Government is more than Politicians, and every part is Deadly
Canada’s auditor general, Karen Hogan, has delivered her own DOGE style review of Canada’s financing. To the surprise of no one who pays attention she has found the same level of corruption in Canada as Musk found in the US. Hogan did not do a deep dive into all spending the way DOGE did. She just chose a few projects to audit. That is the main difference between Canada and the US. In Canada the corruption is so widespread you don’t need to look hard to find it.
The most likely outcome of her findings is that Parliament will introduce new rules. They will do this not because it will work. Even Hogan admits that it won’t.
Hogan took the unusual step of not making any recommendations on her findings, saying the problem isn’t a lack of rules but the federal bureaucracy ignoring them.
Parliament will introduce new rules to appear to be doing something about corruption without actually doing anything about corruption. Politicians have no more incentive to curtail corruption than the bureaucrats since they both profit from it.
That is the central point of this sad tale. The government is not just politicians. Government is a criminal enterprise comprised of politicians and bureaucrats, and the bureaucrats outnumber the politicians 1000 to 1.
Term limits for politicians will not solve this problem because bureaucracy is the problem more often than Politicians. If Canada and the US want to get serious about eliminating corruption they must have term limits for any association with government. Once you have been in politics or been employed by the government for 10 years you are done.
This should be cumulative. There should be no jumping from politics to employment or from one government to another. If you are the mayor of a small town for 10 years you are not done. You can’t jump to federal politics or take a consulting job with another government. Similarly, if you were a city manager for 10 years you can’t run for city council or manage another city. It is back to the real world where you must deal with any problems you caused while in government.
The permanent bureaucracy, or the deep state if you prefer, is a much large problem than politicians. Many times, the most stupid things politicians do are a result of being played by the deep state. During COVID Trump got played by the deep state. His gut reaction was to avoid lockdowns and search for treatment options but that did not align with Fauci’s vaccine objectives. Fauci used the control he solidified over 50 years to attack Trump from all sides. His control of the health bureaucracy allowed him to control the narrative. Trump got information from multiple sources that were really the same single source.
Yesterday, the US bombed Iran. I must wonder. Did Trump get played again? Iran has been weeks away from a nuclear weapon for decades. 2 weeks to flatten the curve dragged on for years. 2 weeks to flatten the nukes has outlasted even that. Did the deep state just drag Trump into another war? I don’t know. What I do know is that I will not trust anything from government until we shatter the power of the permanent bureaucracy.
