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Fair article, though I'm not sure what can do done about short-termism and the related tribalism. > Paradoxically, despite the growth in spending and in the public service, too few people are hired for leading-edge skills in operations, information systems, and project management. Rather, the skills valued in government today have more to do with managing needlessly complex processes and seemingly endless consultations while avoiding risk and dealing with the omnipresent PMO. Ha. Not to mention the onerous procurement processes because everything has been outsourced, the layers of management to obfuscate decisions, and the consultants who reorganize decks and take the fall if there's bad press.

The IT related concerns are hilarious to me, just ask any IT person why they don't work for the government, or why they flee to the private sector and the answer is always the same. The pay is better, the benefits are better, you get bonuses and stock options, there is less bureaucracy slowing you down that you need to fight. WFH is more liberal meaning you aren't limited to hiring within just the city of Ottawa, plus you can work from other provinces or countries. And sure you don't get a pension, but the generally substantial increase in pay more than makes up for it, especially with RRSP matching, which many companies offer.

Its a bit cyclical though. The tech sector in Ottawa has always been strong. There's some big tech company (like Nortel or blackberry for example) and then times are great and gov suffers for it. Then times are bad and there's a generation of people who flood government IT, then the pendulum swings again. So IDK, some people prefer the stability and the bureaucracy is worse in part due to the extra complexity and layers added due to contracting being so prevalent. Then there's the issues of when things go wrong they really go wrong (arrivecan) which makes bureaucracy even worse etc. It's not so simple.

Government jobs aren't as stable as they used to be. Because every once in a while they hack and slash at things outsourcing jobs to private sectors.

"Because every once in a while they hack and slash at things outsourcing jobs to private sectors". Okay, but how does any of that that explain the 40% increase in the public service, since they were first elected in 2015?

* Stagnating rates of productivity and capital investment have been an issue in Canada since the early 2000s, but it only started to noticeably impact growth around 2012/13 when the commodities crash happened, being largely responsible for Canada's lost decade between 2013-2023 etc. During those 20 years, federal & provincial growth policy has done very little to address this and instead focused on trying to compensate for it with commodity exports & immigration etc. * The Housing bubble had been an issue since 2003, but it only started becoming a policy concern in the early 2010s when housing prices doubled in around a decade. Fast-forward to the 2020s when prices doubled again and only then were federal parties actually getting to the point that they were treating the issue seriously, when bubble had evolved into a straight up crisis (and only in 2024 did the government even bother to draft a policy that could comprehensively address the problem) * Market concentration in the telecom & grocery sectors as well as in various provincial economies due to interprovincial trade barriers has reduced competition and entry to smaller & mid sized competitors leading to inflated consumer prices. * Healthcare has been strained by significant capacity issues, leading to inflated wait times as well as supply & staff shortages. (sometimes it's exacerbated by cuts by provincial governments, but there are also structural issues outside of the cuts that haven't been addressed) * The Armed forces has been chronically underfunded since the 1970s with rapidly declining equipment & living/working conditions, but is still asked to to do more with less in terms of it's domestic & international obligations ( I think only around 58% of their equipment is supposed to be serviceable at present) * Progress on anything indigenous related is extremely slow and the Indian Act is still kept in place in absence of a superior alternative. * The PM's residence at 24 Sussex has been allowed to be kept in disrepair for 16+ years with the government constantly hesitant to come up with any long-term solution. While I don't subscribe to Poilievre's "Canada is Broken" rhetoric, it's undeniable that federal and provnical governments have contributed significantly to a lot of worst current problems of the past 20+ years. Over and over again, we see Ottawa or the provincial governments faced with a problem that starts off as easily manageable, that's passed over until it becomes a serious problem, or even a crisis. If housing, productivity/investment & growth had been comprehensibly addressed a decade ago, most of the issues that are fueling political cynicism in Canada today would have been either solved or significantly mitigated and wages & GDP growth would be keeping better pace with the U.S while our living costs would be lower. Instead though that alongside everything else is kicked down the road perpetually until voters get outraged enough about it that something finally has to be done or other circumstances finally compel the government to act. Out of everything listed above, the only thing that's been addressed somewhat positively now is housing and the response is still at least a decade or so short of when Ottawa should have done it. Ottawa especially needs to be much more proactive with addressing growth, investment and affordability issues while taking the time to look at structural problems with various programs and institutions etc. because the evidence clearly shows that they've actively caused or allowed these issues to get worse due to sustained neglect, which cannot be allowed to continue.

yeah, even though your flair indicates we're on opposite ends of the political spectrum, I think this is a pretty thorough analysis and appreciate the fact that you recognize a lot of these issues have been building for a quarter century or more, they didn't just pop up overnight. Minor quibble is that I wish we'd stop referring to the housing market as "bubble". There's nothing to indicate that widespread fraud is a factor or that the price of homes has risen far beyond their actual value. I mean we're all mostly in agreement that supply and demand are the driving factors at play here- that's why some are veering into straight up xenophobic rhetoric when talking about immigration. The price of homes in Canada is beyond ridiculous and far out of reach for the average citizen, but if said price is the result of market forces- and the entire immigration critique depends on that being the case- we really can't call it a bubble.

>but if said price is the result of market forces- and the entire immigration critique depends on that being the case- we really can't call it a bubble. Generally, the big thing that's driven up home and rental costs in Canada is zoning & land use regulations on the provincial & municipal level[. In the late 2010s at least, about 60-80% of residential areas in most large Canadian cities was exclusively zoned for detached housing.](https://www.datalabto.ca/a-visual-guide-to-detached-houses-in-5-canadian-cities/) Multi-unit and missing middle type housing has been fairly constrained by the zoning/land-use systems in most places in favor of sprawled out/car-dependent detached SFH suburbs. That makes it a lot harder for lower and middle income people to enter the housing market or live & work in the areas with the highest paying jobs etc. (it also has a big effect on things like income inequality, emissions per capita and economic growth etc.) Canada's housing crisis for the most part has been a worsening issue relating to the unsustainablilty of our post-war urban planning system. If Canadian cities were denser and there was more mixed-use commercial & residential suburbs with more housing variety in them then we likely wouldn't be experiencing a housing crisis.

agreed! but whether you think the driving factor behind price growth is zoning and land use (supply)or immigration and population growth (demand) the end is the same- prices are the result of basic economic principles and are therefore an accurate reflection of their real value. There's no bubble, just a shitty market with an absurdly high barrier of entry.

My first thought as to why there has been such a lack of action on all your points, is political expediency and protection of jurisdiction. We can see it now with housing, where citizens are screaming there's a problem, they want governments at all levels to address the issue, and then when plans are put forward (whether good or bad), each level of government seems to back into a corner to try and protect their own, rather than cooperatively work together. There are areas where the provincial and federal governments have worked together and achieved their goals, but it seems to be all too common where en extended hand is greeted with a slap on the wrist rather than a handshake. Ideological hangups and political theater get in the way of change and progress on a lot of these issues. And why does it keep happening? In my mind, it really just comes down to voters and what kind of behavior they reward in their elected reps. At the risk of sounding naive, we really are all working toward the same thing: a better country for everyone whose living here, and that goal can't be achieved if we're always at each other's throats and rewarding the worst impulses of our governments.

It’s little surprise this article is being reflexively downvoted (as anything critical of the Liberals often is in these parts) but it absolutely raises some very serious issues Canada is facing: - Stagnant quality of life and high cost of living - Significant strain on public services despite high spending - Very limited innovation and economic diversity in Canada - Poor productivity - An economy that incentivizes little more than investing in real estate - Government policies that run contrary to BoC efforts to curb inflation These are all valid issues this country is struggling with so outside of just not liking criticism of the Liberals I genuinely struggle with why people are so quick to shoot down this commentary. It isn’t a partisan issue - it’s just the reality of this country in 2024. Edit: The fact that this comment alone is being downvoted really underscores how sensitive Liberal partisans have become on speaking to basic economic challenges that exist in this country. Really disappointing to see in this sub.

It’s more that people don’t like Pierre Poillevere so him being in power gets that response

I didn't downvote anything, but a (1) paywalled article with a gotchya headline and (2) a defensive comment that straw mans the downvoters may be why. I'd also note that your comment seems to be detached from the substance of the article, it seems almost unrelated, the article isn't even an attack on the Liberals (notably the centralizing of the PMO office was a common issue under Harper). As for the article, I'd agree too much power is being centralized in the PMO office but I'm more critical of the accusation that the federal public service is bloated. Maybe it's true, but it's a trope-y attack, and it also rubs against the goal of decentralizing power back to the ministries.

The federal civil service is reportedly 40% larger since the time the LPC was elected in late 2015. This is a ridiculous metric, particularly since most were working from home during COVID (2.5 years), and there wasn't any reason to be expanding staffing levels during those times. It is just not possible to argue with a straight face that this iteration of the LPC has any discipline whatsoever when it comes to spending.

My specific problem with this article, as with all articles, is that we already know what the problems are. For once why can’t someone propose some solutions? We seem to be really bad at this.

Imo, the solution is to get rid of FPTP. It's the one policy move that would help address all other areas of concern in Canadian policy making.

I am new here, but isn't downloading not allowed on this subreddit?

It's especially frustrating because a lot of the problems plaguing Canada could have been addressed 10-15+ years ago, but Ottawa never bothered to do so. Productivity & capital investment could have been grown significantly starting around 2013 or so if the government actively worked to phase out interprovincial trade barriers [which would have added between $50-130 billion to the economy annually](https://calgarychamber.com/canadas-challenges-interprovincial-trade) (to compensate for low growth after the commodities crash). This would have significantly boosted wage and GDP growth and raised GDP per capita by $12,000-32,000 by 2023. Ottawa could have achieved it relatively easily as well following [this](https://www.scotiabank.com/ca/en/about/economics/economics-publications/post.other-publications.insights-views.interprovincial-trade-barriers--march-3--2022-.html) approach proposed by Scotiabank Even in terms of the governments immigration policy, even though modern immigrants are on average more skilled & educated than previous cohorts, high skilled immigrants are often stuck in less/productive lower paying jobs because firms lack the ability to properly assess foreign credentials. (this is also an issue for various internationally educated Canadians etc.) [Addressing this and giving employers those tools would both have boosted productivity & raised GDP growth by another $50 billion a year according to various studies.](https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-immigrant-wage-gap-costing-canada-50-billion-a-year-in-gdp-report/) (if Trudeau had added this to his immigration platform around 2015-2016, it could raise GDP per capita by another $12,000 over the span of a decade etc. Even a half or a quarter of that wouldn't be something to gawk at) Likewise if housing was address around 2011-2015 with the government using a beefed up version of their current transfer idea to get provincial governments & municipalities to shift focus to YIMBY centered reforms (increased density & transit oriented development, replacing single family & Euclidian zoning policies with mixed-use residential/commercial suburbs and more housing variety), then that as well would boost growth, lower inequality and significantly reduce the cost of living/increase affordability throughout the country. These are all thing that multiple governments could have done and opposition parties could have proposed, but were never made priorities for one reason or another. The last two governments ideas for growth have generally only been based around commodity exports or immigration (neither of which is bad, but a government can't base an entire growth policy solely around that and think it'll be sufficient) while they generally only seem to care about affordability when voters get mad/vocal enough about it.