The federal government added 98,986 employees since 2016, bringing the number of federal bureaucrats to 357,965, according to data from the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat.

“The last thing Canadians need is a bloated government full of highly paid paper pushers,” said Franco Terrazzano, CTF Federal Director. “If politicians want to provide tax relief and start paying down the federal debt, they need to shrink government bureaucracy.”

The federal government reduced its payroll by 9,807 employees over the last year. However, the federal government still has 98,986 more employees than it did in 2016 – a 38 per cent increase.

The average annual compensation for full-time federal bureaucrats is $125,300, when pay, pension, and other perks are accounted for, according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer.

Taxpayers would save about $7 billion annually had the federal bureaucracy grew in line with population growth over the last 10 years.

There are seven federal departments and agencies that have more than doubled their number of employees since 2016, including:

• Infrastructure Canada (375 per cent)
• Women and Gender Equality Canada (334 per cent)
• RCMP External Review Committee (229 per cent)
• Elections Canada (173 per cent)
• Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (158 per cent)
• Financial Consumer Agency of Canada (154 per cent)
• Impact Assessment Agency of Canada (127 per cent)

Employment and Social Development Canada added the greatest number of employees since 2016. The department added 16,842 employees since 2016 – a 75 per cent increase.

The Canada Revenue Agency added the second greatest number of employees over the decade. The CRA added 13,015 employees since 2016 – a 33 per cent increase.

“It’s good to see the bureaucracy shrinking a little bit, but it’s still too bloated and too expensive,” Terrazzano said.

It isn’t just the size of the federal bureaucracy that’s ballooning – the cost is too. 

The PBO estimates the federal bureaucracy cost taxpayers $69.5 billion in 2023-24. In 2016-17, the cost of the bureaucracy was $40.2 billion. That’s an increase of 72.9 per cent.

The federal government handed out more than one million pay raises between 2020 and 2023, according to government records obtained by the CTF. The federal government also rubberstamped more than $1.5 billion in bonuses for bureaucrats since 2015. 

Given the rash of bonuses and pay raises, on top of new hires, Canadians might wonder: how well are things running in Ottawa? 

Less than 50 per cent of the government’s own performance targets are consistently met by federal departments within each year, according to a March 2023 report from the PBO.

“We are also committed to capping, not cutting, public service employment,” according to the Liberal Party’s 2025 election platform.

“Prime Minister Mark Carney’s promise to cap the bureaucracy doesn’t go nearly far enough and just entrenches the Trudeau government’s costly bureaucrat hiring spree,” Terrazzano said. “Taxpayers need politicians to cut the bloated bureaucracy and make pay and perks more affordable.”