Party leaders targeting public service in federal election campaign

The Peace Tower on Parliament Hill is seen in Ottawa, Sunday, March 9, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang

OTTAWA — The president of Canada’s largest federal union says it’s not endorsing any party yet in this election but is keeping a close eye on how the parties plan to protect public services.

Sharon DeSousa, national president of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, said PSAC will be ranking the party leaders based on their platforms and stated support for the public service and will share those rankings online in the coming weeks.

“Right now, more than ever, we need a government that is going to ensure that they are putting the safety and sovereignty of Canada first and that means ensuring that they have good quality public services,” DeSousa said. “It’s very important that in this next election, we need to ensure that whichever party forms government has a plan to protect those public services.”

Last week, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre pledged at a campaign stop in Brampton, Ont. to cut the lowest income tax bracket by 2.25 per cent. The Conservatives said the tax cut would be fully implemented by fiscal year 2027-28 and would be paid for through cuts to government spending.

“We will be cutting bureaucracy, cutting consultants, cutting handouts to insiders, and we will cut back on foreign aid,” Poilievre said. “We will also bring in a dollar-for-dollar law that will require ministers to find one dollar of new savings for every dollar of new spending. That will drive down the cost and drive up the efficiency, so that we can get value for money.”

That wasn’t the first comment Poilievre made in recent months targeting the federal public service.

Poilievre said earlier this year that the public service is bloated and that a government led by him would not replace all federal workers when they retire.

“There are roughly 17,000 bureaucrats that voluntarily retire every single year. I’m not going to replace them all,” Poilievre said on Feb. 3. “And through that powerful mathematics of attrition, we will reduce the morbidly obese back-office bureaucracy.”

Liberal Leader Mark Carney has promised to cap the size of the public service and rein in government spending. While he hasn’t said where this cap would be set or how much he would reduce spending, Carney said during the Liberal leadership race that he would review program budgets and use new technology like artificial intelligence to improve efficiency in government.

Speaking outside Rideau Hall after triggering the election campaign on March 23, he told reporters that his plan was not about cuts but about “productivity.”

A Carney government would be expected to pursue some review of government operations. Incumbent Liberal candidate Ali Ehsassi recently took on a new role as “minister of government transformation,” as well as minister of public services and procurement.

PSAC has taken out social media ads to encourage Canadians to “vote for public services.”

While it isn’t endorsing anyone yet, one of its ads on Instagram does target the Conservative campaign, claiming “Pierre Poilievre is not for you, Canada.”

“Right now, Pierre Poilievre has arbitrarily threatened to cut 17,000 public service jobs per year and that concerns me,” DeSousa said. “Who is he talking about and who’s going to be doing those services?”

Mona Fortier, former president of the Treasury Board and the Liberal candidate for Ottawa—Vanier—Gloucester, said she has suggested attrition as a way to reduce the size of the public service.

“I think where we are focusing and what I’m advocating is for a healthy public service that will be aligned with the programs that we’re delivering, making sure that we have a place to have younger public servants that can come in,” Fortier said.

“Attrition might be a way to make sure that we don’t have the same level of growth as before, but again, we’ll see what the leader brings forward.”

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh has criticized Carney’s plans to trim the public service.

“Carney has said that he’ll shrink the public service. That’s a polite Liberal word for saying he’s going to cut workers,” Singh said in Edmonton last month.

An NDP spokesperson said a trade war is “absolutely the wrong time” to cut or freeze public sector workers. The party said the NDP is committed to investing in public services.

Canadians head to the polls for a general election on April 28.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 1, 2025.

Catherine Morrison, The Canadian Press