Trudeau balloons bureaucracy by 42 per cent, adds 108,000 employees

From the Canadian Taxpayers Federation

The Trudeau government’s addiction to hiring bureaucrats continues unabated.

The government added another 10,525 bureaucrats to its payroll last year, bringing the size of the federal bureaucracy up to 367,772, according to data from the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat released July 11.

“Was there a bureaucrat shortage in Ottawa before Trudeau took over?” said Franco Terrazzano, Federal Director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. “Canadians need a more efficient government, not a bloated government full of highly paid bureaucrats.”

Since Prime Minister Justin Trudeau came to power in 2015, the feds have added 108,793 new bureaucrats to the government dole – an increase of 42 per cent.

Canada’s population grew by just 14 per cent during the same time period. Had the bureaucracy only increased with population growth, there would be 72,491 fewer federal employees today.

Table: Size of federal bureaucracy, per TBS data

Year (As of March 31)	Number of federal bureaucrats
2016	258,979
2017	262,696
2018	273,571
2019	287,983
2020	300,450
2021	319,601
2022	335,957
2023	357,247
2024	367,772

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

The cost of the federal payroll hit $67.4 billion in 2023, a record high, according to a report from the Parliamentary Budget Officer, Ottawa’s independent, non-partisan budget watchdog.

That’s a 68 per cent increase over 2016, when the federal payroll sat at 40.2 billion.

The Trudeau government also handed out more than one million pay raises to bureaucrats over the past four years alone, according to government records obtained by the CTF.

The government has consistently declined to reveal how much those raises cost taxpayers.

The federal government also rubberstamped more than $1.5 billion in bonuses for bureaucrats since 2015.

Meanwhile, despite the bureaucratic hiring spree, spending on consultants has also skyrocketed under the Trudeau government. Consultant spending now sits at $21.6 billion annually.

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

Well, the reviews are in and the results aren’t good.

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’ve seen an increase in the number of public servants and in public expenditures, but year after year, despite the fact that departments choose their performance indicators and the targets, they don’t seem to be getting significantly better at reaching them,” Budget Officer Yves Giroux testified to a parliamentary committee in March 2024.

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

Meanwhile, data from Statistics Canada suggests the average annual salary among all full-time workers in Canada was less than $70,000 in 2023.

“The feds have hired tens of thousands of extra bureaucrats, handed out more than one million raises and rubber stamped hundreds of million in bonuses in recent years and still can’t deliver good services,” Terrazzano said. “Any government that cares about balancing the budget must take air out of the ballooning bureaucracy.”

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Three cheers for Poilievre’s alcohol tax cut

Published on April 2, 2025

Todayville

By Franco Terrazzano

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation applauds Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre’s commitment to end and reverse the alcohol escalator tax.

“Poilievre just promised major alcohol tax cuts and taxpayers will cheers to that,” said Franco Terrazzano, CTF Federal Director. “Poilievre’s tax cut will save Canadians money every time they have a cold one with a buddy or enjoy a glass of Pinot with their better half and it will give Canadians brewers, distillers and wineries a fighting chance against tariffs.”

Today, federal alcohol taxes increased by two per cent, costing taxpayers about $40 million this year, according to Beer Canada.

Poilievre announced a Conservative government “will axe the escalator tax on wine, beer and spirits back to 2017 levels, ending the automatic annual tax increases.”

The alcohol escalator tax has automatically increased excise taxes on beer, wine and spirits every year, without a vote in Parliament, since 2017. The alcohol escalator tax has cost taxpayers more than $900 million since being imposed, according to Beer Canada.

Taxes from multiple levels of government account for about half of the price of alcohol.

Meanwhile, tariffs are hitting the industry hard. Brewers have described the tariffs as “Armageddon for craft brewing.”

“Automatic tax hikes are undemocratic, uncompetitive and unaffordable and they need to stop,” Terrazzano said. “If politicians think Canadians aren’t paying enough tax, they should at least have the spine to vote on the tax increase.

“Poilievre is right to end the escalator tax and all party leaders should commit to making life more affordable for Canadian consumers and businesses by ending the undemocratic alcohol tax hikes.”

Business

Saskatchewan becomes first Canadian province to fully eliminate carbon tax

Published on April 1, 2025

Todayville

From LifeSiteNews

By Clare Marie Merkowsky

Saskatchewan has become the first Canadian province to free itself entirely of the carbon tax.

On March 27, Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe announced the removal of the provincial industrial carbon tax beginning April 1, boosting the province’s industry and making Saskatchewan the first carbon tax free province.

“The immediate effect is the removal of the carbon tax on your Sask Power bills, saving Saskatchewan families and small businesses hundreds of dollars a year. And in the longer term, it will reduce the cost of other consumer products that have the industrial carbon tax built right into their price,” said Moe.

Under Moe’s direction, Saskatchewan has dropped the industrial carbon tax which he says will allow Saskatchewan to thrive under a “tariff environment.”

“I would hope that all of the parties running in the federal election would agree with those objectives and allow the provinces to regulate in this area without imposing the federal backstop,” he continued.

The removal of the tax is estimated to save Saskatchewan residents up to 18 cents a liter in gas prices.

The removal of the tax will take place on April 1, the same day the consumer carbon tax will reduce to 0 percent under Prime Minister Mark Carney’s direction. Notably, Carney did not scrap the carbon tax legislation: he just reduced its current rate to zero. This means it could come back at any time.

Furthermore, while Carney has dropped the consumer carbon tax, he has previously revealed that he wishes to implement a corporation carbon tax, the effects of which many argued would trickle down to all Canadians.

The Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities (SARM) celebrated Moe’s move, noting that the carbon tax was especially difficult on farmers.

“It puts our farming community and our business people in rural municipalities at a competitive disadvantage, having to pay this and compete on the world stage,” he continued.

“We’ve got a carbon tax on power — and that’s going to be gone now — and propane and natural gas and we use them more and more every year, with grain drying and different things in our farming operations,” he explained.

“I know most producers that have grain drying systems have three-phase power. If they haven’t got natural gas, they have propane to fire those dryers. And that cost goes on and on at a high level, and it’s made us more noncompetitive on a world stage,” Huber decalred.

The carbon tax is wildly unpopular and blamed for the rising cost of living throughout Canada. Currently, Canadians living in provinces under the federal carbon pricing scheme pay $80 per tonne.