Dubé wants to cut his department’s surplus of civil servants through attrition

Quebec's Minister of Health, Christian Dubé, responds to the Opposition during question period at the Quebec Legislative Assembly on Thursday, Nov. 28, 2024. (The Canadian Press/Jacques Boissinot) (Jacques Boissinot/The Canadian Press)

Health Minister Christian Dubé said on Tuesday that “it is not normal for there to be more civil servants with the creation of Santé Québec.”

He wants to eliminate positions through attrition, in which employees are reduced, particularly after retirement.

The Journal de Québec reported on Tuesday morning that hundreds of civil servants have been added since the creation of the new government corporation. Questioned on the subject in the halls of the National Assembly, Dubé acknowledged that this was not normal.

“We can’t have more civil servants than we had before,” he said.

Dubé would not say whether any civil servants would lose their jobs, but he did specify that “most of these people have job security.” He pointed out that there are some 350,000 employees in the civil service and the Quebec government, and on average, between 15,000 and 20,000 people retire each year.

“If we plan things well, we can use the attrition phenomenon to send people into retirement at no cost,” he explained.

Civil servants could also be relocated. According to Dubé, it is a matter of months before the reorganization is completed. At the end of the process, he said, there will be fewer civil servants in post than there were before Santé Québec was launched.

Dubé said he asked his deputy minister, Daniel Paré, to reduce the number of civil servants in the Health Ministry and that he had asked the same of Santé Québec’s president and CEO, Geneviève Biron.

“What I told Mr. Paré [...] is that there are still too many people in the ministry for the job they have to do now. I’m asking Mr. Paré the same thing I’m asking Ms. Biron: review your organization charts because there’s a limit to capacity,” said Dubé.

“In the end, when we have finished this exercise of setting up Santé Québec, there won’t be more; there will be fewer [civil servants],” he promised.

The Minister responsible for Seniors and Minister for Health, Sonia Bélanger, pointed out that Santé Québec only just started operating.

“When a CEO arrives in such a large organization, with such a gigantic budget, it’s normal for them to surround themselves with people they choose. That’s very important, but after that, there’s a clean-up job to be done. The ultimate goal is not to have 100 or 150 more managers at the end of the exercise,” she told journalists.

“Now they all have their game plan to ensure that there is no duplication,” she said.

Bélanger also referred to the “hundreds of managers,” saying that “the size of the administration had to be reduced.” She did not comment on possible job losses.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on March 18, 2025.