National Defence Deputy Minister Christiane Fox waits to appear as witnesses at the Standing Committee on Public Accounts in Ottawa on April 13.Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press
It is no secret in Ottawa that the federal public service has a morale problem.
The Carney government’s plans to cut 40,000 jobs from the bureaucracy and require federal employees to work in the office four days a week has put public-sector unions on the warpath amid already declining job satisfaction among government workers.
The growing workplace discontent also shows up in the Treasury Board’s annual Public Service Employee Survey. The most recent edition, released in mid-2025, found that only 53 per cent of respondents strongly or somewhat agreed that they had confidence in their department’s senior management.
The proportion has been declining since 2020, when fully 66 per cent said they had confidence in top managers.
One reason for the decline stems from a perception that management-level civil servants are held to a more forgiving standard than line employees in applying the Values and Ethics Code for the Public Service. A 2023 “task team” comprised of five deputy ministers set up to examine the issue identified the disconnect.
“Participants expressed that there appear to be few, if any, consequences for senior leaders who act in contravention of values and ethics, as compared to consequences imposed upon employees, particularly those who are members of racialized groups,” it found.
To remedy the problem, the task team recommended that “deputy ministers ensure that obligations under the Values and Ethics Code, and departmental codes of conduct, are clear and are upheld with consequences for violations regardless of level or position.”
That recommendation has suddenly taken on new resonance in the wake of the federal Ethics Commissioner’s finding that Christiane Fox, one of the deputy ministers who made up the task team, violated the Conflict of Interest Act by using her position to influence a departmental decision to hire an acquaintance who was unqualified for the job.
Deputy minister who broke conflict-of-interest rules faces questions from MPs
In a 35-page report released last week, Ethics Commissioner Konrad von Finckenstein concluded that as deputy minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada in 2023, Ms. Fox used her authority to give an “old acquaintance” from university “preferential treatment, by ensuring he met with departmental officials quickly, seeking updates about his hiring, giving him internal information, and pushing for a higher job classification.”
During the ethics investigation, Ms. Fox defended her actions by claiming she had been given a “clear mandate” by the-then clerk of the privy council and prime minister Justin Trudeau “to lead cultural and organizational change” at IRCC. She insisted this included implementing the Privy Council Office’s 2021 Call to Action on Anti-Racism, Equity and Inclusion.
Mr. von Finckenstein rejected her claims, saying he did not find them to be “credible.”
Ms. Fox, who was recently appointed deputy of minister of defence by Prime Minister Mark Carney, nevertheless pushed back against the Ethics Commissioner’s report, insisting her “efforts were focused on advancing diversity and inclusion across the public service, an objective explicitly set for Deputy Ministers.”
The ethics report came up this week at the standing committee on public accounts, as several MPs expressed dismay at Ms. Fox’s failure to acknowledge any wrongdoing.
Indeed, Ms. Fox’s lack of contrition, and absence so far of any disciplinary actions by the PCO or Prime Minsiter’s Office, will only serve to further undermine morale in the public service and sap public trust in the bureaucracy.
Ms. Fox did neither her “old acquaintance” nor the cause of diversity any favours by pushing for his appointment to a position in which he “struggled” to “understand the subject matter and was underperforming,” according to testimony gathered by Mr. von Finckenstein’s office during its investigation.
Deputy minister who broke conflict of interest rules defends intervening in hiring decision
Besides, IRCC does not appear to have a diversity problem. In 2024, visible minorities accounted for 41.4 per cent of IRCC’s 12,141 employees. Across the public service, the proportion stood at 22.9 per cent.
The Fox incident is emblematic of a larger problem within the bureaucracy.
While most Canadians likely support efforts to ensure the public service reflects the population it serves, the impetus to increase diversity – especially in the wake of the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests that sparked widespread calls to address systemic racism – has collided with merit-based hiring practices.
As former senior public servants Kevin Lynch and James R. Mitchell note in their recent book, A New Blueprint for Government, the Public Services Commission, which once oversaw the recruitment process, has “delegated almost all its hiring authority to deputy ministers, who in turn have used ‘quick and easy’ mechanisms of term appointments and casual labour to bring tens of thousands of newcomers into government service without them having to pass a test of merit.”
Merit-based hiring remains the bedrock of a professional public service. Ms. Fox appears to have lost sight of that principle. Her bosses must not.