when inflation reached a 40-year high and central bankers cranked up interest rates seven times.
The CMHC’s goal is to promote housing affordability. The Bank of Canada’s goal is to control inflation. In both cases, there was clear failure. And yet failure was rewarded.
Poilievre previously said he’d “cut bonuses for failing government authorities.”
Recently, Poilievre said “work isn’t getting done in the federal government,” adding “we must put in place methods to ensure the work is done.” The first step should be to stop incentivizing poor performance with taxpayer-funded bonuses.
The Trudeau government has recently been trying to look like it has gotten the message when it comes to cutting the size of government. The government says it plans to cut 3,300 employees from the immigration department.
That might sound like a positive step, but the number of bureaucrats employed by that department doubled under Trudeau. The announced cut – assuming it happens – is only rolling back about half of the increase.
That’s like recognizing you couldn’t afford the new bike and flat screen TV you bought with your credit card, but decided to only return the bike.
Similarly, the Canada Revenue Agency says it is laying off 580 temporary employees. But the CRA has added about 20,000 employees since Trudeau came to power. In Ottawa, there’s one tax bureaucrat for every 700 citizens. In Washington, there’s one tax bureaucrat for every 4,000 citizens.
Token gestures that do little to free up space for tax relief won’t make the lives of Canadians any better.
Poilievre is right to promise to cut the size of the bureaucracy and stop handing out bonuses for failure. His ability to make life more affordable depends on his ability to live up to that promise.
Canadians are tired of paying for too many bureaucrats who do little more than trip over themselves. Canadians want more efficient government, tax relief and an end to run-away deficits. That starts with fewer bureaucrats.
— Franco Terrazzano is the Federation Director and Jay Goldberg is the Ontario Director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation