As signs of budgetary recovery multiply, Treasury Board President Sonia LeBel assures that she does not want to cut civil service positions.
Rather, it’s about adopting the adage “do you really need it?”, she says, before approving an expense.
“It is not the intention at all to cut civil servants,” she said in the corridors of the National Assembly on Wednesday morning. The idea is “not to increase or reduce” but to “ensure” that “it is really necessary” when there are additional staff or additional overtime, she also mentioned.
Questions are multiplying in Parliament on the possible imposition of an austerity regime following restrictions imposed on French-language education and training in particular.
10,200 more instead of 5,000 less
One thing is certain, the government has failed to reduce the size of the civil service as it wanted to and this has been very apparent over the past year.
The equivalent of 4,000 full-time employees were added to the public service, whose total workforce passed the 78,000 mark (excluding the parapublic sector which includes the education and health networks).
This is 10,200 more than when the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) came to power in 2018, the Quebec Journal.
This year, the Treasury Board (CTQ) wanted to limit the increase in government staff to 0.9%. However, it instead reached 5.9% according to its annual management report, tabled Tuesday in the National Assembly.
According to the CTQ, the increase results in particular from the addition of human resources to the Ministry of Employment and Social Solidarity, the Ministry of Immigration and Francisation and the Automobile Insurance Corporation.
The party led by François Legault had committed to significantly reducing the size of the government. In 2014, it promised to cut 22,000 jobs, then reduced this commitment to 5,000 in 2018.