Former Top Bureaucrat Calls for Aggressive Public Service Cuts In Canada
Canada’s former top civil servant called current workforce reduction plans inadequate for trimming the country’s 370,000-strong federal bureaucracy.
Michael Wernick, who led Canada’s civil service as Privy Council clerk from 2016 to 2019, rejected both Liberal and Conservative proposals to reduce staff through attrition.
“Attrition is the worst way to get to a smaller, leaner public service,” Wernick told the Canadian Press. “That’s just coasting on retirements and departures. It’s not strategic.”
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has pledged to shrink bureaucracy but has not detailed specific cuts. His deputy Melissa Lantsman backs natural attrition, similar to the Liberal government’s 2024 budget strategy.
Jamie Sarkonak on the National Post notes that other countries take bolder steps. Argentina’s President Javier Milei cut 35,000 government jobs last year, slashing the workforce by 7%. The Trump administration is also pushing controversial cuts that echo the chaos Elon Musk brought to then-Twitter’s first few months.
It’s important to point out that Milei’s extreme austerity measures resulted in the first Argentinian budget surplus since 2008, but the measures also brought the country’s poverty rate up to 53% in the first half of 2024. The Trump administration’s cuts, particularly the “fork in the road” buyout program to current federal employees, face legal challenges.
Wernick wants politicians to specifically identify which government functions to eliminate. He previously urged leaders to create a “stop doing list” rather than wait for workers to retire.
Canada’s federal bureaucracy has grown significantly in recent years, increasing by 43% under the Trudeau administration. Experts say implementing workforce changes would require significant upfront costs in severance packages and legal expenses, while potentially achieving longer-term reform goals.
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