The number of federal public service jobs has decreased for the first time in a decade, with nearly 10,000 positions eliminated in the last year. According to new statistics from the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat, the number of people employed by the federal government fell to 357,965 as of March 31, 2025, down from 367,772 in 2024.
Prime Minister Mark Carney has tried to put a positive spin on the cuts. In a recently released list of seven priorities for his new government, he highlighted “spending less on government operations so that Canadians can invest more in the people and businesses that will build the strongest economy in the G7.”
However, what Carney failed to outline is which government operations he had in mind. While many departments have reduced staff, others have increased it. Where these changes were made offer clues to where the Liberals’ priorities are—and it is not in helping ordinary people.
The Canada Revenue Agency was hit hardest, losing 6,656 employees—this despite Liberal promises on the campaign trail to crack down on large tax evaders. Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada was hit with 1,944 job losses, despite massive backlogs and record-breaking wait times for immigration claims. Jobs at Health Canada, the Public Health Agency of Canada, and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency have also been slashed, departments which are critical to the health and safety of working-class people.
However, while these departments have faced cuts, the Department of National Defence, Global Affairs Canada, Natural Resources Canada, and the RCMP have actually seen increases to their staff over the past year. This is no accident. It represents a deliberate reallocation of funds from essential services to sectors that advance the business and military establishment. This is to say nothing of the hundreds of billions of dollars poured into corporate subsidies in the last decade, something Carney has no plans to reduce.
The Liberals claim the cuts are about efficiency, but what could be less efficient than cutting immigration staff in the middle of historic backlogs, or laying off food safety and health staff when we have recently faced measles and listeria outbreaks? This is not a neutral streamlining of government as the Liberals want us to believe. It is a readjustment of priorities away from the needs of people and towards the interests of corporate profit.
Carney’s Liberals may not have run on a program of austerity, but that’s exactly what they’re delivering. The Liberals committed to “capping, not cutting” public service jobs, while refusing to admit where cuts would be made to achieve their goal of balancing the budget. Although it appears as if the Liberals are going back on their promises, the reality is that nothing has changed. Austerity was always part of the plan.
During the election campaign, we were told endlessly that the Liberals were the “lesser evil”. The NDP’s Jagmeet Singh even prided himself of having helped avoid a Conservative government being elected in the fall – running his party to the ground in the process. With these cuts – which are just the beginning – the worthlessness of lesser evil politics is on full display.
