The Explosive Cost of Canada's Civil Service Hiring Binge

In the tsunami of miserable economic and political news generated by the Trudeau government the past decade, party flacks have always tried to point to job growth in the economy as a sign that they’re doing something right. 

But if you look carefully at the numbers of full-time jobs “created”, it soon becomes apparent that most of the highly touted  “new” jobs are public-service positions. At all three levels of government the number of workers in Canada’s public sector has soared in recent years, far outpacing the hiring in the private sector. 

For example, the federal public service has grown by 38 per cent since Prime Minister Justin Trudeau came to power in 2015, according to MEI, a Montreal-based think tank. During the Covid years, nine out of every ten jobs created was in the public service.

Here was Trudeau in 2022 cheering on his aggressive hiring processes, which have also included a similar growth in the use of consultants. “Thanks to your hard work and the hard work of Canadians across the country, Canada’s unemployment rate is the lowest it’s been since the start of the pandemic. In fact, more than 154,000 jobs were created last month — and … in the COVID-19 Era, more than one million jobs have been recovered.”

Most living in Canada would agree that a crumbling infrastructure and healthcare shortages could justify adding bodies to the public rolls. But a deep dive into those jobs extolled by the PM shows an explosion of new positions, not in public works or the military, but in the vanity areas of DEI, gender equality and climate change. 

With their generous pensions and benefits these new employees are an expensive drag on the public purse. In addition, except for the very top of the pay scale, government salaries are typically higher than those in the public sector. Trudeau and Chrystia Freeland give Canadians the impression that their massive hiring binge— paid for by increasing debt— means a healthy growing economy. But the money that is moved from the private economy to public economies chokes productivity and creates inflation.

As a result, Canada’s GDP is lowest in the leading Western nations while its borrowing now sits at an unsustainable $713 billion. Carrying the debt is expected to cost the federal treasury $60.7 billion in 2028-29, according to the government’s own economic statement.

No wonder economists warn that this growth of government jobs is not sustainable in the long run. “If you look at how the private sector’s trending, it’s sharply decelerating,” Beata Caranci, chief economist at Toronto-Dominion Bank,

As just one example of runaway government hiring, listen to Kareem Allam, former Vancouver city budget chief, who went on Vancouver’s CKNW recently to describe how runaway hiring has affected his city. “We had 1,200 city employees in 2008. We have about 9,000 now. There are 700 people in the city of Vancouver staff that work full-time on climate change. And (yet) our GHG emissions keep going up.”

While Americans are experiencing the same bloating of the civil service, Allam points out that they are more efficient than Canadians. “Dawn Pinnock is the head of the Civil Service in the city of New York. She's their city manager. And not only is she responsible for being the city manager, she's also got the same responsibility as (Vancouver’s) Translink, but in New York. 

And it’s a city that has thirteen times the population of Greater Vancouver. Dawn makes US$ 240,000 a year. Our CEO of Translink, our CEO of Metro Vancouver, and our city manager combined make $1.4 million. The executive from New York doing the job of essentially three executives here in the lower mainland, and yet making a traction of what they make here.”

Naturally these salaries have to come from somewhere. That somewhere is tax. “It is unbelievable the amount of money that is pouring into city hall and the lack of accountability we’re seeing around how that money was being spent,” says Allam. “When Gregor Robertson first got elected as mayor in 2003 the city budget was $894 million. It's going to be well over $2.4 billion this year.

“That's almost a tripling of our taxes. Is anyone in Vancouver thinking that we've gotten a triple in the benefit of services? Are potholes getting better?”

There are some exceptions to the bloating of the public service and its budgets. In Calgary, the multi-billion Green Line transit system has been chewing through hundreds of millions without any progress. The original estimate of track was shrinking with the southeast part of the plan mothballed. Now the unpopular Green Line has been stopped by the provincial UCP government of Danielle Smith. 

Assessing the project as a “boondoggle” Transportation minister Devin Dreeshen said, “This is unacceptable and our government is unable to support or provide funding for this revised Green Line Stage 1 scope as presented in the city’s most recent business case… throwing good money after bad is simply not an option for our government.”Calgary’s progressive city council is seeking to find alternatives (they could always build a direct link to the airport) before they’re tossed out ion office in the next municipal elections. 

Would that Ontario and Toronto governments had paused before creating their Metrolinx Crosstown subway line, the 25-stop, 19-kilometre project. Work began in 2011 and Metrolinx previously announced completion dates of 2020 and 2021. Its budget has now soared to $13 billion with stories emerging of 260 cases of quality control issues still pending at the start if the summer. 

One of Pierre Poilievre’s favourite attack lines against the federal Liberals has been getting control of spending, making government live within its means as taxpayers do. No one expects him to slay the dragon as Javier Milie has done in Argentina. But Canadians will be looking to him to at least change the Trudeau Spend, Spend, Spend philosophy before it ruins the nation.

Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster  A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada's top television sports broadcaster, he’s a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. His new book Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL And Changed hockey is now available on Amazon. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his previous book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org . His 2004 book Money Players was voted sixth best on the same list, and is available via brucedowbigginbooks.ca.