The size of the federal bureaucracy jumped 9% last year, documents say

OTTAWA — The cost of the federal bureaucracy increased last year by $6 billion — or nine per cent — over the previous year, new government figures show, and has now jumped 80 per cent over the last decade.  

At a time when many businesses are investing in digital technologies to boost efficiencies, the new public accounts disclosures tabled recently in the House of Commons show that Ottawa added 99,000 public servants between 2015-16 and 2024-25.  

That brought the total cost of the federal bureaucracy to $71.4 billion during the fiscal year 2024-25, according to the public accounts’ record of government expenses and revenue, compared to $39.6 billion in 2015-16.  

Not only has the size of the bureaucracy been on a rapid climb, the cost of consultants, contractors and outsourcing has also jumped. The documents show that the government spent $23.1 billion on “professional and special services” last year, an 11 per cent increase over the previous year. The government’s spending on professional and special services has more than doubled since 2015-16.  

In the federal budget unveiled earlier this month, the Carney government outlined a plan to cut the size of the public service.  

The budget called for a reduction of 40,000 jobs in the civil service, compared to the 2024 peak, over the next five years. Those cuts, mostly through attrition, are to be part of an effort to trim $60 billion in internal costs.  

Prime Minister Mark Carney has said that it’s time to be bold and that those savings need to be directed toward transportation and energy projects and other investments that should lead to economic growth.  

While public service unions are among those who have warned that the cuts will affect services, others say the government needs to cut deeper.  

“The cost of the federal bureaucracy is out of control,” said Franco Terrazzano, federal director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, in a statement. “Tinkering around the edges won’t cut it.”  

Don Drummond, a former senior executive at the Department of Finance and a fellow-in-residence at the C.D. Howe Institute think tank, said there shouldn’t be a “linear relationship” between spending and the size of the bureaucracy. Many of the new federal programs, such as child care and dental services, are largely carried out by either provinces or the private sector, he said.  

Drummond also questioned why spending on both employees and consultants soared, when one should be a substitute for the other.  

In a C.D. Howe report published last week, Drummond and colleague Nicholas Dahir wrote that the recent budget’s cuts are scheduled to bring federal program spending to 15.3 per cent of Canada’s gross domestic product (GDP), which would still be higher than in 2019-20, before the pandemic.  

Attention on federal spending on the civil service has increased as Ottawa’s deficits and the size of the bureaucracy have soared in recent years.  

The Carney government’s recent budget projected an average deficit of $64.3 billion between this fiscal year and 2029-30, more than double what was projected about a year ago in the 2024 fall economic statement.  

In its first budget, the government forecast a deficit this year of $78.3 billion, the third-highest in Canadian history and the largest ever in a non-pandemic year.  

Liberal governments have now accumulated $1.27 trillion in debt, almost half of which has been added over the last five years. With the budget’s updated forecast for this fiscal year, Ottawa is now on pace to amass $593.1 billion in debt over that five-year span, or 46.7 per cent of the total debt accumulated in Canadian history.  

National Post 

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