This is from a larger publication, Alternative federal budget 2026-27: Bridge to independence
Introduction
A strong public service is the backbone of any society that aspires to shared prosperity and high levels of human development. The public service is the system that keeps communities safe, supports people through hardship, and ensures fairness in how opportunities are distributed. Canada has long benefited from such a foundation—yet the strength of that foundation is no longer guaranteed.
Today, the public service has not just been under strain after decades of neoliberal ‘new public management’1For an overview, see Bryan Evans, “The Politics of Public Administration: Constructing the Neoliberal State” in Canadian Political Economy, University of Toronto Press, November 2020., it is under active threat. New technologies are being introduced without adequate oversight, exposing workers and the public to risks related to privacy, surveillance, and algorithmic decision-making. The federal government’s plan to slash 40,000 federal public service positions from 2023-24 to 2028-29—about 10 per cent of the federal workforce—will weaken Canada’s social safety net and hurt workers, families and communities across Canada.
Overview
In an uncertain macroeconomic environment, it is important to remember that a strong economy requires a strong public service.2François Desrochers and Bertrand Schepper, The Public Services: An important driver of Canada’s economy, Institut de recherche et d’informations socioéconomiques (IRIS), September 2019, https://iris-recherche.qc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Public_Service_WEB.pdf. Without a doubt, the policies of the United States—from the imposition of tariffs to military aggression in Latin America and the Middle East—has led to employment and price shocks, which are reverberating across the global economy. Despite these external threats to employment, the largest job shock came from the federal government. Ottawa public sector worker cuts in the past year have resulted in, by far, the worst job performance of any city in Ontario.3Jason Kirby, “Ottawa Has the Worst Job Market in Canada, Faring Worse than Cities with Tariff-Hit Industries,” The Globe and Mail, February 16, 2026, .
This is exactly why the Alternative Federal Budget (AFB) prioritizes building a strong, well-funded federal public service. From keeping our food, coasts, and borders safe, to preserving our parks, ensuring our roads, rails, and skies are safe for travellers, and delivering vital public services, the federal public service is the backbone of a strong and safe Canada. This AFB proposes measures to support and strengthen Canada’s public service so that it can effectively implement proposals presented in other chapters, ensuring that no one gets left behind.
Reversing the cuts
Two major rounds of cuts have hit the federal public sector over the past two years. The first was the “refocusing government spending” cuts introduced under the Trudeau government in budget 2023, which led to major staff cuts at Canada Revenue Agency (CRA), Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), Health Canada (HC) and Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC), and Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA). These hit in 2025.
Then the Comprehensive Expenditure Review (CER) of budget 2025 hit in the winter of 2026, leading to cuts across all departments. Although some departments were protected from the deepest cuts—with the Department of National Defence (DND), the RCMP, and Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA), initially facing only a two per cent reduction, later joined by the research granting councils, Women and Gender Equity (WAGE), Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs, and Indigenous Services. All other departments faced 15 per cent cuts in order to transfer all that money to DND. These cuts are layered on top of each other.
While the total amounts of the cuts were reported in budget 2025, the staffing impacts were not. They are only slowly being reported.4Government of Canada, Workforce Reductions in the Federal Public Service, May 6, 2026, https://www.canada.ca/en/government/publicservice/workforce/workforce-adjustment/workforce-reductions-federal-public-service.html. Critically, what’s missing from this disclosure is what’s being cut: which programs, which services, how service levels will be impacted. The specific programs being cut are only being revealed in a haphazard manner. They should have been revealed in the 2026-27 departmental reports, but, by and large, they weren’t. Canadians deserve to know what they’re losing to pay for massive military equipment spending increases.
Moreover, we know nothing about who is being cut. Given the concerning possibility that women, racialized workers, Indigenous workers, and those with disabilities could disproportionately face layoffs,5David Macdonald and Katherine Scott, “Federal cuts will worsen gender, racial and Indigenous inequality in Canada,” Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, October 17, 2025, . this is critical information to determine the equity implications of these cuts.
What we do know, so far, is that immigration application backlogs skyrocketed when the “refocusing government” cuts laid off many of the people keeping the backlogs under control. We also know that most of the Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship cuts are either downloading costs onto cities housing new Canadians or cuts in health care to asylum seekers and integration services.6David Macdonald, “Budget cuts are about to wreck Canada’s immigration system,” Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, March 9, 2026, .
Food safety is under threat as the CFIA lost 450 positions in the 2025 refocusing government cuts and another 587 positions are to be cut under the CER. All told, the Food Inspection Agency will have lost 15 per cent of staff in three years. This is paired with major cuts at Agriculture and Agri-food Canada, where 13 per cent of staff will be lost (see the Agriculture chapter).
Health Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada have experienced major cuts as well. These are the departments that focus upstream disease prevention, such as preventing the next Walkerton water crisis before it happens. They’ve scheduled staff cuts of 16 per cent and 22 per cent, respectively, and represent some of the hardest-hit departments across the two waves of cuts.
Let’s be clear: these cuts are not about efficiency—they are about major service reductions implemented so quickly that they will inevitably cause harm. Their non-transparent nature means the harm caused will likely only be known well after the programs are cut and the staff lost. This dismantling of important programs, by stealth, is the wrong way to review programs to determine if they continue to be relevant.
Artificial Intelligence and the federal public sector
AI continues to permeate modern work. While aspects of it can be a time saver, it routinely, and unavoidably, makes up answers when it doesn’t know the correct response and, most worrisome, it does this in a way that seems convincing upon cursory inspection (see the Artificial Intelligence chapter). These sorts of AI hallucinations are already doing real and demonstrable harm to Canadians as half-baked AI software is given the power over high-stakes decisions.7Nicholas Keung, “Canada rejected her permanent residence application. Her job duties were made up—by Immigration’s AI reviewer,” Toronto Star, March 25, 2026, .
The AFB vehemently opposes AI being used instead of human judgement for high-stakes approvals in any federal department. Immigration decisions, support programs qualifications, benefit determinations are simply too important to be blindly handed off to AI in the interest of speed. Staffing levels must be appropriate to ensure these decisions remain in human hands, rather than being outsourced to imposed AI systems.
Transparency and accountability must be at the forefront of how the federal government uses AI.
Canada’s regulatory framework—a project of national importance for the public sector
In many areas of our federation, legislative powers are distributed across multiple levels of government. Often, municipal, provincial and territorial governments deliver on-the-ground services while the federal government holds national responsibility for regulation, protecting Canadians by ensuring high standards for food, consumer products and infrastructure. This essential work impacts everyone in Canada and represents a project of national importance and should be protected and funded instead of being cut due to arbitrary austerity measures.
When Canadians purchase groceries, federal regulation and inspection ensures that the food they purchase is safe for consumption. Behind the scenes, this work happens thanks to scientists studying food products to ensure their safety, to policy and regulatory analysts setting regulations and advising on minimum standards, and to food inspectors working on the ground to verify that food producers are following these regulations.
Similarly, environmental regulations are backstopped by scientists, policy professionals, and enforcement and monitoring agents. These groups—and many more—work together to set regulatory standards for pollution and emissions, monitor compliance, and engage with provinces, territories and First Nations to ensure coordination. Together, the regulatory framework and the workers who support it preserve Canada’s environment for generations to come.
With all these essential roles and more, the regulatory framework is of national importance and should be strengthened to ensure that Canadians can count on the safety of their food, quality infrastructure, and a clean environment. A strong regulatory framework lays the foundation for sustainable growth, ensures that our food and consumer products meet standards for domestic and international markets, and ensures that our transportation infrastructure can keep pace with a growing population.
The return-to-office mandate
The federal government is engaged in an extremely costly and counter-productive return-to-office (RTO) mandate of four days a week, beginning on July 6, 2026. The pandemic illustrated how much more accommodating federal employment could be for workers. Parents could spend less time commuting, making child care pick up and drop off much easier. Departments had access to much larger pools of talent if workers didn’t have to live in a particular city. The government real estate savings were substantial, as workers used their own space at essentially no cost to the federal government. Many federal workers are interacting with other workers across the country and are routinely on videoconference calls, no matter where they are.
The benefits of remote work do not accrue to all federal employees because not all employees work in an office, but there are major benefits to many workers who do have office jobs.
The RTO mandate comes at tremendous cost to the federal government. In budget 2024, the federal government anticipated savings of $3.9 billion over ten years by reducing its real estate footprint.8Chapter 1, “Budget 2024: Fairness for every generation”, Government of Canada, April 2024, https://www.budget.canada.ca/2024/report-rapport/chap1-en.html#:~:text=Less%3A%20Projected%20Savings,%2D110 However, the RTO mandate meant those savings wouldn’t be nearly as large, coming at $2.45 billion instead.9“Question Period Note: Office Portfolio Reduction Plan”, Public Services and Procurement Canada, Government of Canada, https://search.open.canada.ca/qpnotes/record/pwgsc-tpsgc%2CPSPC-2025-QP-00014#:~:text=projected%20to%20achieve%20a%20reduction%20of%2033%25%20in%20floor%20area%2C%20with%20associated%20operations%20and%20maintenance%20savings%20of%20%242.45%20billion%20over%2010%20years%20and%20an%20additional%20%24514%20million%20in%20annual%20recurring%20savings In other words, the RTO mandate will cost the federal government $1.45 billion over the next 10 years and $400 million a year after that. The government was going to dispose of underused office space, but it now must scale that back contradicting the cost-cutting objectives of the CER. There is a real contradiction between cuts to major programs and staff layoffs while the federal government continues to rent expensive office space.
This isn’t the right approach. The AFB would take full advantage of federal employees’ willingness to work from home and save the federal government billions in office rent. Those savings would be better spent improving services rather than cutting them.
Actions
The AFB will reinvest in the federal public sector to ensure the regulatory framework remains robust. The AFB will increase the regulatory budgets of multiple key departments and agencies, including CFIA, Agriculture and Agri-food, the competition bureau and more (see the Regulation chapter).
The AFB will reverse the Comprehensive Expenditure Review cuts.
The AFB will ensure that no major decisions are being made by generative AI within the federal government. When it comes to AI, or automation more generally, these systems must be co-created with workers and they must deliver full transparency about when and where AI is deployed.
The AFB will reverse the four-days-a-week RTO mandate and move to a new system of “presence with purpose”, where positions would have a case-by-case designation of the requirement for physical presence. Some positions would be fully digital, others would be fully in person, and most would have some physical requirements for critical meetings and tasks but no mandatory number of days a week as a performative requirement. The AFB will use the $1.45 billion saved in real estate costs to help rehire and restart the programs cancelled under the CER.
