Increase in Federal Employees Hasn’t Resulted in Improved Services: Parliamentary Budget Officer

Parliamentary Budget Officer Yves Giroux waits to appear before the Standing Senate Committee on National Finance in Ottawa on Oct. 25, 2022. Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press

Parliamentary Budget Officer Yves Giroux says the Liberal government’s increase in both the number of public servants and the associated spending has not resulted in improved services for Canadians.

“I’ve noticed a marked increase in the number of public servants since 2016 and a proportional increase in spending that corresponds with the increase in public servants, but we haven’t seen similar improvements when it comes to service. Performance indicators don’t correspond to this increase,” Mr. Giroux told the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates on Oct. 19.

“It’s possible that even departments setting their own targets are unable to reach them. In 2022, we saw issues with passports, with Border Services, and with the wait times in other sectors. So yes, it is worrisome.”

According to data published by the Treasury Board of Canada in June 2023, the public service currently sits at 357,247 employees, which is almost 40 percent higher than when Justin Trudeau became prime minister in 2015. An April report by the Parliamentary Budget Officer found that operational spending had also grown from $87.5 billion in the 2019–20 fiscal year to $115.9 billion in 2021–22, which was a 32 percent increase.

Over that time period, government spending on salaries, pensions, and other employee compensation also rose from $46.3 billion to $60.7 billion, and the average compensation for the equivalent of a full-time employee rose by 6.6 percent, from $117,497 in 2019–20 to $125,300, according to Mr. Giroux.

On Oct. 19, Mr. Giroux was asked about a report that said the number of federal employees was set to decline from 428,000 to 400,000 by 2025–26, while Canada’s population is expected to grow by 5.7 percent to 9.3 percent during the same period.

“Would you expect to see a decline in the availability or quality of services that Canadians receive if the population continues growing faster than the public service?” asked NDP MP Gord Johns.

Mr. Giroux responded that it would depend on where the additional public servants were placed and where additional increases might happen.

“What we’ve seen is the government has announced additional public servants in areas where they provide direct services to the population,” he said.

“But we’ve also seen an increase in public servants on back-end applications—internal services, for example—so public servants that are not directly responsible for direct services. So it depends on where these additional public servants were or would be in the future, to have an impact on the services.”