{"id":249738,"date":"2025-10-30T09:00:15","date_gmt":"2025-10-30T09:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/249738\/"},"modified":"2025-10-30T09:00:15","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T09:00:15","slug":"budget-to-return-public-service-to-sustainable-level-champagne-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/249738\/","title":{"rendered":"Budget to return public service to \u2018sustainable level,\u2019 Champagne says"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Finance Minister Fran\u00e7ois-Philippe Champagne says the government intends to bring the federal civil service ranks back to a sustainable level in the coming budget.Adrian Wyld\/The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

Union leaders are warning of job cuts in the tens of thousands after Finance Minister Fran\u00e7ois-Philippe Champagne said Wednesday that the Liberal government\u2019s budget will bring down the size of the public service to a \u201csustainable level.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Champagne made the comments just days before he will table the 2025 federal budget next Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to bring back the civil service to a sustainable level. And I think people have seen, and they will see in the budget, if you look at how many people we have today and what we had before COVID-19, we need to get back to something more sustainable,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The Liberal Party\u2019s April election platform said a Liberal government \u201cis committed to capping, not cutting, public service employment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Champagne\u2019s comments Wednesday suggest Ottawa will be going further than a cap at current levels.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The size of the federal public service has grown sharply since the Liberals formed government in 2015, when there were 342,129 full-time equivalent positions. That figure stood at 440,984 in 2023-24, which is more than 70,000 positions above prepandemic levels in 2018-19, according to figures<\/a> compiled by the Parliamentary Budget Officer.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll be very transparent with people, but we\u2019re going to be very compassionate in how we do it as well,\u201d Mr. Champagne said.<\/p>\n

The government has said the budget will outline a plan to both spend less and invest more, meaning savings will be found in day-to-day operational spending to help fund large new capital projects aimed at boosting economic growth at a time of trade tensions with the United States.<\/p>\n

Sharon DeSousa, president of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, the largest union of federal employees, said in a statement that Mr. Champagne\u2019s comments suggest substantial job cuts.<\/p>\n

\u201cMinister Champagne wants us to go back to the ways things were before COVID-19. But the reality is, our world has changed since then,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople in Canada are going to be shocked when they realize the extent of these cuts. Champagne\u2019s comments on returning to pre-COVID staff numbers mean that 70,000 public service workers could lose their jobs, leaving a hollowed-out public service to run vital services that keep our country safe.\u201d<\/p>\n

(The size of the public service can be measured in different ways. PSAC\u2019s figure is based on the Treasury Board\u2019s head count data<\/a>, comparing 2024 with 2020 levels.)<\/p>\n

Growing number of economists predict Liberal budget won\u2019t shrink debt-to-GDP ratio<\/a><\/p>\n

The minister made the comments during the latest of a series of announcements that disclose funding ahead of the budget.<\/p>\n

The government announced on Wednesday that the budget will propose $382.5-million over five years, with $76.5-million a year after that, to renew funding for the Women\u2019s Program, which supports projects related to women\u2019s equality.<\/p>\n

The budget will also propose $54.6-million over five years and $10.9-million a year after that to renew funding for 2SLGBTQI+ programming.<\/p>\n

At one point during his remarks, Mr. Champagne used the term \u201cwork force adjustment\u201d to describe the budget\u2019s impact on the public service. The term refers to a specific process in the government\u2019s collective agreements with employees that take effect when a department decides that the services of specific employees are no longer needed.<\/p>\n

The process can involve layoffs or alternatives, such as swapping a job with a non-affected employee who is willing to leave government. <\/p>\n

\u201cWould there be work force adjustments? The answer is yes. But you do that in a compassionate way. You do that in a fair way. You do that in a smart way,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

John Fragos, the minister\u2019s press secretary, later clarified that Mr. Champagne was using the term \u201cwork force adjustment\u201d generally and was not referencing the formal process in the collective agreements.<\/p>\n

Mr. Fragos declined to say whether the government will rely entirely on attrition to adjust public service levels. He said that information will be made clear in Tuesday\u2019s budget.<\/p>\n

Mr. Champagne listed examples of potential changes, including merging programs within a department or making better use of technology.<\/p>\n

Ottawa\u2019s budget to include more for retraining, tax credit for personal support workers<\/a><\/p>\n

Union leader Sean O\u2019Reilly, president of the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada, said invoking work force adjustment would mean going beyond attrition.<\/p>\n

He pointed out that some departments and agencies have recently gone through work force adjustments, including the Canada Revenue Agency. He said the recent Auditor-General\u2019s report that found major service shortfalls at the CRA shows that job cuts affect services to Canadians.<\/p>\n

Mr. O\u2019Reilly said he has \u201cserious concerns\u201d with Mr. Champagne\u2019s comments about the public service. He also said unions have not been consulted on any changes.<\/p>\n

\u201cAttrition is not a solution. Cuts aren\u2019t a solution,\u201d he said in an interview. \u201cI feel like all the decisions have already been made, and I can\u2019t even have a meaningful conversation with them.\u201d <\/p>\n

Mr. O\u2019Reilly said part of the growth in the public service under then-prime-minister Justin Trudeau involved restoring reductions that took place under then-prime-minister Stephen Harper. He also said the public service should grow as the population of Canada grows. <\/p>\n

Exactly how much spending will be cut in Tuesday\u2019s budget is unclear. The Liberal platform laid out a relatively modest plan to save $6-billion in the fiscal year that begins on April 1, 2026, followed by cuts of $10.2-billion and $13-billion the following years.<\/p>\n

The Finance Minister then asked ministers in the summer to find \u201cambitious\u201d spending cuts ahead of the budget. He said ministers should reduce program spending by 7.5 per cent in the first year, followed by 10 per cent in savings the next year and 15 per cent in the 2028-29 fiscal year. <\/p>\n

This works out to $15-billion in the first year, $20-billion in the second year and $30-billion by year three, according to a recent analysis by Desjardins.<\/p>\n

With a report from Mahima Singh in Toronto<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Finance Minister Fran\u00e7ois-Philippe Champagne says the government intends to bring the federal civil…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":249739,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,714,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-249738","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-politics","11":"tag-top-news","12":"tag-top-stories","13":"tag-topnews","14":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=249738"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249738\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/249739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=249738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=249738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}