And all of a sudden everyone pretended they'd never encountered some government employee doing the bare minimum to avoid being fired for cause.
Last time I was at the passport office they literally had someone pointing folks to 1 of 2 lines, instead of, y'know, a sign. (And yes, there was someone else there who was clearly there to help as needed, which ended up with them just slowly pacing the room.)
Or, if we move to more remote work (which many departments now say they'll do to cut costs) you don't need as many people in the office planning departments etc.
When there's too much support around making the process smooth thanks to the extra hands: "Where are my tax dollars going?"
When there's too little support around and the process is inefficient and slow: "Where are my tax dollars going?"
Ha, I quite like that!
I think there's a reasonable balance between the nihilism of DOGE "FIRE EVERYONE" and this position where we can't possibly imagine hiring more people for lifetime job from which it is almost impossible to get fired, might not be the best use of limited resources.
(I couldn't help but laugh when during an interview Davies asked "will people want to wait half a year to hear back from the CRA? Take a year for their passport?" And then Kapelos adroitly pointed out that wasn't the case back in 2021...)