COLUMN: On Parliament Hill: Control – the dangers of big government

In this week’s installment of our series on the dangers of big government bureaucracy, I will discuss the threat an excessive and unaccountable bureaucracy—such as we find under Justin Trudeau—poses to Canada’s economy, our democracy, and the freedoms we cherish.

Many experts have written on the subject of the strained relationship between bureaucracy and democracy.

While any country, especially one as large and regionally diverse as Canada, requires skillful administration, it cannot be denied that many of the ideals associated with democracy (equality, merit, participation, individual rights and freedoms) are often in stark contrast to the controls exerted by the contemporary bureaucratic state.

Over the past nine years, Canadians have seen their freedoms eroded and infringed on under Justin Trudeau’s government

I wrote last week about how Justin Trudeau has grown Canada’s public service by nearly 100,000 people, a 40 percent increase in bureaucracy in just nine years.

Under Trudeau, the cost of Canada’s bureaucracy has also risen sharply to $67.4 billion per year—a 68 percent increase since 2016.

That’s more than we spend annually on our military.

That’s more than the federal government pays annually for healthcare.

As with people, you can tell a lot about a government by their spending habits. People will always spend money on what they value most. For Justin Trudeau and his Liberals, the answer to what they value most is clear, more bureaucracy.

To Trudeau, more government always seems to be the answer.

To make matters worse, Trudeau has grown his government with deficit spending which has driven inflation. In short, you are paying more at the grocery store, more at the pump, more for everything so he can have his bigger government.

Why?

Why does Justin Trudeau think bureaucracy matters more than our national security or healthcare or the health of our economy? Because it gives him and his government more control over the daily lives of Canadians and it emboldens other levels of government to do likewise.

It was Trudeau’s father who famously stated, “there is no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation.”

But this Prime Minster and this government wants to be in every room. On every device. In every conversation. (Look no further than Bill C-63).

How do they achieve this?

Bureaucracy.

The most obvious and extreme example of this were the many overreaches by government during COVID-19.

Lockdowns. Arbitrary shutdowns of businesses and places of worship. Arbitrary limits on gatherings. Making folks financially reliant on government programs. Social distancing and masking. Rampant censorship. Limits on travel. Vaccine mandates.

Some of these actions were the result of direct political decisions by elected officials but the majority of decisions during those dark two years—decisions Canadians are still experiencing the repercussions of—were the result of elected officials abdicating responsibility to unelected bureaucrats.

Canadians never voted for Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer or other public “health” officials who gained and wielded a dangerous level of control over the daily lives of Canadians. Nor have there been any repercussions for the violations of civil liberties and humanity over which these folks presided.

More recently, think of the Trudeau government’s proposed “online harms” legislation, Bill C-63. Who does the government propose to oversee, police, and be responsible to differentiate between free speech and hate speech? Bureaucrats.

Think about how the Trudeau Government has expanded the bureaucratic powers of the CRTC to control algorithms online to ensure Canadians can only see what they want them to see and censor all other points of view with Bill C-11.

Think of the expanded powers of the bureaucrats at Environment Canada, allowing government inspectors to arrive unannounced, come onto your property and enter buildings without notice or permission.

Think of the powers at one of our largest bureaucracies, the Canada Revenue Agency. Few things fill Canadians with more fear and loathing than the simple acronym CRA, and understandably so.

This is not democracy, it’s all about control.

Tune in next week for the final installment of this series, where I’ll explain how others have successfully wrenched control from the bureaucracy and given it back to the people, and how we can do it in Canada.

As Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre puts it: How we make Canada “the freest country on earth.”