(Quebec) Despite the past speech of the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ), it was “necessary” to increase the number of civil servants to meet the needs of the population, believes the president of the Treasury Board, Sonia LeBel.
The Press demonstrated on Wednesday that 10,000 civil servants have been added to the workforce of ministries and agencies since the CAQ came to power in 2018. This is a jump of 14.4%. The CAQ had however promised to cut 5,000 positions.
“The size of the state has grown at a pace that was necessary,” argued Sonia LeBel during a press scrum in parliament on Wednesday. “Each time, these are for services to the population”, for example “support for victims of domestic violence” and “francization”. “I consider that the positions that we added are positions that were necessary for the mission of the State,” she insisted.
The Minister of Immigration, Christine Fréchette, noted that her ministry “had to hire many more people than initially planned because the needs are enormous” due to the influx of asylum seekers.
Sonia LeBel recognized that the trend of increasing numbers will continue since an increase in positions is planned again this year. “This is an increase that we will have to manage in an extremely tight and rigorous manner and ensure that each time we add FTEs (full-time equivalents, Editor’s note), it is because there is a real need of the population to be met. »
Sonia LeBel argued that even if the workforce has increased on net, 5,000 administrative positions in full-time equivalent (FTE) “were cut in the first mandate”, which “currently generates recurring savings of the order of little nearly $380 million.
His ministry documents do not say the same thing. According to the 2022-2023 Expenditure Strategy, the CAQ promise that the government wanted to achieve “involved a reduction of 5,000 full-time equivalents over a four-year horizon, for all ministries and organizations” but that the pandemic required hiring and adds in particular “administrative positions”. The Treasury then affirmed that the expected savings will be “made differently”.
“The reduction target assigned to the health and social services and education networks cannot be achieved during the desired period. However, those relating to ministries and other organizations will be achieved. Furthermore, the planned budgetary returns of 381.0 million will be achieved differently, thus making it possible to respect the government’s objectives by 2022-2023,” we can read.
Sonia LeBel is undertaking a review of departmental spending in order to erase the “structural deficit” of four billion dollars and return to budget balance by 2029-2030 – two years later than planned. “I must agree that the (budgetary) item of remuneration, given that it is more than 50% of government expenditure, we cannot avoid examining it. What will be the solution or will we land? I did not presume the conclusion until the analysis was done. »
For the moment, this budget item is exploding with the salary increases of 17.4% in five years granted to state employees.
What the opposition thinks
“While he promised to cut thousands of positions, we can see that quite the opposite has materialized. Are there people, civil servants that we could do without, who would reduce the state’s payroll by not cutting front-line services? […] You have to do the analysis. » The interim leader of the Liberal Party of Quebec, Marc Tanguay
“Yes, the number of civil servants continues to increase. But obviously, we are still not capable of delivering services to the population within a reasonable time frame. […] There are needs right now, so, for me, it’s not abnormal to see growth in the state. » Quebec Solidaire MP Christine Labrie
“This is a breach of a key promise from the government which said it wanted to downsize the State. We are not in the ideology of reducing the size of the State for the sake of reducing the size of the State. We want Quebecers to get value for their money, so that tax payers can have services for the taxes they pay. » -Parti Québécois MP Joël Arseneau