The federal budget announced Tuesday is set to slash 16,000 positions, or about 4.5 per cent of the public service workforce, over the next three fiscal years to return the size of the bureaucracy to a “more sustainable level.”
That target is “relatively modest,” according to one expert, even as federal public sector unions prepared for deep cuts.
The reductions are expected to begin in April 2026 and continue until 2029, according to the budget.
The government says the public service has grown at a rate “far greater” than the Canadian population, peaking in 2024 at just under 370,000 employees.
“We need to bring back the civil service to a more sustainable level,” said Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne earlier Tuesday.
“But we’re going to be very compassionate.”
As of March this year, there were 357,965 public servants across Canada, 43 per cent of them in the National Capital Region. The federal government is the Ottawa-Gatineau region's largest employer.
Members of the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) walk in the rain on a picket line outside during a strike in 2
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