Here’s what federal parties are pitching for the federal public service

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This article was published 27/04/2025 (525 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA – Party leaders have talked a lot about Canada’s federal public service during this election campaign — its size, its functions and how it could be made more efficient.

Here’s what the Liberals, NDP and Conservatives have promised for the federal bureaucracy.

The Liberal party

Liberal Leader Mark Carney has committed to undertaking a review of the public service and government spending to boost productivity.

The Liberal platform says that, as part of the spending review, a Carney government would ensure that the size of the federal public service “meets the needs of Canadians.”

“We are also committed to capping, not cutting, public service employment,” the platform says.

The Liberal platform plans for $28 billion in unspecified cost reductions through “increased government productivity.” Carney has said he expects his government would actually “exceed those cost reductions.”

The platform says the spending review would focus on “clear targets” and that a portion of savings would be redeployed to investments in technology and people.

The party says the review could focus on amalgamating service delivery or reducing the government’s reliance on outside consultants.

As part of the review, the Liberals say a Carney-led government would look at where AI could be used to boost productivity. The document also says his government would create an “Office of Digital Transformation” to see how technology could “eliminate duplicative and redundant red tape.”

Carney also has promised that his government would train 1,000 new Canada Border Services Agency officers and deploy more Canadian diplomats and officials abroad to expand trade and “restore Canadian leadership.”

His party has pledged to create several new government entities, including a Major Federal Project Office, a Defence Procurement Agency, a Bureau of Research, Engineering and Advanced Leadership in Science, and Build Canada Homes.

The Liberals say that, based on the initial results of the spending review, the government would institute a permanent process to “link spending and outcomes across departments and continuous improvement in spending control.”

The Conservative party

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has promised to reduce the size of the public service through attrition.

His platform promises to “cut the fat, not the front line services” and says he would “streamline” the public service by replacing only two of every three departing employees.

The Conservative platform also estimates a Poilievre-led government could save $10.5 billion by cutting spending on consultants.

The Conservatives say they would eliminate university degree requirements for most federal public service roles. The party says it would also ban federal officials from profiting from government contracts and use “plain language laws” so that legislation is clear, enforceable and accessible.

The Conservative platform says the party would hire at least 2,000 more border agents.

Poilievre is vowing to eliminate what he calls “woke ideology” from the public service, federal funding for university research and military culture.

Poilievre also has promised to create a Canadian Indigenous Opportunities Corporation to provide “shared equity in resource and industrial projects.”

The NDP

The NDP platform says the party rejects “calls for cuts to the public sector and to social programs — cuts which would be made to reach a budgetary balance in the short-term, despite the costs and the consequences for people.”

It says the party is instead proposing increased investments in both infrastructure and people.

“When faced with the fallout of a reckless trade war, we won’t balance the books on the backs of workers and families,” the platform says.

The NDP says a surtax on “the most profitable corporations” would help balance new spending on programs and prevent a deficit.

The platform promises $8 billion in savings over four years through reducing the federal government’s use of consultants.

The NDP also says it would hire “thousands of new border officers” and build a new training centre for Canada Border Services Agency officers in Windsor, Ont. The party says those initiatives and other crime prevention and public safety initiatives would come at a cost of $1.8 billion over four years.

What experts are saying

Former clerk of the Privy Council Michael Wernick said the platforms offer more questions than answers. 

He said “we don’t know what they mean” when the Conservatives talk about eliminating “woke” culture, while “passive attrition” is not the way to get to a public service with the right people in the right places.

Wernick said it’s not clear from the Liberal platform what the party’s spending review plans would mean for programs and professions, and the proposed new procurement agency is still not defined.

Both the Liberals and Conservatives “talk about reducing the use of outside contractors, but where is the investment in training and developing the public service to take on the work?” he said.

The next government will have to address some unfinished business left over from the Trudeau government by reforming outdated employment equity and access to information legislation, he added.

Meanwhile, Wernick said, Canadians are still waiting for the release of a task force report on public service productivity.

“Whoever forms the government will soon be back at the bargaining table with the unions, this time with a focus on job security,” he said. “None of the parties is yet ready to talk openly and candidly about how they see AI and other emerging technologies affecting jobs.”

David McLaughlin, executive editor of Canadian Government Executive Media and former president and CEO of the Institute on Governance, said the Liberals are promising a more “measured, system-wide” approach to government spending.

The Conservative party “is promising a more disruptive, top-down approach that uses prescriptive levers like one-for-one laws to force a retrenchment of government from certain activities,” he said, adding that the Liberals have a more “activist” platform that would require more government activity, not less.

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McLaughlin said both the Liberal and Conservative leaders are vying to represent Ottawa-area ridings where thousands of public service voters live, so it’s not surprising that they’re not proposing a radical downsizing of the public service.

“In the end, both parties are promising to build things. That will require a more nimble, more focused, and more responsive (public service) than we have now,” he said.

Sharon DeSousa, national president of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, said it’s disappointing to see both the Liberal and Conservative platforms calling for a leaner, more “efficient” public service.

DeSousa said cuts to public services and the people who deliver them will hurt everyone in Canada, but the union expects to work closely with the new government to “commit to protecting public services.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 27, 2025.