Since coming to power in 2015 the Trudeau government has been hiring full-time civil servants at triple the rate of Canada’s population growth, according to a new study by the Fraser Institute.
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The fiscally conservative think tank says the number of civil servants has increased by 26.1% from 2015, the year the Trudeau government was elected, up to the fiscal year 2022-23 — the latest data available.
That compares to a 9.1% increase in Canada’s population during that period.
Had civil service hiring matched population growth, the report says, federal taxpayers would have saved $7.5 billion in 2022/23 alone, as well as savings in every previous year starting in 2016.
In 2022/23, there were 431,537 civil servants classified as full-time equivalents, compared to 340,669 when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the Liberals won the 2015 election, the study says.
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If civil service hiring had matched population growth, there would have been 374,367 full-time employees in 2022/23, or 57,170 fewer than the number hired.
Based on the average cost of a full-time employee in the civil service in 2022-23 — $130,853, including salaries and benefits, as calculated by Parliamentary Budget Officer Yves Giroux — the additional cost to taxpayers was $7.5 billion in that year alone.
“Federal government employment has grown significantly faster than the Canadian population starting in 2015/16, and we’re already seeing the consequences,” said study author Ben Eisen in his report, “Growing Government Workforce Puts Pressure on Federal Finances.”
“The growth in the number of federal employees has been a major contributor to the growth in federal government spending and the size of deficits in recent years,” Eisen said, noting the federal deficit in 2022-23 was estimated at $35.3 billion, with 49% of the federal government’s operating costs related to spending on personnel.
Applying a saving of $7.5 billion in that year would have cut the federal deficit by 21.2%.
Eisen said while the Trudeau government has announced a plan to reduce the size of the civil service by 5,000 positions through attrition over five years, “it would be insufficient to reverse the growth in the federal civil service that has occurred since 2014/15.”
While the Trudeau government has defended the growth of the civil service as a response to the increased demands on government because of the global pandemic which began in 2020, Eisen said it’s time to assess both the size of the civil service and the cost of compensation, given research showing that public sector employees at all levels of government enjoy a wage premium of 8.5%, compared to private sector employees doing comparable jobs.
Giroux said last year that in addition to increased spending on full-time employees, the Trudeau government’s budget for hiring outside consultants had reached $21.4 billion, 106% higher than the $10.4 billion spent on consultants when the Trudeau government came to power promising to reduce the use of consultants.
Despite all the extra hiring, Giroux said, the level of government service to Canadians was deteriorating over time.
As one example, Giroux, in testifying before the Senate finance committee, criticized the Canada Revenue Agency for failing to pursue up to $15 billion in Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy pandemic overpayments, and for stonewalling his office when it requested information.
Giroux, who was the CRA’s chief data officer and assistant commissioner before he became PBO, said “while there are pockets of excellence” (in the public service) “there are also pockets of, I would say, nonchalance.”