Federal Public Service Employees Data from Treasury Board of Canada's Annual Report

Hires by Type of Employment, 2020–21

	Employees
Indeterminate	8,244
Term	17,041
Casual	16,675
Student	10,272
Total	52,232

Source: Public Service Commission of Canada, Annual Report 2020–21: Building Tomorrow’s Public Service Today, 4.

Note: Data include indeterminate positions, term positions greater than three months, and seasonal employees.

A Chronology of Public Service Representativeness

Early 1960s	Quiet Revolution in Quebec promotes French-Canadian identity politics.
1962	The Glassco Royal Commission endorses greater representation of francophones within federal public service.
1969	The Official Languages Act becomes law.
1960s–1970s	Immigrant groups and the women’s movement in Canada grow gradually more influential.
1960s–1980s	Numerous academic studies highlight discrimination against women and minority groups.
1971	Federal multiculturalism policy is established.
1977	The Canadian Human Rights Act becomes law.
1977	The Canadian Human Rights Commission established.
1979	The D’Avignon special committee on personnel and merit endorses policy of employment equity.
1982	The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms becomes law.
1984	The Abella Royal Commission on equality in employment recommends establishment of employment equity policy.
Mid-1980s	The federal government begins to establish policies of employment equity.
1988	The Canadian Multiculturalism Act becomes law.
1995	The Canadian Employment Equity Act becomes law.

White Paper: Human Resources Reform, 1995–2006

The Quiet Crisis
For federal public servants in the 1990s, program review was the most significant and painful reform initiative of the past quarter-century. Apart from making major cutbacks to most departmental budgets, the program review eradicated 39,305 positions in the public service, or 17.4 per cent. The reduction from 1995 to 1999 was dramatic, yet it was not the only significant change for those in the public service.

For most of the decade public servants experienced unilaterally imposed pay freezes, wage rollbacks, and the suspension of collective bargaining, as well as severe limitations on new hiring. The cumulative result of what some would call the “bashing” and “battering” of the public service (Inwood 2012, 266) was the development of a “quiet crisis” within public service ranks.

The term quiet crisis came from none other than Jocelyne Bourgon, clerk of the Privy Council and secretary to cabinet, in her 1997 report to the prime minister. She identified several causes of malaise at the heart of the service: “the loss of talent through many years of downsizing; a demographic skew after years of limited recruitment; constant criticism of the public sector which seriously affected morale; many years of pay freezes; and increasing interest by the private sector in acquiring the skills of public servants. It was also evident that the corrective action necessary to offset these pressures had not been taken” (Canada, Privy Council Office 1997, 39, 42–44). In her assessment, she confronted some disturbing truths:

• After years of downsizing, some public servants, for the first time, are questioning their career choice.
• Others are not convinced that their skills and abilities are being used effectively.
• Still others, after an exemplary career, would not advise their children to follow in their footsteps.
• Some students would not consider a career in the Public Service if presented with other options. (Canada, Privy Council Office 1997)

As Bourgon pointed out, the public service was aging at a remarkable and dangerous rate, as baby boomers neared retirement age and intake of younger staff was placed in a stranglehold. She explicitly warned the prime minister that “over 30 per cent of the current executive group will be in a position to retire by the year 2000, and this will rise to 70 per cent by 2005. A similar pattern exists in some of the professional and scientific categories” (Canada, Privy Council Office 1997, chap. 6). Those who remained, she remarked, faced stunted career paths and limited opportunities for professional growth.

“Mobility, particularly interdepartmental mobility,” she argued, “is at an all-time low despite the fact that the changing nature of service delivery and policy issues requires managers and policy analysts to acquire a broad diversity of knowledge and experience. As a result, excellent employees have not been given the chance to prepare adequately for future needs.” As personnel left the public service, especially through early retirement or severance packages, the institutions of government would be left without the “human capital,” in terms of experience, training, and intelligence, to meet the increasing policy and program challenges. “To perform well,” Bourgon wrote, “the public service must constantly retain, motivate, and attract a corps of talented and dedicated public servants. There are indications that this could be the most difficult challenge ... over the coming years” (Canada, Privy Council Office 1997).

La Relève
The most senior federal leadership clearly accepted this message. Recruitment and staff renewal became top priorities, and the PCO was given a lead role in addressing them. A major reform initiative known as La Relève was launched. French for “relief and reawakening,” the name is also an acronym for Leadership, Action, Renewal, Energy, Learning, Expertise, Values, and Experience.

La Relève, much like reform undertakings before it, involved a broad series of consultations and group analyses. It looked for ways to enhance morale, further program efficiency and effectiveness, improve staff–management relations (especially through more participatory and democratic forms of organizational decision making), and develop greater leadership skills (Canada, Privy Council Office 1997).

The initiative involved two broad streams of action: recruitment, retraining, and improved remuneration; and senior executive training and promotion.

Recruitment, Retraining, Remuneration

Faced with the prospect of an aging workforce depleted by retirement and severance policies, the federal government endorsed a number of special programs to bring new, younger people into the public service and to improve the managerial skills of junior executives already in the service. The PSC and the TBS established policies to recruit university graduates and professionals with specialized skills and put them through accelerated programs of management development. In turn, the PCO and the Canada School of Public Service (CSPS) initiated specialized programs for those already in the public service, such as the Management Trainee Program, the Accelerated Executive Development Program, and the Career Assignment Program.

As a part of these broad renewal initiatives, moreover, the government made a commitment to improve salary levels. Following years of pay freezes and wage rollbacks, the TBS was authorized to engage in renewed collective bargaining with unionized staff and to improve executive salary scales to help the public service retain officials being recruited by the private sector.

Senior Executive Training and Promotion

In 1998, as part of La Relève, the PCO established the Leadership Network, in part to support the “collective management of assistant deputy ministers.” This initiative marked a significant change in how deputy ministers were appointed, trained, and promoted to assistant, associate, or full deputy minister. Whereas in the past a candidate had been appointed to a particular position within a given department, now they were first appointed to the level of assistant deputy minister and then assigned to a department. The formal appointment was made to the level, not to the position.

The PCO justified this approach by pointing to the need for generalists at the assistant deputy minister level, with diversified work experience and the ability to move across departments. This type of professional was seen as key to developing a corporate approach to public service work, in contrast to the traditional view of deputy ministers as narrowly tied to the work culture and policy ethos of a particular department. The organizational change in the nature of the senior appointment process, innocuous at first glance, would have deep implications for power relations between departments and central agencies.

Interestingly, by 2004 appointment to level had been effectively discontinued by Clerk of the Privy Council Alex Himmelfarb. In what many Ottawa insiders saw as a victory for the relative autonomy of departments and their senior executives, the process has reverted to appointment to position. This traditional method places greater power and influence in the hands of senior departmental management when it comes to choosing a new assistant deputy minister.

The Public Service Modernization Act

In November 2003 yet another federal human resources reform initiative was launched with the Public Service Modernization Act (PSMA). The policies and programs that resulted, according to senior officials in the TBS, would represent “the most significant reform in public service human resources management in more than 35 years. The changes brought about by this legislation will transform the way the government hires, manages and supports the men and women who make up the public service” (Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat 2005).

The PSMA had four main goals:

1. to modernize staffing through a new Public Service Employment Act;
2. to foster collaborative labour management relations through the Public Service Labour Relations Act;
3. to clarify roles and strengthen accountability for deputy heads and their managers; and
4. to provide a more integrated approach to learning development for employees through the formation of the Canada School of Public Service.

The PSMA vested leading responsibility for the development and management of federal human resources policy and programming into the hands of the Office of the Chief Human Resources Officer, created by the legislation. This office, the CHRO (more commonly referred to by Ottawa insiders as “crow”) was a subagency of the TBS, and its staff were mandated to advise and assist departments, agencies, boards, and commissions as they developed new approaches to human resources management. The CHRO was expected to collaborate closely with the TBS, the PCO, the PSC, and the CSPS over their human resources policy.

The PSMA made staffing decisions easier by giving deputy department heads greater control over setting job requirements, advertising positions, and assessing merit. That new flexibility stemmed from the principle that it was necessary only to find a qualified candidate, not to find the best candidate. Despite the shift in focus, senior departmental officials still had to base their decisions on departmental human resources plans approved by the PSC and reviewed by the CHRO. All departments developed fairly extensive long-term human resources plans to identify the types of personnel they needed; how they would recruit, train, and develop them; and how they would apply the merit principle in decision making.

Staff training was an important consideration in this regime. The CSPS provided centralized training in a wide variety of areas for all public servants, whether new hires, middle and senior managers, or deputy heads. Its curriculum covered topics from the general to the particular: government structures; the fundamentals of financial, human resources, and information technology management; privacy issues; leadership; policy development; and ethics and accountability.

Implementation of the regime engendered by the PSMA raised several issues. How well are public service unions integrated into decision-making processes, for example? Some unions were highly critical of giving management greater latitude in hiring, implying that managers could now tilt the process in their own favour at the expense of procedural fairness. Senior officials also had some concern over the amount of authority for human resources management that was being delegated back down to the departmental level. Would greater departmental flexibility damage system-wide consistency in application of the merit principle and centralized authority over human resources policy and renewal?

Tension between centralized and decentralized decision-making authority remains innate in federal human resources management, as it is in so many areas within a large bureaucracy.

1. Describe the role of the Public Service Commission.

Your response should include the following points. The Public Service Commission:

• promotes professionalism within the federal public service;
• upholds the merit principle in all decisions through clear rules and fair procedures on hiring, promotion, demotion, and firing of public servants;
• insulates the public service from patronage and political manipulation; and
• promotes policy on job classification, human resources planning, and performance evaluation.

2. Explain the origin and purpose of La Relève.

La Relève arose in response to the “quiet crisis” of the mid-1990s. It was a human resource policy initiative of the Privy Council Office designed to

• enhance employee morale;
• promote program efficiency;
• improve staff–management relations; and
• develop management leadership capacity.

La Relève had special programs to promote new recruitment and enhance employee training and development. It also witnessed the lifting of wage restraints across the public service and improved remuneration for public servants.

3. Identify the goals of the Public Service Modernization Act.

The Public Service Modernization Act had four primary goals:

1. To modernize staffing through a new Public Service Employment Act;
2. To foster collaborative labour–management relations through a new Public Service Labour Relations Act;
3. To clarify roles and promote greater accountability for deputy ministers and their managers; and
4. To provide better and more integrated learning and training programs for employees through the formation of the Canada School of Public Service.

4. Why are there so many HR Plans? Do they really work? What is their true purpose?

The Quiet Crisis, La Relève, the Public Service Modernization Act, and now, Blueprint 2020. Why does the federal government seem to develop a new HR plan every five to seven years or so? And are these plans more or less the same, or do they represent new and better approaches to dealing with HR management? In thinking about this, think about the purpose and effect of these plans for different groups of public servants: New Professionals, middle managers, senior departmental HR managers, and officials in central agencies, especially the PCO and TBS. Also, think about the purpose of these initiatives for the prime minister and cabinet. Is there a purely political motivation for a new plan every five to seven years? If so, what is it?

5. Assess whether the federal public service reflects Canadian societal diversity and support your opinion.

Your response should assess the origins, strengths, and weaknesses of federal policy on bilingualism, biculturalism, and employment equity. Focus attention on posing and answering questions such as:

• Was federal bilingualism and biculturalism policy necessary when it was brought in? Why or why not?
• Does federal bilingualism and biculturalism policy still work? Why or why not?
• Does federal bilingualism and biculturalism policy lead to the fair representation of francophones and anglophones in the federal public service?
• Does federal bilingualism and biculturalism policy need to be reformed? Explain how and why, from both an anglophone and a francophone point of view.
• What are the arguments for and against employment equity?
• Are women, Indigenous people, people with disabilities, and people in visible minority groups fairly represented in the federal public service? Why or why not?

6. Explain the difference in approach between choosing the best person for the job and choosing a good person for the job.

In your response, consider the following points:

• Most federal job ads will elicit hundreds of applications, with numerous very strong candidates among them.
• Are education, experience, references, bureaucratic patronage, or conformity to administrative culture important, and in what measure?
• Should you hire based on employment equity principles, on how well a candidate will fit the organizational culture, or on connections the candidate already has with the organization and its managers?

Each of these approaches has pros and cons, and there is no easy answer.

7. Explain the traditional issues of human resources management.

In your response, consider the following:

• the patronage system
• the merit principle
• professionalizing the public service

1. The merit principle is based on which two considerations?

• a. Public sector employees must be selected according to the suitability of their skills and the depth of their understanding of Canadian socio-political values and principles.
• b. Citizens must all have a reasonable opportunity to be considered for public employment, and their selection must be based on their fitness for the job.
• c. The merit of work and security of tenure in the public sector is compensation for a more modest pay scale than comparable private sector jobs.
• d. none of the above

2. Which of the following groups remains underrepresented in public sector employment?

• a. women
• b. people belonging to ethnic minorities
• c. people with disabilities
• d. all of the above

3. The Abella Commission was given a mandate to explore issues of

• a. public service renewal
• b. efficiency and effectiveness in public sector employment
• c. societal equality in employment
• d. socio-economic disparity between genders

4. Which of the following is not an occupational category in the federal public service?

• a. executive
• b. scientific and technological
• c. administrative and foreign service
• d. administrative support

5. Which federal department had the largest number of employees as of 2021?

• a. National Defence
• b. Human Resources and Skills Development Canada
• c. Correctional Service Canada
• d. Canada Border Services Agency

6. Which of the following officials does the Public Service Commission not have jurisdiction over?

• a. Crown corporation employees
• b. senators
• c. Order-in-Council appointees
• d. all of the above

7. The “quiet crisis” refers to

• a. events in Quebec in the early 1960s
• b. the absence of women’s voices in senior executive ranks
• c. the elimination of the long-form census in 2010
• d. disgruntlement in the public service in the late 1990s

8. Which is not a designated group for employment equity purposes?

• a. women
• b. the poor
• c. visible minorities
• d. Indigenous people

9. Which of the following are public service unions prohibited from engaging in when collective bargaining?

• a. hours of work
• b. assignment of duties
• c. standards of discipline
• d. career development policies

10. Which of the following ideals are associated with new professionalism?

• a. creativity
• b. informality in the workplace
• c. participatory management
• d. all of the above

Chapter 7 Answer Key

• 1. b
• 2. b
• 3. c
• 4. b
• 5. a
• 6. d
• 7. d
• 8. b
• 9. b
• 10. d

Table 7.1 Canadian total public sector employment, 2011–2021

Table 7.2 Core public administration employment by level of government, 2016–2020

Table 7.3 Federal service employees, 1999–2020

Table 7.4 Distribution of public service of Canada employees by designated group and (outdated) occupational category

Table 7.5 Federal public service employees by salary range and women’s designated group, 2019–2020

Table 7.6 Federal public service employees by region, 2019–2020

Table 7.7 Federal public service employees by department or agency, 2019–2020

Table 7.8 Anglophones and francophones in the core public administration by region, 2018–2019

Table 7.9 Language requirements of core public administration positions, 1978–2019

Table 7.10 Language requirements of core public administration positions by region, 2018–2019

Table 7.11 Representation of designated groups within the federal public service

bilingualism and biculturalism
The policy, based on the idea that French and English Canada are two of the founding nations of the country, of representing the languages and cultures of these founding nations within the framework of the federal parliament, government, and public service.

Canada School of Public Service
The centralized educational agency of the federal public service that provides employee training and management development courses for public servants. Formerly known as the Canadian Centre for Management Development, the CSPS plays an important role in management renewal policy.

collective bargaining
The legal process under which unionized employees engage in formal negotiations with the representatives of their employer over pay and benefits, terms and conditions of work, and grievance procedures. Collective bargaining in the federal public service is extensive compared to the Canadian private sector but limited by the merit principle and the role of the Public Service Commission of Canada.

employment equity
The policy that certain socio-demographic groups that have historically suffered discrimination—notably women, Indigenous people, people from a visible minority, and people with disabilities—should be afforded special recognition as the government strives to alleviate discrimination by ensuring that they are represented in the federal public service to the same extent as their proportion of the general population.

human resources planning
The aspect of management devoted to the recruitment, training, retention, mobilization, and promotion of personnel.

La Relève
A human resources reform policy developed in 1997 to address the perceived “quiet crisis” confronting the federal public service following a major program review in the mid-1990s. La Relève sought to rejuvenate the federal public service by attracting younger Canadians into public service while enhancing management training and centralizing senior executive training.

merit principle
The concept that all decision making about the hiring, training, promotion, demotion, and firing of public servants should be undertaken strictly according to objective assessments of competence, usually related to education and demonstrated successful job experience, rather than to subjective assessments of a person’s political affiliations or personal connections. Merit became the dominant organizing principle of public service human resources policy during World War I and continues to the present.

National Capital Region
The combined cities of Ottawa and Gatineau. The NCR forms the administrative and executive heart of the federal government. Whereas most federal public servants work outside the NCR, the vast majority of senior managers and executives work within home departments and agencies domiciled therein.

Office of the Chief Human Resources Officer
Established in 2009, this office replaced the Canada Public Service Agency as the lead institution within the federal public service, and it functions within the parameters of the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat. Its mandate is to make and promote policies and programs centred on human resources management in the Canadian government, focusing on staff training and development, employment equity, official languages, labour relations, values and ethics, public service renewal, and leadership development. See also Public Service Commission of Canada; Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat.

Official Languages Act, 1969
Federal legislation stipulating that both French and English are the official languages of Canada, that the federal public service must function in both official languages, and that Canadians have the right to receive services from the federal public service in the official language of their choice.

Phoenix Pay System
The new process by which salaries and other remunerations were paid out to federal employees. This system was very poorly designed and implemented and quickly became an object of derision both within and without the federal public service.

political patronage
Decision making with respect to the hiring, training, promotion, demotion, and firing of public servants according to subjective assessments of their political affiliations or personal connections rather than demonstrated competence. The political patronage system dominated federal human resources policy from Confederation to World War I.

Public Service Commission of Canada
The agency responsible for all hiring, promotion, lateral transfer, demotion, and dismissal from the federal public service. The PSC, created in 1967, is the successor to the Civil Service Commission, which was established in 1918 with the mandate to promote and protect the merit principle in all human resources decision making within the federal public service.

Public Service Labour Relations Act
A 2005 revision of the Public Service Staff Relations Act of 1967 that recognizes the right of most federal public servants to engage in collective bargaining with their employer, represented by the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat. The new legislation continues the legal framework of collective bargaining while modifying certain technical rules respecting the application of the merit principle to hiring and promotion processes to make them more flexible but still subject to collective bargaining and grievance procedures.

Public Service Labour Relations Board
A quasi-judicial administrative tribunal responsible for adjudicating collective bargaining disputes between unionized bargaining units and management and resolving grievances respecting the application of contract language. The board also addresses pay equity disputes and engages in compensation analysis and research.

Public Service Modernization Act
Passed in 2003, the PSMA marks the federal government’s latest human resources policy initiative. It is designed to facilitate more efficient staffing decision making, to streamline public service labour relations, to improve accountability, and to ensure greater management training and development through the work of the Canada School of Public Service.

representativeness of the public service
The concept that the membership of the public service should represent the society it serves by reflecting the socio-demographic diversity of the general population in terms of gender, language, race, religion, colour, region, ability, and so forth.

Canada School of Public Service

MERX. Canadian Public Tenders: Federal, Provincial, and Municipal

Office of the Chief Human Resources Officer

Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages

Public Service Alliance of Canada

Public Service Commission of Canada

Public Service Commission of Canada—Career Recruitment

Public Service Commission of Canada—Post-secondary Recruitment

Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat