Canadians aren’t confident government is competent—can conservatives capitalize?  A new survey on the capacity of Canada’s public service contains a finding that should give pause to advocates of an ever-expanding state. More than two-thirds of Canadians aren’t confident that governments can spend taxpayer money wisely, and 61 percent doubt their ability to plan a decade or two ahead. The skepticism cuts across regions, including Quebec—a province long associated with an expansive role for government. The @IRPP, which helped conduct the survey, interprets these findings as a call to strengthen state capacity. Canada has large ambitions, from major infrastructure projects to a bigger role in the world, and achieving them requires a public service capable of delivering results. That interpretation is reasonable. But the findings point to something else as well. Canadians were roughly divided on the public service’s ability to deliver day-to-day services and adapt to new technologies. Their deepest doubts are concentrated elsewhere: in government’s stewardship of public money and its capacity to execute long-term priorities. That’s significant because the skepticism is concentrated in the areas where governments tend to justify their biggest ambitions. It reveals a growing tension between support for government in principle and confidence in government in practice. For conservatives, those tensions point to a different lesson than the one drawn by the IRPP. The answer isn’t necessarily to make the state more capable so that it can do more. It’s to ask whether government is trying to do too much in the first place. Governments earn public trust by performing their core functions competently. They lose it when responsibilities accumulate faster than their capacity to execute them. A state that takes on tasks better suited to individuals, markets, or civil society risks undermining confidence in government itself. The survey doesn’t tell us that Canadians have become conservatives. It may suggest, however, that they’re becoming more receptive to a conservative argument: that a more focused government is likely to be a more competent government, and a more competent government is more likely to earn the public’s trust.