Prime Minister Mark Carney applauds as King Charles III delivers his Throne Speech.Victoria Jones/Reuters
Labour leaders are expressing concern with Prime Minister Mark Carney’s plan to find savings in the federal public service, warning it could worsen services for Canadians.
The Throne Speech – delivered Tuesday by King Charles III – included a section that says the government will be “guided by a new fiscal discipline.”
The section effectively turns a Liberal campaign promise into formal policy, saying the government will aim to spend less on “day-to-day” operations.
Mr. Carney has referred to this as the “operating budget,” but that term is not currently clearly defined in federal finance reports.
The Throne Speech said transfers to provinces, territories and individuals will be maintained.
“The government will balance its operating budget over the next three years by cutting waste, capping the public service, ending duplication and deploying technology to improve public sector productivity,” the government said in the speech.
The language is similar to pledges in the Liberal platform, which said artificial intelligence can be used to reduce government costs.
That language isn’t sitting well with Canada’s labour leaders.
“Hearing that we’re just going to find efficiencies through AI, without being specific, gives me signals that once again, we’re doing things on the basis of ideology. We’re not doing things on the basis of evidence,” said Nathan Prier, president of the Canadian Association of Professional Employees, which represents about 27,000 federal workers.
Mr. Prier said cutting government jobs will ultimately hurt public services. He said Ottawa should focus instead on selling off underused office buildings and cutting back on consultants and senior managers if it wants to find savings.
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Canadian Labour Congress president Bea Bruske said the Throne Speech missed the mark.
“Tinkering with regulations or shrinking government operations is no substitute for the real, sustained investment that working families need,” she said in a statement.
NDP interim leader Don Davies expressed similar concerns.
“This is not a worker-centred Throne Speech,” he said. “It means a cut to the public services that Canadians rely on.”
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, who has long called for less federal spending, said the Liberal pledge lacks specifics.
“There were no specific savings to roll back the morbidly obese Liberal government’s costs,” he said.
Mr. Carney has said there isn’t enough time for the government to table a 2025 budget before the House of Commons breaks for summer in late June. He recently promised to table a budget in the fall after his government initially said it would only bring in a fall update.
As a result, it will be months before members of Parliament and the public have a full picture of the direction of federal finances.
In the absence of a budget, other financial announcements will face closer scrutiny.
For instance, the Treasury Board of Canada recently updated its data for the population of the federal public service, and showed a rare decline.
The size of the federal public service stood at 357,965 as of Jan. 1, 2025. That’s down from 367,772 in 2024, but still over 100,000 more than the 257,034 public servants who were in place in 2015 when the Liberals formed government under then-leader Justin Trudeau.
The government has not provided an explanation for the reduced staffing levels, though previous federal budgets have included references to finding internal savings.
The Canada Revenue Agency recently announced 280 job cuts, while Employment and Social Development Canada recently confirmed reductions will take place in the passport program. The union representing the workers has said about 800 people will be affected.
A federal budget is not required for federal departments to operate. However, they do need Parliament to approve spending through a cyclical process called the estimates.
On Tuesday after the Throne Speech, the government tabled the main estimates for the fiscal year that began April 1.
The House of Commons approved procedural motions related to spending matters by unanimous consent.
The main estimates provide departments with a base level of funding, but they are not the complete picture of federal spending because they will be followed later in the year by supplementary estimates.
The main estimates show a total of $486.9-billion in spending, which is up from $449.2-billion presented in the previous year’s main estimates.
The Liberal Party’s April campaign platform is the most recent public document outlining how Mr. Carney’s promises will affect Ottawa’s bottom line.
That platform outlined nearly $130-billion in new spending and tax cuts over four years, or about $32-billion per year on average.
The Liberal platform projected a deficit of 1.96 per cent of GDP ($62.3-billion) this fiscal year, followed by 1.83 per cent of GDP ($59.9-billion) the next year.
With a report from The Canadian Press