COLUMN: On Parliament Hill – How to shrink the bureaucracy

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 07/09/2024 (193 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The past three weeks, I have discussed the dangers posed by Canada’s out-of-control bureaucracy.

Since coming into power nine years ago, Justin Trudeau has grown Canada’s bureaucracy by nearly 100,000 civil servants; a 40 percent increase in size and a 67 percent increase in cost.

Under Trudeau, the Government of Canada is spending more money annually on bureaucracy than on our military or health care.

Bigger government means more intrusive government and less freedom for individual citizens.

Under Trudeau government has become less transparent, less accountable, and more arbitrary.

The fact Trudeau has paid for it with inflationary deficit spending is harmful to our economy—as noted last week, you are paying more at the grocery store and at the pump just so he can have his bigger government.

This week, I will conclude the series by suggesting some steps to start fixing the problem and set Canadians free from the tyranny of big government.

First, it is always helpful to look at precedents.

When we look at dealing with runaway bureaucracy, three main figures come to mind Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, and Brian Mulroney.

In the 1980s these three conservative politicians took on the public sectors of their respective countries with varying results. While there is not time or space here to delve into the specifics of their policies, there were several common approaches.

All three were determined to shrink the size and power of government, and all three had some temporary success.

All three were determined to re-exert political control over the civil service. To limit the powers held by unelected bureaucrats.

All three also attempted to revamp how the public service did business. They believed getting the public service to adopt a more private sector style of management would achieve better results.

While they achieved only limited success in shrinking government (largely due the nature of democracy where the pendulum swings and policies change with new opposing government) I believe there is merit in re-visiting these approaches.

In line with this belief, the experiences of my decade in federal politics, and a lifetime as a taxpayer and businessman, here are my recommendations.

One, a conservative approach. Fewer government regulations require less bureaucrats to enforce them. By slashing red tape, we can shrink government; for example, simplifying our tax code and eliminating boutique programs, particularly those funded by deficit spending. Our proposed dollar-for-dollar approach will help achieve this. Give people more control over and responsibility for their own lives.

Two, direct ministerial oversight and management of departments. If ministers were truly held accountable for their departments, it would make both ministers and the bureaucrats under them more accountable. Under Trudeau, too many ministers are simply incompetent. Ministers should be appointed based on competence and qualifications, rather than political or DEI related reasons. As the elected representative responsible to the people, ministers who fail to do their job or completely trainwreck their departments, should be held truly accountable for those failures.

Three, metrics-based management. Currently the public service is achieving less than 50 percent of their departmental objectives. If employees don’t know what they need to accomplish and/or if there are no real incentives or consequences for success or failure, you end up with paper pushers. Applying private sector management to certain sectors of the public service would (I believe) see great improvement—particularly when applied to frontline workers who directly serve the public. To others however, I recognize it would not. The public sector is so diverse a “one size fits all” approach would be inadvisable. However, to apply a metrics-based management model with clear objectives, timelines, and most importantly incentives and consequences for success or failure would be beneficial across government.

Four, hire and promote based on merit and qualification rather than quotas, DEI, or other non-job-related qualifications. The most qualified person who is the best fit should get the job. A qualified employee is always going to be able to achieve more than multiple unqualified or under-qualified employees.

Five, offer competitive wages to retain the best people. While many public servants earn roughly 8.5 percent higher wages than those in the private sector, this is not true for all public servants, particularly in the field of IT. If one very qualified person can do a job but replacing them—when they leave for a better paying private sector job—requires hiring multiple people, that’s an unnecessary growth in and expense to government.

Sixth, public servants must be back in the office. Full stop. The COVID work-from-home experiment has failed spectacularly. Canadians have seen consistently poorer outcomes in services, accessibility, and processing times. There are also very legitimate concerns about a lack of oversight and the danger of having people’s personal information (including financial information) outside the safety of a controlled workplace.

Conservatives understand that government serves the people, not the other way around.

A new Conservative government will cut regulations and bring back common sense.

We will limit the size and power of the government and make Canada the freest country on earth.