Number of federal employees up by 40% under Trudeau: report
While the Department of National Defence and Library and Archives Canada are getting smaller, there have been sharp rises in full-time jobs at departments like Employment and Social Development, the Public Health Agency, and the Canada Revenue Agency.
With 21,000 federal workers hired last year, the total number of federal employees in Canada now stands at 357,247 — nearly 40% higher than in 2015 when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was first elected, according to information from the Treasury Board of Canada.
The additional 21,000 brings the total number of federal workers hired under Trudeau to 98,268, the National Post reported.
Spending on the federal government is also increasing rapidly alongside the growth in personnel. Operational spending went up from $87.5 billion in the 2019-20 fiscal year to $115.9 billion in 2021-22, according to the Parliamentary Budget Office — a 32% increase.
Not all departments of the federal government are growing at the same rate. While the Department of National Defence (DND) and Library and Archives Canada are getting smaller, there have been sharp rises in full-time jobs at departments like Employment and Social Development, the Public Health Agency, and the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA).
The CRA’s number of employees increased by 1,571 in 2020-21 and by 6,626 in 2021-22. Meanwhile at the DND, 2,069 jobs were lost in 2020-21, and another 89 in 2021-22.
Though the pandemic and related government spending have had widespread negative effects on the Canadian economy, federal executives haven’t been hurting under the Liberals, the Post story noted.
Between 2015 and 2022, federal executives received $1.3 billion in bonuses. 89% of executives “earned” bonuses between 2019-20 and 2021-22.
The federal government does not publicize a “sunshine list” of employees making over $100,000 a year, but a report last summer by the Post put that number at 114,443. This included 39,000 six-figure jobs added in 2021 alone.
Readers may recall that the federal workers' union Public Service Alliance of Canada went on strike in the spring, with 120,000 members demanding wage increases.
“Taxpayers have paid for hundreds of thousands of pay raises, hundreds of millions in bonuses and for tens of thousands of extra bureaucrats and the government still can’t meet half of its own performance targets,” said Franco Terrazzano of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
“Canadians need a more efficient government, not a bloated government full of highly paid bureaucrats.”
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