The Harper government is finalizing decisions on a sweeping operating spending review to chop billions of dollars annually from the federal budget. It has unions fearing that potentially, tens of thousands of federal employees could receive pink slips.
Treasury Board president Tony Clement is leading the strategic review that is searching for $1 billion in cuts in the upcoming 2012-13 spring budget, $2 billion for 2013-14, and $4 billion annually by 2014-15 and beyond.
Nearly 70 government departments and agencies have submitted scenarios for a five and 10 per cent cut to their budgets as part of an examination of about $80 billion in direct program spending. More than 600 proposals are being considered.
The government desperately needs the savings to help eliminate a $31-billion deficit by 2015-16, at the earliest.
The first of the cuts are expected to be unveiled in the budget, leaving some ministers, other parliamentarians and federal employees nervously wondering what will be whacked.
Clement says no final decisions have been made and that Canadians can expect details in the fiscal blueprint.
"Really, it is a program review, rather than a jobs review, per se. Obviously, the two are interconnected," Clement told Postmedia News in an interview.
"This process, I know, is one where there is some uncertainty before the actual decisions are made, but that's a relatively short period of time before we can come out with budget 2012."
The planned austerity measures come as briefing notes prepared for Clement, and obtained by Postmedia News, show the population of the federal public service (core public servants) soared 34 per cent over the past decade, to 282,955 last year from 211,925 a decade earlier.
The expansion the bureaucracy over that time has outpaced population growth by a rate of three to one.
The Conservative government is paying Deloitte Consulting nearly $20 million — almost $90,000 a day — to advise the cabinet and senior officials until next spring on how to find savings to balance the books in the coming years.
Moreover, 40 per cent of "at risk" bonus pay for senior government managers will be based on how much they cut and contribute to helping the government find at least $4 billion in annual savings in the coming years.
"This is a way to make sure that people who are accountable and responsible to the elected government actually help us fulfil the program that we were elected on," Clement added.
However, the cuts-for-cash policy is sparking concerns among labour groups that anxious axe-wielding managers will slice more than just low-hanging fruit.
John Gordon, president of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, which represents approximately 150,000 federal public servants, said large job cuts are seemingly inevitable because they're directly tied to programs and services.
Gordon said he has never seen morale in the public service so low and his members fear the government immediately will go for cuts in the 10 per cent range, rather than the five per cent option.
"They see Clement sitting with the consultant looking at programs . . . and with all of that goes jobs," he said.
"Everything points to bleak times and our members are really, really worried it's going to be a year where job loss is going to occur."
Gordon said his concerns stretch far beyond simply his members' jobs and to the communities across Canada that will feel the pinch on government services and a financial hit on the local economy.
Unions and opposition parties blame government cuts to Service Canada for delaying jobless Canadians from getting their employment insurance benefits processed in a timely manner. More than 1,000 processing agents have been let go since the spring.
PSAC has launched an online social media campaign that argues it's absurd to have Canadians choose between strong public services and eliminating the deficit. The union is urging Canadians to fight back against the cuts by promoting a "third choice" of having both a strong economy and healthy public service.
As unions gird for job losses, Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page has said that, based on government planning reports, his office expects roughly 6,000 federal public servants could receive pink slips over the next three years.
The minister, however, says PSAC and some other unions are simply fearmongering and doing little to help the government find the savings it needs to balance the books and to generate more economic stability.
"The unions are stoking it up," Clement added. "They're looking at worst-case scenarios or just picking stuff out of the air. I know that's part of the union's gamesmanship but at the same time, I think it's very unhelpful and it creates greater anxiety than needs to be in place."
The largest gains in the federal public service over the past decade have come in the National Capital Region around Ottawa, with the growth in jobs coming from knowledge-based positions in several categories: executive; economics and social sciences; computer systems; and law.
Despite recent growth trends, the number of federal public servants per 100 Canadians is lower now than it was prior to the Liberal government's program review in the 1990s.
Linda Duxbury, a professor in the Sprott School of Business at Carleton University who specializes in workforce change, said there's a need to "realign" the federal public service. Changes in required skills and technologies mean some departments are short-staffed and others are bloated, she explained.
But cutting federal spending inherently means chopping public-sector jobs, she said, and the government must be prepared for the fallout that will spread to families, communities and remaining employees across the civil service.
The government also should remember that its spending review is about people, not simply numbers, she said.
"They're not saving money if they're not cutting jobs," Duxbury said. "Even if it's a five per cent cut, there will be a lot more than five per cent affected."
Original Article
Source: Ottawa Citizen
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