OTTAWA — Time is money in Canada’s public service, even when you’re off the clock.
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Public servants took home nearly $150 million in standby pay last year, according to newly-released documents, with some taking home six-figure sums — on top of their regular salaries — just to be on-call.
In response to an order paper question tabled by Conservative MP Michael Barrett, many government departments and agencies are paying out thousands — even millions — of dollars annually in standby pay.
The Government of Canada defines workers on standby as “employees who are called in by their employer to work during a specific period. The employer expects these employees to report to work if called upon to do so.”
So far this year, Canada Revenue Agency paid out more than $1.9 million in standby pay, with 145 employees earning in excess of $5,000 to be on-call.
The highest standby payment to a single CRA employee this year was around $20,000 — that’s compared to 2016 when a single worker earned an extra $65,000.
Export Development Canada paid out around $230,000 in standby pay so far this year, down from the agency’s 2021’s nine-year high of $434,000.
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The agency’s biggest payout to a single employee was in 2023, when a lone worker took home $105,000 in standby pay.
Some government agencies refused to offer data, citing security or privacy concerns — including the Communications Security Establishment (CSE,) Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS,) Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
The Canadian Museum of Human Rights reported nearly $30,000 in standby pay so far this year, but used the privacy excuse to withhold further details.
CBC/Radio Canada paid $685,000 in standby pay so far in 2024, with $14,300 reported as the single biggest payout to one employee.
The biggest user of standby pay was the RCMP, which, so far this year, paid out $72.2 million. Last year was the RCMP’s most expensive year for standby pay, at $86.6 million.
The RCMP paid 9,500 uniformed personnel more than $5,000 each in on-call pay this year, with $110,000 going to a single person.
In 2017 and 2022, a single RCMP member took home in excess of $193,000 just in on-call pay.
An RCMP source told the Toronto Sun that standby pay is common for the force’s uniformed members, particularly in rural detachments, and that annual standby payments in the tens of thousands of dollars aren’t uncommon.
Other agencies with large on-call payouts this year include the Canadian Border Services Agency ($3.9 million), Employment and Social Development Canada ($1.3 million), the Department of National Defence ($4.5 million) and Shared Services Canada ($11.4 million).
Franco Terrazzano, federal director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, said this is yet another example of Canada’s out-of-control bureaucracy.
“Taxpayers are right to question why individual bureaucrats are taking tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars in wait-by-the-phone pay in a single year,” he said.
“Are we paying CRA bureaucrats to stand by the phone and wait for taxpayers’ calls to go to voicemail?”
Polling over the summer suggests Canadians are in favour of putting the public service on a crash diet, with Canada’s public service ballooning by 42%, or 110,000 positions, since 2015 — while Canada’s population only grew by 14% across the same time period.
Earlier this fall, The Toronto Sun reported that government employees take home hundreds of millions in overtime annually, with RCMP members alone claiming over $444 million for working extra hours.
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