Former Privy Council clerk Michael Wernick says awarding a bonus involves ‘a fairly sophisticated conversation’ that considers how they achieved key targets. ‘Did you leave a trail of bodies behind you … or did you strengthen your team?’
A refugee advocate says the revelation that a dozen public servants broke Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada’s rules by improperly accessing its data system could stem from a lack of official communication from the department to applicants.
Its software replacement will fail again if the government doesn’t address the root causes: lack of flexibility and connectivity with existing systems.
Leaderless since January, the Office of the Correctional Investigator is still investigating complaints from incarcerated people and making regular visits to prisons, but has been left out of key discussions amid government-wide budget cuts.
From asbestos to pests, to not having enough space, at what point is the Government of Canada liable for the health and safety of its workers?
Overall hiring has decreased by 32 per cent and promotions by 18 per cent compared to the year before. This analysis aims to provide an initial assessment of cuts on employment equity and whether the data substantiates concerns raised by unions and advocates.
Kevin Lynch and Jim Mitchell co-authored A New Blueprint for Government: Reshaping Power, the PMO and the Public Service, which is shortlisted for the prestigious 2025 Donner Prize.
Tory Treasury Board critic Stephanie Kusie recently said she had high hopes the April 28 update would ‘finally outline progress made’ with the Liberals’ spending review, which aims to cut billions of dollars and thousands of jobs from the public service.
‘The fact that careful and deliberate steps have not been taken to ensure that employment equity groups are not disproportionately harmed by these historic austerity measures tells us everything we need to know about our employer,’ says union leader Nathan Prier.
PSPC says it has identified so far a total of $5.5-million in improper billing and recovered $4.8-million to date.
The agency confirmed it will be cutting 348 staff, both executives and non‑executives, and has hired 68 as part of a goal of hiring 1,000 border agents. The timeline to fulfill that pledge is by 2028-29.
With thousands of jobs cut entirely from the public service and thousands more retiring early, ‘that could put operations, in some places, at risk,’ warns union leader Pamela Isfeld, noting the early retirement program has already seen significant interest.
Public Services and Procurement Canada says shaving three years off the timeline to bring Dayforce online won’t cut into time for testing and stabilizing the new system before it’s applied throughout the public service.
Air Canada is subject to the Official Languages Act, and its CEO, Michael Rousseau, will retire after facing numerous complaints for not communicating in French, following a condolence video for two Canadian pilots who died on March 22. Commissioner Kelly Burke says the scope of the reaction shows ‘official languages are highly valued in this country.’
The investigation concluded ‘the true intent’ of Christiane Fox, then-deputy minister at the department, was to help Bjorn Charles ‘find new employment, and this occurred under her watch through the creation of a position in her department to fit [his] needs.’
The Canada Revenue Agency says it will expand the use of artificial intelligence in detecting fraud and ensuring compliance, but unions representing affected workers say job cuts will hinder efforts to go after tax cheats.
The most recent report on diversity in the public service says hiring dipped by 40 per cent last year as the bureaucracy began reversing course on a decade of significant growth. But this appears to have had limited impact on equity efforts.
The feds appear to be taking an economic approach to reconciliation, but ‘socioeconomic issues are not the only issues’ facing Indigenous communities in Canada, says political science professor Chadwick Cowie.
Auditor General Karen Hogan said the backlog of pay issues needs to be eliminated as soon as possible in order to prevent transferring these unprocessed transactions to a new pay system.
Reduced spending is attributed to the federal government’s spending review and expiring funding for the national strategy for rare disease drugs, Canadian Drugs and Substances Strategy, and for home care and mental health.
A Hill Times analysis of data from four departments shows 97 per cent of their executive job cuts are targeting junior managerial posts at the EX-01 to EX-03 levels.
Without a clear and consistent framework, let alone a readily available funding mechanism, critical time is often wasted in re-negotiating fundamentals. Political considerations and public debates draw valuable resources and tend not to be helpful.
New documents from 90 federal organizations forecast how many jobs will be shed in the coming years, and which programs will end, though some departments are more specific than others.
The question is not whether standards should remain high, but whether the systems used to recognize merit are broad enough to capture the full range of available talent.
More than 54 per cent of the Carney government’s 52 top bureaucrats are in new roles, with 22 government bodies under new direction thanks to the December 2025 and March shuffles, and only a few departments under Trudeau-era leaders.
