The Privy Council Office spent $5.8 million on communications, marketing and research consultants even though it has about 320 staff employed in similar roles.

“The PCO already has hundreds of communications and research bureaucrats and then it spends millions getting consultants and contractors to do their homework,” said Franco Terrazzano, Canadian Taxpayers Federation Federal Director. “It doesn’t make sense for taxpayers to pay bureaucrats to do a job and then pay consultants to do the same job.

“The prime minister promised to cut this kind of wasteful spending and he needs to work harder to keep that promise.”

The PCO is the federal department tasked with supporting the prime minister and cabinet. 

It spent $17,446,103 on professional services in 2025, according to the access-to-information records obtained by the CTF.

Those contracts included payments to a yoga teacher, a “productivity ninja” and a supplier of “coins” and “swords,” according to the records.

The PCO spent $5.8 million on marketing, communications, financial and strategy-related consulting and contractors.

Meanwhile, the PCO spends about $40 million annually on staff performing similar functions, including $8.5 million on communications staff, $526,000 on marketing and advertizing staff and $28 million on research and analysis roles.

The PCO also spent $641,400 on audiovisual consulting services, despite already spending nearly $1 million annually on in-house multimedia staff.

The PCO spent $4.8 million on “advertizing services” from EssenceMediacom related to Canada’s trade agreements, according to the records. The company describes its work as helping clients “understand the modern marketing paradox.”

The PCO spent $35,775 on consulting services from Graybridge International Consulting Inc., which states on its website that “diversity is the ‘D’ in our DNA.”  The PCO also paid $497,500 to a marketing firm that says it goes “beyond the surface to solve clients’ big, tangly problems.”

The PCO’s spending on contracts extends beyond communications and consulting services.

The department spent $386,700 on furniture and $136,290 at the Pan Pacific Toronto hotel.

The PCO also spent $12,900 on a “Hatha Slow Flow Yoga teacher,” whose studio is nearly two hours by car from Ottawa, despite multiple local options.

Comparable local classes cost about $35 per person, meaning the same amount could have paid for approximately 368 sessions. Online classes costing $18 each could have provided about 716 sessions for the same price. Free online alternatives are also widely available.

The PCO paid $3,975 to a “supplier of licensed products such as coins, swords, plaques, crests, gift items, specialty embroidery and woven items.” The department also spent $1,300 on a “productivity ninja,” $4,665 on art work, $20,400 at Ottawa Executive Limousine and $2,500 on professional caregivers.

“Why is the PCO spending thousands of dollars on yoga lessons?” Terrazzano said. “Spending $1,300 on a ‘productivity ninja’ didn’t make Ottawa more productive.”

During the last federal election, Prime Minister Mark Carney said his government would be “significantly reducing reliance on external consultants.”

The PCO’s spending on “professional and special services” has skyrocketed over the past decade, rising from $9.6 million in 2015-16 to $36 million in 2024-25, according to the public accounts. Professional and special services is a broad category that captures government spending on consultants, contractors and outsourcing.

The federal government’s overall spending on professional and special services more than doubled between 2015-16 and 2024-25. And despite Carney’s election promise, the Main Estimates show the government is again increasing spending on professional and special services to $26.6 billion in 2026-27.

Not only is the cost of consulting and outsourcing increasing, so is the cost of the government’s bureaucracy. The cost of the bureaucracy increased 80 per cent between 2015 and 2024. This year’s Main Estimates show the cost of the federal bureaucracy is increasing five per cent over the last year.