The federal government approved pay raises for 336,188 public servants in 2025, even as departments continued to miss nearly half of their own performance targets, according to access-to-information records obtained by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
The records show 78 per cent of federal employees received a pay increase last year, while only 596 employees — about 0.14 per cent of the federal workforce — saw their pay reduced.
“Taxpayers have every reason to question why the vast majority of bureaucrats are taking bigger paycheques when departments can barely pass their own test,” said CTF Federal Director Franco Terrazzano. “Federal bureaucrats shouldn’t feel entitled to more money every year just because they’re on the taxpayer payroll.”
The latest figures continue a long-running trend. About 385,000 federal employees received raises in 2024, while more than one million pay increases were granted between 2020 and 2023. The federal government has not disclosed the total cost of the salary increases.
CTF General Counsel Devin Drover criticized the government’s refusal to release the financial impact of the raises, calling it another example of Canada’s weak access-to-information system.
“Taxpayers are on the hook for another wage hike, but the government won’t tell Canadians the price tag,” Drover said. “Taxpayers pay these wages and they have a right to know the bill.”
According to federal performance reports, departments met just 54 percent of their own performance targets in 2024, their best result in the past five years. In two of those years, departments failed to meet even half of their stated objectives.
The report also points to research from the Fraser Institute showing government employees earned an average wage premium of 4.8 percent over comparable private-sector workers after accounting for factors such as education, experience and occupation.
Meanwhile, the Parliamentary Budget Officer projects the cost of the federal bureaucracy will reach $79.4 billion this year, exceeding spending levels during the final year of Justin Trudeau’s government after adjusting for inflation. Public Accounts data show the cost of the federal bureaucracy increased 80 percent between 2015 and 2024.
Despite Prime Minister Mark Carney’s pledge to “spend less” and Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne’s commitment to return the civil service to a “more sustainable level,” the Parliamentary Budget Officer projects personnel costs will continue to rise.
Hellbound and Down 