Departure of Justin Trudeau: a cloud of uncertainty hangs over the public service

The size of the federal state increased under the reign of Justin Trudeau. His resignation leaves a cloud of uncertainty hanging over the future of the public service well represented in Ottawa and Gatineau.

In more recent years there has been a marked growth in the number of civil servants. And probably, we will see in the mandate of the next government, no matter who, an exercise in cuts, review of programs and spending that we saw with Mr. Chrétien and Mr. Harperindicates the Jarislowsky chair professor at the University of Ottawa, Michael Wernick.

The latter was Clerk of the Privy Council when Justin Trudeau came to power. He worked closely with the Prime Minister during his first term.

The former head of the civil service remembers a prime minister who wanted to advance a very ambitious agenda by creating several new programs and institutions. He was truly a progressive social democrathe said.

He initiated an expansion of the pension system, the creation of benefits for children, student aid reforms, the start of a dental programlists Mr. Wernick. He also recalls that spending on programs and services for indigenous people has tripled under the reign of Justin Trudeau and that several agreements were delivered.

It was a very busy and very active government, so it had an impact on the civil serviceunderlines Michael Wernick.

The size of the public service has grown under Justin Trudeau’s Liberals. It was reduced under the previous government of Stephen Harper.

According to the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat, the population of the federal public service increased from 257,034 to 367,772 from 2015 to 2024. A study by the Fraser Institute published early in December, for its part, argued that the number of full-time civil servants grew almost three times faster than the Canadian population from 2015 to 2023.

M. Wernick is not the only expert who plans a slimming regime in the coming years within the public service.

It is obvious that there will probably be, unless the polls change very significantly, a new government and this new government will implement significant budgetary reduction measures in the federal public sector. It’s written in the skysays Louis Lévesque, a trained economist who has already been a deputy minister, notably at the Department of Finance of Canada.

The Trudeau years were also marked by conflicts with state employees.

There was notably a strike which paralyzed the public service in the spring of 2023. Then last summer, the federal government decreed the return of civil servants to the office three days a week after a period of teleworking put in place during the pandemic.

The main civil servant unions have not yet wanted to comment on the announced departure of the Prime Minister. The Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) plans to communicate with its members in the coming days.

Former minister and MP for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell under Jean Chrétien’s Liberal government, Don Boudria, believes that Justin Trudeau has had a positive impact on the public service.

According to him, the Prime Minister has restored the calm after the end of the Harper regime where all civil servants felt continually threatened.

It was a witch hunt that never endedhe said.

Calm has been restored in the public service. People were able to work in peace, earn their living, serve citizens across Canada.

With information from Estelle Côté-Sroka and Emmanuelle Poisson