Federal government plans to reduce size of public service through attrition: minister

A new report suggests PM Mark Carney’s campaign platform could devastate the federal government. CTV’s Stefan Keyes reports.

Despite warnings from experts that the federal government will have to make deep cuts to the public service if it hopes to meet its promises to reduce operational spending, Government Transformation Minister Joël Lightbound says the “intention” is to rely on retirements and resignations.

“As the prime minister has mentioned, our intention is to go through attrition in terms of reducing the size of public service,” Lightbound said, when asked whether the government’s ongoing spending review will lead to job cuts.

The minister made the comments during a question-and-answer period with reporters following the announcement of a new Cultural Heritage Science facility on Thursday.

Lightbound added it’s “too early for (him) to tell” whether the savings will mean cuts, but repeated that the “intention” is to rely on attrition.

Ahead of an expected fall budget, Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne and Treasury Board President Shafqat Ali issued letters to Prime Minister Mark Carney’s cabinet last month, asking them to present plans by the end of summer to find day-to-day operational savings.

Ministers were told to find 7.5 per cent savings for the 2026-27 fiscal year that begins on April 1, 2026, followed by 10 per cent in 2027-28 and 15 per cent in 2028-29, CTV News reported at the time.

“As the prime minister mentioned during the campaign, we’re capping this size of the public service,” Lightbound said, when asked about a new report by the CD Howe Institute stating that the federal spending review will generate less than half of the savings needed to maintain a good fiscal path.

“Our goal is to reduce it through attrition, but there are also other ways to where we can make savings in terms of the federal government standpoint,” Lightbound said, pointing to the adoption of new technologies as a way to improve government efficiency.

The CD Howe Institute report states the spending review should be broadened to all spending — including to measures delivered through the tax system — if it hopes to make meaningful reductions.

“With a phased approach over the next three years, departments will identify savings of up to 15 per cent of their assigned spending base,” wrote Mohammad Kamal, director of communications for the treasury board president, in an email to CTV News. “Individual organizations are responsible for developing proposals for how best to meet their savings targets. No decisions on any savings proposals have been taken yet.”

Kamal added that the goal of the review is to encourage individual departments to find savings that will help make the public service more effective and efficient, stating: “Fundamentally, this is not an exercise in eliminating jobs or shrinking the public service.”

According to a report in late June from left-leaning think tank the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, the Liberal government’s plan to find billions of dollars in operating efficiencies would require a 24 per cent cut in public service spending.

The report states it could amount to “the worst spending cuts in modern history,” and adding it will “inevitably diminish the quality of public services.”

With files from CTV News’ Rachel Aiello and Stephanie Ha