Western Standard - August 19, 2025


Canada’s Bloated Bureaucracy： +99,000 Staff, 77% Higher Costs & Worse Services


Episode Stats


Length

4 minutes

Words per minute

193.132

Word count

793

Sentence count

39

Harmful content

Misogyny

2

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

The cost of the federal bureaucracy has ballooned by 77% since 2016, and it s time to trim the fat in Ottawa. But what will it mean for Canadian taxpayers if the government doesn t cut the size of the bureaucracy? And will services get worse?

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
00:00:00.000 the federal bureaucracy is so bloated, right? Okay. Like the federal government added 99,000
00:00:05.380 extra government bureaucrats since 2016, 99,000 more federal paper pushers, right? But it's not
00:00:11.780 just the number of bureaucrats that have gone up. So have the costs. Okay. The cost of the federal
00:00:17.440 bureaucracy has ballooned 77% since 2016. It is outrageous. Now we asked Leger to do two polls
00:00:26.520 for us. Okay. The first poll, very simple. Ask Canadians, do you think the government should
00:00:32.400 cut, increase, or maintain the size of the bureaucracy? And look, the polling results show
00:00:37.600 that more than half of Canadians said it's time to cut the size and cost the bureaucracy. Only 4%
00:00:43.580 of Canadians said that it should be increased. So I guess even some of the government bureaucrats are
00:00:48.340 looking around their offices and being like, yeah, there's some fat to cut. But look, if you remove
00:00:52.640 people who are unsure or don't know, a total of 66% or two thirds of Canadians are saying enough is
00:01:00.100 enough, take out the scissors, it's time to trim the fat in Ottawa. So just to play a little bit of
00:01:07.820 devil's advocate, I mean, if they cut too much, they cut too quickly, wouldn't everybody suffer and be
00:01:12.680 under, you know, a terrible pressure due to all the lack of all those government services provided?
00:01:17.140 You mean the federal services could get worse than what they are now? Is that what you're saying,
00:01:21.780 Corey? I don't know, there's always room to get worse. Look, it's a great segue into the next
00:01:27.100 question that Leger asked, okay? Because, you know, when I talk about the cost of the bureaucracy,
00:01:32.100 I always got to say, like, ask yourself, are you getting 77% better services from the federal
00:01:37.840 bureaucracy? And it turns out the answer to that question is a big fat no, right? So the Leger poll,
00:01:43.000 the second question, found that 50% of Canadians think services have gotten worse since 2016.
00:01:51.000 Okay? Only 11% said that services have gotten better since 2016, but even the majority of those
00:01:58.980 people still say that services should be better than what they have. So, you know, you asked me,
00:02:04.400 well, if they cut off a bunch, you know, if they lay off a bunch of bureaucrats, fire a bunch of
00:02:08.280 bureaucrats, will services get worse? Well, you know, I got to put that question back to the government
00:02:12.660 union bosses that are fear-mongering right now over potential savings and be like, hey, hold on a
00:02:17.860 second. You, uh, the cost of the bureaucracy has gone up significantly for Canadian taxpayers and
00:02:23.680 yet services are, are still dismal. Okay. So I look at the numbers and I'm like, holy, like this is
00:02:29.780 such a bloated government and clearly adding more bureaucrats doesn't mean better results for 0.75
00:02:35.880 Canadians. No. And a parallel to it, which is, you know, kind of, it's a different discussion kind
00:02:41.940 of, but it offers a good parallel. Our can of postal workers, whereas, uh, you know, we are getting more
00:02:46.820 postal service than we ever did. In fact, we're using less than we ever have, but the cost of the
00:02:51.060 institution is rising higher and higher. And I've been a little, uh, vocal online about my thoughts
00:02:56.420 on postal workers and perhaps they, uh, they should seek newer employment, but the union types and
00:03:00.320 everything keeps saying, well, you'll pay even more when they're all on welfare. How could we lay them
00:03:04.160 off? It would mess with the entire economy. They contribute so much through their taxes. 0.98
00:03:08.080 You know, that argument is going to come from the bureaucracies and their unions as well, right?
00:03:11.940 Well, hold on a second though, right? The average compensation for a federal bureaucrat,
00:03:16.940 the average is $125,000 a year. So no, we're not going to be paying more when it, when, and if the
00:03:25.440 government cuts its bureaucracy, right? Like, come on. I mean, look, the bureaucracy is consuming more
00:03:30.560 than half of the government's operating budget. And like, I, to a point that I think you're getting at,
00:03:35.140 there's just certain things that we don't need the government to be doing, right? We don't need to be,
00:03:39.320 have a essentially a government monopoly handing out mail, right? Like, come on, we got email. We've
00:03:45.240 had email for a very long time. We definitely don't need a government monopoly. We don't need
00:03:49.180 a government state broadcaster. Okay. We don't need the government losing hundreds of millions
00:03:55.020 of dollars trying to operate a train company, i.e. via rail, right? So there's just so many different
00:04:00.640 things that we don't need any government to be doing. And we especially don't need a government
00:04:05.300 government in Ottawa to be doing.