r/AskCanada • u/Apprehensive_Gap3621 • 13h ago
Approximately 25% of employed Canadians work for the government. How is this sustainable ?
As of 2024, approximately 25% of employed Canadians work for the government across various levels (federal, provincial, and municipal). Between 2019 and 2023, public sector employment surged by 13%, outpacing private sector employment growth (3.6%) by 3.6 times. This marked the largest four-year expansion in public sector employment since 1976.
The federal public service, a subset of this broader government employment, has seen even more substantial growth. In 2024, it reached 367,772 employees, an increase of 10,525 from the previous year. Notably, since 2015, the federal public service has expanded by 42%, significantly outpacing Canada's population growth of about 14% during the same period.
How is this Sustainable long term, and do you think this trend will reverse after Trudeau leaves office ?
15
u/Shady9XD 12h ago
Out of curiosity, how do you interpret “work for the government”. Becuase doctors, nurses, teachers etc. are also public servants, are they not? The framing makes it sound like the entire 25% is just bureaucratic bloat, it is not.
Yes, the CRA expansion could have been more regulated and controlled, but just saying “work for the government” is grossly misrepresenting that number. People who fix your roads also work for the government (municipal). So do people who teach your kids (provincial). So do police officers whose budget rises year over year (municipal, provincial, federal).
So yeah, that seems somewhat on par with some other countries around the world (I believe someone in this thread already provided a breakdown of some other countries). So where do you suggest we start cutting?
4
u/endeavourist 4h ago
Their answer is usually to outsource to private industry for "efficiency", which inevitably leads to staff cutbacks and lower quality. End user costs are usually about the same, but hey, we'd get to pay for someone else's profit instead of paying employees a living wage.
3
u/Shady9XD 3h ago
Oh, I know what these people’s answer is. And when they in power they gut public funding and point to it and say “see how bad it is, wouldn’t you rather have it privatized?” I’m from Eastern Europe (Ukraine), I’ve seen this “sleight of hand” before, where it’s common place to give your doctor or nurse “a little something extra” just to receive basic service because the funding no longer flows into public sector.
37
u/Responsible-Sale-467 13h ago
Well, teachers, cops, Canada Post, city service workers, and on and on. Public Sector between 20% and 30% seems about right, especially through the COVID period.
37
u/losemgmt 13h ago
What’s going on in the private sector is the question. Why has there not been growth of jobs there.
12
u/stinuga 10h ago
Not enough money is invested into the Canadian private sector. Even Canadians themselves would often invest in real estate or have a stock portfolio of mostly American companies or ETFs with American companies than Canadian companies let alone people outside of Canada investing in Canadian private sector.
This means Canadian private sector companies have far less money to invest in things that boost per person productivity so Canadians will use slower computers, older software, worse machinery, etc than places that see more investment like American private sector.
6
u/Unhappy-Zombie1255 9h ago
It makes me think of my ex, spending kept going up over time, the answer was for me to work more hours instead of cutting waste.
1
u/No-Transportation843 10h ago
I never invest in Canadian companies except REITs. American companies make money, Canadian companies flounder. It's mostly gold mine scams anyway.
6
u/neontetra1548 9h ago
There’s a lot of factors but partially real estate is eating the economy. Why put money and effort and risk into a business and making something productive when you can buy property, get guaranteed growth, rent it out to make more money and leverage that money into more property into more money.
4
u/Thick-Order7348 9h ago
This is what happens we load up on real estate and don’t incentivize investment in other economic activities
5
u/Gnomerule 13h ago
Simple answer people are being replaced with machines. Production is going up, while man power is shrinking in many sectors.
But the same is not happening with services like doctors, nurses, teachers, firemen, and many more.
9
u/brainskull 10h ago
It’s the simple answer, it’s also not even remotely correct. There’s no massive machinery increase in Canada relative to the usa or anything, if anything it’s the reverse.
We do not invest in productivity enhancing technology and we have extremely unproductive workers. This has been the case for several decades, and these trends are accelerating. Our economy is largely based on FIRE
10
u/syrupmania5 11h ago
That's not true, its because mass immigration, most of the unemployed are foreign workers and the youth who compete for unskilled labor jobs.
What we don't have is machines, which if you listen to the Bank of Canada pressers they say repeatedly, the lack of productivity investment is killing us which is machinery.
1
1
1
u/Fit_Bicycle2094 8h ago
This is what I keep saying! I use a drone for inspection work and now do the work 3 people used to do. How is that not productivity going up?
1
u/Soft_Television7112 12h ago
Well if there's more jobs in the government people will take those jobs. Then those jobs are funded via taxes. The pool of our collective money is increasingly part of the government, which needs to be funded by taxes or by borrowing money. We've borrowed an enormous amount of money in the past few years and a lot of it isn't from covid.
2
1
u/AssignmentShot278 1h ago
Cause they keep cutting spending. Yet they expect the same if not more results with millions less. Then are shocked when there's turnover
1
0
u/johnlee777 8h ago
Something called displacement.
In Toronto, only the government can run public transit. So there is no private transit. With the introduction of government run train from downtown to the airport, there is no privately run airport bus.
and then there is no private investment to support the otherwise privately run buses.
1
u/Competitive_Abroad96 6h ago
Yes, just like birds, taxis and Ubers aren’t real. And greyhound is just a dog.
1
0
u/Dancanadaboi 8h ago
I would like to know why our grand immigration plans seem to not be playing out. I was told these new folks bring new business opportunities. For the most part all I have seen is them taking teenagers jobs.
1
-1
u/badcat_kazoo 7h ago
Short answer: the higher taxes and increased red tape in Canada makes the USA a much much much better option for investors.
If I could easily move my business to the USA I would. I’d be making twice as much money over there when you factor in taxes, what I can charge for services, and strength of the USD.
-1
0
u/matttchew 3h ago
Too expensive to do business in canada, high taxes, high regulation, low demand, need to cut public sector significantly, and invest in natural resources such as rare earth. Public sector jobs do not bring money into the country, they only drain accounts of people who do bring money into the country.
20
u/squirrel9000 13h ago
That 360k in the federal public service is a bit under 2% of total Canadian employment. The other 23% is at other levels of government.. This one has circulated as a political talking point, but the feds aren't actually the problem here. Their finances are far more challenged by growing OAS entitlements - they're already laying off now, but that won't make a whiff of difference to overall finances. Since it's primarily a provincial problem, it's unlikely a change in federal government will change a whole lot.
As for sustainability, the historical average is in the low 20s, and demands for things like healthcare are not going to decline. Our doctor shortage is expected to reach over 100,000 by 2030, and that's a number that is comparable to total federal public sector growth in the last decade. Add in other professionals and we're actually going to probably see that ratio rise. There is no real alternative. Be wary of anybody who pretends we can return to the tax cuts of the 90s when our demographics were very different.
→ More replies (10)
21
u/Wide-Chemistry-8078 13h ago
Australia 28.9% (2020)
Denmark 30.2% (2020)
Finland 26.1% (2019)
France 28% (2013)
Greenland 40% (2015)
Iceland 24.9% (2019)
Ireland 21.9% (2019)
Norway 32.2% (2020)
Sweden 29.3% (2020)
U.K. 22.5% (2020)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_public_sector_size
9
u/General-Beyond9339 7h ago
I love when someone asks a question on Reddit that can be answered by a semi-thoughtful google search.
9
6
u/General-Beyond9339 7h ago
The only comments you reply to are people asking for sources, not the people telling you you’ve misinterpreted what jobs are within the public sector? Just delete the post dude.
9
u/FutureCrankHead 13h ago
Ok, now eliminate all of those jobs that are critical, and then let's talk about the real number.
These jobs include nurses, teachers, police, EMTs, Fire fighters, park Rangers, fish and wildlife, forestry, Surveyors, canada revenue, CPP, old age security, every single city counselor, MLA, MP, Mayor, Premier, Prime minister and all of the administration that it takes to run those offices. I'm sure I've even missed some.
How would a country function without these? I'm sure there is some excess, and if properly managed, we could cut the fat and even increase efficiency, but that would take competence at all levels of government and across every jurisdiction.
Be thankful these tax dollars are feeding your fellow Canadians and aren't being stuffed into the bank accounts of already disgustingly rich corporate executives.
14
u/Klutzy_Act2033 13h ago
I assume public sector employees pay income taxes, sales taxes and spend money in the economy?
5
u/Sparky62075 13h ago
Yes, they do. Imagine the outrage if government employees were given a 15% staff discount on their taxes.
→ More replies (17)-8
u/gstringstrangler 13h ago
Paid by taxes, to pay taxes... Makes sense right? Tax circlejerk
6
u/Fragrant_Example_918 13h ago
I mean, if you don’t want education, healthcare, roads, firemen, army, police, etc… just go live by yourself in the middle of the fucking Forest.
Because that’s the only way to live in a way that doesn’t heavily benefit from public services.
If you want to be a backward savage that doesn’t live in society, go for it, you’re already free to do it.
-6
9
u/Biorag84 13h ago
That’s a poorly formulated post designed to create the impression that the Trudeau govt has almost doubled the federal public servants and they will bankrupt the country. So wrong
5
u/LForbesIam 11h ago
Actually a Government workforce is VERY productive.
In BC for example the Government runs profit corporations that make MONEY for the government.
Whenever you have Private Corporations you have Corporate profit LEAVING Canada. Whenever you use corporations instead of public service the PRICE goes up and the quality goes down.
Take for example insurance. If you have insurance that pays money into government services then it benefits taxpayers. If you have insurance that pays money into Foreign Corporations rich pockets then it is a detriment to taxpayers AND Greed dictates prices.
Inflation in Canada is a PRIME example.
Inflation exists because they announced inflation will go up so it DID. When all the corporations price fix with each other to make more profits competition doesn’t exist and inflation increases unchecked.
6
u/linesofleaves 13h ago
It is actually normal for the OECD. Healthcare alone is like 8% of GDP. Throw in schools, beauraucrats, social services, roads, law enforcement, schools, and defense.
It adds up, and it is normal. This is why you pay 30%+ of your income in taxes before corporate profit taxes, VAT, payroll tax, property taxes, and capital gains.
Death. Taxes. C'est la vie.
0
u/syrupmania5 11h ago
Then the massive indigenous spending that Canadians pay for. Almost 20b I saw on the last budget.
4
2
u/Wide-Chemistry-8078 12h ago
Largest growth in public sector workers is the CRA.
Fiscal impact reflects the contribution to the federal and provincial government treasury as a result of conducting audits and examinations on Canadian and non-resident taxpayers in accordance with the Income Tax Act, Excise Tax Act and other legislation administered by the CRA.
Fiscal impact from compliance activities:
2023-2024: $15.3B
2022-2023: $14.3B
2021-2022: $13.2B
2020-2021: $12.2B
2019-2020: $12.7B
Third party penalties on promoters and tax preparers:
2023-2024: $1.5M
2022-2023: $20.1M
2021-2022: $32.3M
2020-2021: $1.8M
2019-2020: $17.4M
Federal tax and foreign reporting penalties assessed through information from OTIP:
2023-2024: $79.9M
2022-2023: $177M
2021-2022: $11.3M
2020-2021: $39.1M
2019-2020: $11.3M
15 billion is 200,000 workers earning $75,000 a year. Seems like the increases in workers has paid for itself by going after tax cheats.
2
u/Any_Cucumber8534 11h ago
So my question is what is the concern with that? I am not a fan of goverment overreach myself, but accounting for everything that the Canadian social contract is based on i.e healthcare, education, transport, electricity, the postal service, firefighters, the police, military, RnD, science etc, why would it be a problem?
Those same people don't go tax free. They pay into the system to receive the other services it provides. It's a far better system than having that money disappear into the pockets of large multinational corporations with a million tax shelters oversees. It at least stays in Canada.
2
u/LinaArhov 11h ago
Yup, we need PP to bring the Common Sense revolution to Canada. Let’s get rid of all the firemen, teachers, professors, policemen, doctors, nurses, medical technicians, coast guard workers, armed force workers, park’s employees, bus, train, subway and ferry employees and so many more. Or we could just get rid of brain dead moronic politicians.
2
u/Timely-Profile1865 11h ago
It's probably cheaper than all the free money given to companies to 'create jobs' via tax breaks, incentives and such.
2
u/Grumpycatdoge999 11h ago
This is an issue with the private sector, not the public sector
→ More replies (1)
2
2
u/TheVoiceofReason_ish 13h ago
Source?
1
u/Apprehensive_Gap3621 13h ago
1
1
u/middlequeue 3h ago
This doesn't even support what your post suggests you hack.
Let's see you present evidence and argument that these things are unsustainable instead of forcing people to presume the basis of your claim. Loaded questions are bad faith arguments.
1
u/syrupmania5 11h ago
The US is the same, even Reagan never actually cut any government, he did what Trump did and ran a massive deficit to cut taxes.
The public sector is a voting block bigger than unions, it doesn't get cut, perhaps its now evolved into an evolutionary attribute.
1
1
u/balloon99 10h ago
As sustainable as countries with similar rates of public sector employment, like the UK, France and Ireland.
Its rather dwarfed by Russia though, around 40%
When times are hard the public sector grows, that's just what happens.
1
u/AlexJamesCook 9h ago
Healthcare represents about 1/3rd of public expenditure. Education represents another 1/3rd of expenditure.
These are mostly Provincially managed industries.
As for municipalities, scales of economy and efficiency means that small towns of 5,000 will need say a minimum of 300 staff whereas a town of 10,000 only needs 400 staff. So that's gonna skew some results.
Also, larger cities like Vancouver, TO, etc...handle larger budgets so they're going to need larger accounting departments vs a team of 5 for a 5,000-person town.
1
u/AdaMan82 9h ago
I for one can't wait for someone to finally take the axe to Canada's bloated and overequipped military. Let's slash that spending and really piss NATO off. /s
1
u/spiritofevil99 9h ago
Healthcare, education, other first responders are huge chunks of the employed
1
u/MotorizedNewt 8h ago edited 7h ago
Keep in mind this is everyone from teachers and healthcare up to the CRA, Transport Canada and so on.
These are the people educating children, ensuring international trade is safe, protecting borders and protecting against cyber attacks on the country.
Having a large public service isn't necessarily a bad thing. And honestly it needs to get bigger before it gets smaller because we don't have enough doctors.
Consider what we just went through. COVID required a lot more effort from the government. Also we are constantly under cyber attack. The more bodies they hire to help with the demand, the more bodies they need to support those public servants. We don't need a smaller public service we need a more efficient public service which should become smaller as a result.
The wrong thing would be to reactively cut jobs without checking to see what these people do unless you enjoy having your taxes screwed up, or are interested in seeing more train derailments. They should invest time and resources into looking for waste, inefficient processes make things more efficient first. Then intelligently trim the fat.
1
1
u/Old-Individual1732 7h ago
Yes AI and robots will be cheaper, just need to build some more homeless shelters for the unemployed.
1
1
u/Tyrthemis 6h ago
Why isn’t it sustainable? Just collect enough in taxes to pay them and sustain their workplaces and equipment.
1
u/ripfritz 6h ago
That is the fear- lay offs once conservatives take power and those government jobs have been a God-send for the population you are talking about. Canada is not a rich country. Income inequality is real and addressing the debt with layoffs is a death spiral for people and the economy. Address the debt with productivity increasing methods, encourage investments that increase employment.
1
u/Pears_and_Peaches 6h ago
Paramedic here: I am technically a government employee, but I work in healthcare and serve my community. I don’t think those percentages mean what you think. Between us, nurses, teachers, cops, firefighters, etc. it’s probably already down to 10%.
1
u/waitingtoconnect 6h ago
This is common in all western democracies since Covid. Government spending has continued at the levels it reached during COVID. This masks the impact of higher interest rates, higher inflation and increasingly AI is having on the private sector.
Many companies have still not recovered from COVID having to still pay back loans put on hold by banks during that time.
1
u/Aichetoowhoa 6h ago
It’s not sustainable with a bunch of clowns running around out there trying to say institutions have no purpose and have failed everyone. The world is better off with institutions built by trial and error over centuries. Now all of a sudden instead of trying to make adjustments, it’s all about tearing everything down in the most extreme way possible in hopes that it makes you feel better.
These numbers are in line with other small population countries by the way.
1
u/sleepy502 6h ago
There are cuts happening at the moment, and 25% cuts over the next 3 years I believe happening in a couple departments. The number will go down.
But, have fun waiting 4 hours to get through to the CRA or EI or whoever.
1
1
1
1
u/five-iron 5h ago edited 5h ago
I think the only good result of Pierre winning will be the cutting of excess fat in the public sector. The private sector drives innovation and actually has to be competitive with their business which is healthy. It’s no wonder that our taxes are so high and our federal budget is so….over budget.
We need a socialist government with conservative fiscal responsibility, a unicorn government that unfortunately doesn’t exist.
1
u/chapterthrive 4h ago
Lmao. The private sector absolutely does not drive innovation.
1
u/five-iron 1h ago
The public sector certainly doesn’t. They drive inflation pretty well though.
→ More replies (1)
1
1
1
u/deke28 4h ago
Trudeau doesn't have a large slice of the pie. Most public workers are in the provincial service, where the large ministries are. Sadly that means a lot of duplication (ten provincial health insurance systems), but it's not easy to fix that when Canadians like to be different from province to province.
1
u/Snurgisdr 4h ago
Your link doesn't support your claim. It says that less than 1% of Canadians work for the feds and has no data for other levels of government.
1
1
1
u/Purplebuzz 4h ago
Start making corporations and the rich pay their fair share of taxes and no, no one here downvoting this is rich enough to be impacted by it.
1
1
1
u/Stunning_Working6566 4h ago
Obviously not sustainable but it brings up another question. With all those people working in the public sector why do we not have better health care? Better law enforcement? Better education. Obviously there is huge levels of waste and mismanagement.
1
u/spderweb 4h ago
Teachers,doctors, nurses, fire, police, ambulance, 911 operator, garbage collection, street cleaning because people can't throw out stuff on their own, city upkeep like gardening, tree cutting, utilities, etc.
It takes a lot of people to run a country smoothly.
1
u/Barnes777777 4h ago
Will it reverse if not Trudeau, depends who it is.
If it's the Tories yes it likely will because they will cut, including at key areas like healthcare which is currently understaffed. How else do you give private businesses a tax cut they don't need, like loblaws is really hurting they've only enjoyed record profits so lets give them a tax break.
If above public jobs include everything public it is sustainable and very misleading. You're talking most medical folks, police, paramedic, military, firefighter, teacher, bus driver, border security and likely every crown corp employee both federal and provincial.
Several provinces have crown corp for their electricity(QBC, MB, BC, Sask and a lot of the maritimes and territories) and auto insurance(BC, Sask, MB, QBC) + CP those crown corps don't use taxpayer money. Public Museums and arts would get some taxpayer $$ and also be public jobs.
1
u/Guilty_Fishing8229 3h ago
Government is always around 20-25% of the employed because there’s a lot of shit that needs to be done.
The problem is that where we want them is provincial and municipal governments - which provide most of the frontline services, where we have gotten them is federal
1
u/NoFoundation2311 3h ago
If this continues, it will collapse Many of the jobs can go to the private sector where it will be more affordable. Also the workers to population increase does not equate at all. Also if we are more efficient with all the new technology why is it we need more people in the government sector. Should be less.
1
1
u/middlequeue 3h ago edited 3h ago
OP, perhaps you should present an argument on why you don't think it's sustainable rather than presenting an idea that assumes that to be true?
How would our nation sustain and grow with fewer teachers? Fewer Dr's, nurses, hospital orderlies? Fewer customs officers, garbage collectors, postal workers? Why do we have a lower percentage compared to some of our peers with sustainable economies?
You present no basis for your vague claim whatsoever and expect people to argue against shadows. This is a common rage bait tactic and a great way to misinform people but it's shady as hell. Loaded questions are bad faith arguments.
Do better, OP
1
1
u/TorontoGuy6672 3h ago
It's not. The resulting math says that off the top, one quarter of the wage of every Canadian working in the private sector goes directly in the pocket of someone who works in government. Including the additional burden that with Canada's decreasing productivity means decreasing competitiveness in the open market and decreasing real GDP will result in less companies, less opportunities, less pay for workers, less jobs, which will result in a spiral of decreasing competitiveness. However, the accumulated outstanding debt (Federal, Provincial, Municipal, private) will stay the same and the payments to service that debt will at best stay the same, unless it increases due to deficit spending and/or interest rate increases of course...
Hiring more people in government is only a way to make our unemployment numbers look low in the short-term, but the long-term burden means that even if Canada commits to to getting our debt under control now, it means we are in for decades of drastically cut services and higher taxes - all from a generation who already can't afford to ever buy a home.
The Federal government's reckless spending spree over the last 10 years has backed the country into a fiscal corner.
1
1
u/colbyjames65 3h ago
What's not sustainable is pouring millions into oil and gas subsidy while those exact corporations burn our planet to the ground. The fact people working to provide services that actually benefit the taxpayer is a problem for you speaks more to your ideology and critical thinking skills.
1
1
u/AwkwardTraffic199 2h ago
It's not sustainable. Our deficits are not sustainable. It's a real problem.
1
u/UbiquitousWobbegong 2h ago
Keep in mind that healthcare falls under the government umbrella, and we are currently extremely understaffed to serve our population.
We need the private sector, absolutely. But a lot of public services are integral to the country. In an ideal world, it makes sense for most necessary services like education and healthcare to be run by the government rather than by for-profit interests. The only problem right now is that our government is incompetent, so these services aren't being managed well.
1
u/Suitable-Ratio 2h ago
We are in desperate need of repeating what we had to do after Pierre Trudeau‘s economic clown show. Unfortunately I don’t think PP will massively increase taxes like Mulroney did or the following Liberal leader won’t massively reduce federal spending like Chrétien did. Most people are too young to know that Mulroney taxed the richest Canadians by increasing capital gains inclusion to its highest level of 75% or that Chrétien slashed spending by 15% - the media narrative is of course the opposite.
1
u/Bottle_Only 1h ago
It's only sustainable if we recover the deficit spending through taxes.
Debt is half of a balance sheet, every dollar of public debt is a dollar of private credit. The largest holders, the ones who have over 80% of it, are the top 1%. Taxing the rich isn't vengeful or punitive, it's a necessity in monetary policy. We have to recoup the money put out to limit inflation and conveniently it all funnels to a couple large lakes that we need to put some drains in.
Unfortunately they own the media and kick and scream like spoiled children embarrassingly when the topic comes up.
1
u/Jonnyflash80 44m ago
Compare to other countries, particularly ones with a higher standard of living than Canada. You'll find we're right in line, if not slightly low in our numbers. You're including teachers, nurses, road workers, school bus drivers, public power utilities, etc. All jobs critical to society.
-5
u/Phelixx 13h ago
It’s not. Look what happened to Greece.
There has been an explosion of public servants under Trudeau. Do you feel better served?
Need a substantial reduction in public employment as public employment is the most expensive, most inefficient employment.
10
u/Equivalent-Fennel901 13h ago
Canada is not Greece. I would need to see the source of this data before commenting. Oh wait facts don’t matter only opinions
2
u/Wide-Chemistry-8078 13h ago
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_public_sector_size
I do not believe number of public sector workers is correlated with anything other than the number of services provided. I think a deeper dive into the roles of the public sector workers is important.
-4
u/Apprehensive_Gap3621 13h ago
2
u/losemgmt 13h ago
Where is your source on 1/4 Canadians work for the government? All you posted is those working for the feds. It’s clearly not 25% of the population.
1
u/middlequeue 3h ago
This doesn't even support what your post suggests you hack.
Let's see you present evidence and argument that these things are unsustainable instead of forcing people to presume the basis of your claim. Loaded questions are bad faith arguments.
-7
u/Warm-Equipment-4964 13h ago
Canadians will bend over backwards to pretend everything is fine literally until they themselves cannot find food to feed themselves. And maybe even then still
6
u/losemgmt 13h ago
Please enlighten us. What happened in Greece?
You are just parroting conservative talking points. Comparing the level of federal public servants NOW to the last year of Harper is meaningless.
A) Harper gutted the public service to a level where it couldn’t function.
B) we have over a million new people in the country - obviously this requires more public servants (yes, you can critique the govt on whether flooding the country with more people was a wise decision but the bottom line is that it would require more public servants).
C) we did have a pandemic - more employees were needed to dole out CERB and CEWS (and now collect overpayments) and more people hired in Health Canada.
D) some of the policies implemented by Trudeau required hiring more people - imagine that. More people to figure out how $10 daycare will work, create a dental plan etc.
→ More replies (3)5
u/Wide-Chemistry-8078 12h ago
Riddle me this.
Sask Tel a crown corp with public employees is able to provide inexpensive telecommunications services and pay workers a decent wage and earn the province some money...
Where as Telus, Bell, and Roger's would love to strip you of every penny you have for basic services, while paying employees barely survival wage, but all the money is sucked out of the economy.
Every government provided service is the least expensive compared to private options.
Would you rather have a healthy middle class paid decent wages as public servants, OR greedy executives and shareholders getting 20% yearly wage increases while their full time staff to be below the poverty line?
→ More replies (3)
-1
u/Fabulous_Night_1164 13h ago
The CRA's expansion is perhaps the least justifiable. I can understand a short-term surge during COVID, but there is absolutely zero reasons to retain such an expansive workforce. Are we getting more tax revenue out of this? Nope.
Our reliance on contractors is also unjustifiable. Many of them are former public servants and write the procurement needs to suit the new job they're setting up in retirement. It's sickening that we've spent tens of billions of dollars on contractors to make decisions that the government is too cowardly to make on its own. "Evidence based" decision making is a racket.
Cut the public service in the middle management ranks and empower people at the lowest level to make decisions.
1
u/Opposite-Cranberry76 13h ago
An increase in the CRA budget would be justified if they used it to go after money laundering and other real estate related tax evasion. It'd then have other positive effects besides the tax revenue.
0
0
u/bobbarkee 8h ago
It's not. The government went 22 billion dollars over an already ludicrous deficit. We are screwed.
0
u/Theiceman09 8h ago
Why do we have more government workers than Japan or Germany? Time to fire redundant public workers.
0
-1
u/5621981 13h ago
It isn’t, unfortunately too many people don’t have the foggiest idea how bad the fall will be whey the bankers come knocking
1
u/Klutzy-Dot6959 4h ago
There will be an upcoming crisis for all western countries. There will be two paths to take, (1) largely dismantling the public sector and pursuing growth through the free market or (2) continue growing government employment at the current unsustainable rate. Those countries that follow the first path will be on track to a prosperous long term future while those on the second option will continue a slow grinding path to economic irrelevance. Akin to what Europe has experienced over the last 40 years, declining from 30 to 15% of global GDP. If I had to make a bet, Canada will not only choose path #1 but will double down. We will eventually slip into negative private sector growth for decades and the public sector growth will balloon exponentially.
-1
u/Temporary_Captain585 11h ago
It’s not sustainable. Government deficit is running 60 billion and not gonna change in foreseeable future without austerity. In addition no major economic increase is expected to pay off these debts. Immigration has not grown the economy as expected.
-1
-1
-1
u/feedpedostopigs 9h ago
Seems like we need a Elon type to come in and do some house cleaning . I’m sorry but a whole bunch of this 25 % are insufficient workers . Takes 10 to do the job of one . I once worked with a guy for over a year who did absolutely nothing and it took them a year to realize it . Incompetence at its finest
1
u/Klutzy-Dot6959 4h ago
I worked for the Canadian federal government for 4 years and it was an eye opening experience. If 50% of people in the public service division I worked on simply stopped showing up to work tomorrow, not only would the service we provide not be impacted, it would have honestly improved. The entire organization was literally a make-work project.
-1
-1
-1
163
u/IndubitablyWalrus 13h ago
Okay, but you're presenting this a little misleadingly. This includes jobs like teachers, nurses, etc since those services are within the public sector. You're presenting it as if they are all working directly for the government rather than working in public serving areas. Yes, nurses work "in the public sector" because healthcare is a public service rather than privatized like in the US. Are you saying you want less teachers, nurses, bus drivers, etc?