Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, left, and Liberal Leader Mark Carney participate in the English-language federal leaders' debate in Montreal on April 17.Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press
The costed Conservative election platform released this week largely eschews the hyperpolarizing language that had defined Pierre Poilievre until recently. The word “broken” shows up seven times in the 30-page document, but nowhere does the Tory platform apply that descriptor to Canada as a whole, as Mr. Poilievre had been endlessly doing until the federal election campaign began. Rather, the platform refers to “broken” Liberal promises and our “broken” immigration and health care systems. Hard to take issue with that.
As for the term “woke,” it only appears in the party’s Quebec-specific platform, which was initially released in March and is annexed to the overall platform released on Tuesday. It pledges that a Tory government “will put an end to the imposition of the Woke ideology in the federal public service and in the allocation of federal funds for university research.”
That line is oddly tone-deaf, considering the hacksaw that U.S. President Donald Trump has taken to the U.S. government and to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies, not to mention his chilling attacks on university independence. Inviting comparisons with Mr. Trump is just about the last thing Mr. Poilievre should be doing in the final week of a campaign during which the Tory Leader has struggled to shed the Trump monkey on his back.
But that does not mean public service reform should not be an election issue. Under Justin Trudeau, the federal civil service ballooned by more than 40 per cent to almost 368,000 employees in 2024. During the same period, federal departments have often appeared more focused on meeting (if not exceeding) hiring targets for visible and other minority groups than delivering programs in the most rapid and cost-effective fashion. The ArriveCan scandal exposed ethical lapses within a bureaucracy that increasingly depends on outside consultants to perform basic functions the government is no longer able to execute itself.
The situation cries out for reform. Prior to the campaign, the Tories talked about reducing the size of the public service by 17,000 a year through attrition. The party’s platform commits only to “streamlining” the public service by replacing just two out of every three departing employees. It would eliminate the requirement to hold a university degree for most public servants, addressing the “credential inflation” that has prevented many otherwise qualified Canadians from applying for a job in government. The Tories would also ban “double-dipping” to prevent ex-bureaucrats from taking government contracts.
The Tory plan does not explain how the party could slash spending on outside consultants by $23.5-billion by 2028-29 while at the same time reducing the size of the public service, since much of the work and expertise that is currently outsourced would have to be conducted and developed in-house. That is where the Tory plan collapses on itself.
Not that the Liberal plan for the public service does not have its incongruities. The Liberals say they are “committed to capping, not cutting, public service employment,” without explaining what that means. Is that no growth or steady growth? It all depends on how you define the term “cap.”
“A Mark Carney-led government will launch a comprehensive review of government spending in order to increase the federal government’s productivity,” the Liberal platform says, using artificial intelligence to “improve the automation of routine tasks” and “reducing the need for additional hiring.” The Liberal platform projects cumulative savings of $28-billion from “increased government productivity” by 2028-29.
Yet, it is hard to see how Mr. Carney could meet his pledge to balance the operating budget within three years without outright reducing the size of the public service. That involves capping the increase in direct program expenses (as opposed to capital spending) at 2-per-cent annually, compared to annual growth of 9 per cent over the past decade. Personnel costs, which fall under operating spending, would necessarily have to be compressed.
Even harder to believe is the Liberal promise to empower “a world-class, tech-enabled public service.” After all, the current Liberal government presided over the Phoenix pay-system fiasco that has cost taxpayers $3.5-billion so far and which an Auditor-General report called “an incomprehensible failure of project management and oversight.” What’s more, the former head of IBM Canada, which holds the Phoenix contract, is running for the Liberals in a traditionally Grit Montreal riding that the Bloc Québécois narrowly won in a 2024 by-election.
And what of the federal government’s inability to design in-house a simple app to track travellers entering the country during the pandemic, leading to the incomprehensible chain of events known as the ArriveCan saga, which shed light on the greasier side of the federal public service and the blatant conflicts of interest and incompetence therein?
Whichever party forms the next government will have its hands full restoring trust in the federal public service. That can only begin with a major housecleaning.
Editor’s note: A previous version of this article incorrectly attributed a comment about the Phoenix pay-system fiasco to current Auditor-General Karen Hogan. The comment was from an Auditor-General report published prior to Ms. Hogan's appointment.