While you're clipping coupons and wondering if you can afford steak or shampoo this week, the federal government has been on a decade-long hiring spree—ballooning the bureaucracy by nearly 99,000 employees since 2016.

That's not a typo. Ninety-nine thousand new federal bureaucrats. You'd think with numbers like that, the government could at least answer a phone, process a passport, or deliver a benefit cheque on time. But no, performance is still in the toilet, and according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, fewer than half of departments even meet their own targets.

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) just dropped the receipts on what can only be described as a taxpayer-funded feeding frenzy. Back in 2016, there were about 259,000 federal bureaucrats. Today? Nearly 358,000. That's a 38% increase in government staff. Meanwhile, Canada's population grew by what, maybe 12% over that same period? But sure, we needed three bureaucrats for every new Canadian.

And it gets worse. The average full-time federal employee now costs us $125,300 a year, once you factor in salary, pensions, perks, and paid time off for every grievance under the sun. And while many Canadians were losing jobs or taking pay cuts during lockdowns, the government handed out over 1 million pay raises and $1.5 billion in bonuses.

What's it all adding up to? A public service that cost $40 billion in 2016… and now costs $69.5 billion in 2023–24. That's a 73% increase in spending to get… well, less.

Now, I know what you're thinking: Where are all these new hires going? Well, let me tell you. Seven departments have more than doubled their staffing since 2016, including Women and Gender Equality Canada, which grew by 334%, and Infrastructure Canada, which ballooned by a staggering 375%.

Meanwhile, Employment and Social Development Canada added nearly 17,000 people, and the CRA—yes, your friendly neighbourhood tax collectors—hired 13,000 more staffers to poke through your small business receipts.

And what's the Liberal plan to fix it? According to their 2025 platform, they'll "cap" the size of the public service. Not shrink it. Not reform it. Not tie performance to funding. Just freeze the bloated mess in place and call it a day.

As Franco Terrazzano from the CTF put it:

"Capping the bureaucracy doesn't go nearly far enough. It just entrenches the Trudeau government's costly hiring spree."

And he's right. The Liberals spent the last decade building an empire of bureaucrats—high-paid, underperforming, and practically impossible to fire. And now Carney wants to lock that empire in place? Canadians can't afford it.

If the size of the bureaucracy had simply grown in line with population, we'd be saving $7 billion a year. That's money that could have gone to tax relief, to debt reduction, or to core services Canadians actually use.

Instead, it's going to endless middle managers, DEI consultants, carbon cops, and gender advisors.

So next time you hear Ottawa whining about deficits or telling you there's no room in the budget for real tax relief or real spending cuts, just remember: they found room for 99,000 more bureaucrats.