The Canadian federal civil service has grown twice as fast under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government, according to recent data from the Treasury Board.
The number of federal employees has increased by 43%, reaching 367,772 as of March 31, 2024, since the Liberals took over in 2015. This growth rate far outpaces Canada’s population growth of less than 15% during the same period.
The expansion of the civil service has been widespread, affecting various departments and regions across the country. Some notable increases include the Canada Revenue Agency, which saw a 48% rise in staff, and the Prime Minister’s Office, which grew by 77%. Atlantic provinces, particularly Newfoundland and Labrador and New Brunswick, experienced the most rapid regional growth, with increases of over 60% in federal employment.
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Treasury Board President Anita Anand defended the growth, claiming that it was necessary to deliver essential services and align with government priorities. She contrasted this approach with the previous Conservative government’s deficit reduction plan, which resulted in job losses and service impacts.
However, opposition leader Pierre Poilievre has criticized the expansion, arguing that despite the increased bureaucracy, service delivery has worsened in areas such as tax administration and passport processing.
“In other words, after nine years of Trudeau, Canadians are paying more for bureaucracy to get less in service,” he told members of the press in Vancouver back in May.
The growth reflects some of the Trudeau government’s policy priorities. For instance, the renamed department of Women and Gender Equality Canada saw a nearly fivefold increase in staff. Other departments experiencing significant growth include Infrastructure Canada and Public Services and Procurement Canada.
While the government has committed to finding savings of $4.2 billion over the next four years, including the elimination of about 5,000 public service jobs through attrition, critics question the effectiveness and necessity of such a large increase in the civil service. The lack of specific explanations for the roles of many new employees has also drawn scrutiny.
Moreover, this bloat in the public sector has continued to mask how the private job market has struggled. In February, for example, the government payroll swelled by 18,800 positions, offsetting — to say the least — the over 16,400 jobs shed by businesses in the same period.
This has also made it all the more difficult for the government to police procurement practices. It can be recalled that in February, at the height of the ArriveCan scandal, it was revealed that one of the biggest contractors of the Department of National Defence (DND) was actually a DND employee.
After that, the Office of the Auditor General (OAG) found and fired at least two more employees who were found to have failed to disclose secondary employment with the federal government.
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