Top federal department blasted as 'hypocritical' for refusing to share layoff numbers

OTTAWA — Canada’s largest public-sector union blasted the top government department as “hypocritical” for refusing to say how many of its employees received notice of a potential layoff weeks ago.

The silence from the Privy Council Office (PCO) signals the government may not be forthcoming with public information as the majority of federal departments and agencies prepare to announce major layoffs in January.

PCO is the department that serves the Prime Minister’s Office and oversees the rest of the federal public service.

In early December, PCO was the first federal department to notify employees who were at risk of losing their job as part of the Carney government’s decision to cut the public service by roughly 40,000 people by 2028-2029.

Affected employees were sent “workforce adjustment” letters that said they were either being cut or were at risk of losing their job.

How many of PCO’s 1,208 employees received a letter? The top federal department refuses to say despite the fact that all impacted workers have already been notified.

“As the workforce adjustment process is underway, and out of respect for affected employees, we will not comment further at this time,” spokesperson Pierre Cuguen replied this week to repeated questions about the exact number of employees who received a “workforce adjustment” letter.

“Every effort will be made, through mechanisms including alternation and early retirement, to minimize layoffs,” he continued, adding that PCO is going about the process “compassionately, fairly and in line with Canada’s obligations as an employer.”

In a statement Friday, the head of the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) — the largest federal public-sector union that represents hundreds of PCO workers — blasted the department for its opacity.

“It’s concerning and frankly hypocritical that the Privy Council Office refuses to be transparent about the cuts to its own workforce,” said PSAC national president Sharon DeSousa.

“PCO is the architect of many of the austerity policies that have led to sweeping public-service cuts, and they have a responsibility to share the impacts of their decisions with workers and the millions of people in Canada who depend on public services,” she added.

In the absence of clarity from the PCO, some public servants appear to be going online looking to fill in the blanks.

In fact, one person recently launched a shared document on an online forum in which public servants can input information received from their departments and agencies about the number of positions affected by the cutbacks.

“In an effort to keep track of, contextualize, minimize disinformation about, and put in perspective the ongoing workforce adjustment situation, I thought it might be helpful to collect all of this information in one place,” wrote the unidentified poster.

The document suggests 230 PCO employees received a letter telling them their job would be affected by the cuts. That’s nearly 20 per cent of the department’s 1,208 employees, according to 2025 government data.

Annie Yeo, vice-president of the Canadian Association of Professional Employees (CAPE), said that the union is bracing for program and service cuts due to the layoffs.

“Even when one simply adds up the numbers available from unions or workers sharing data on the internet, what’s not clear, and what CAPE would like transparency on, is what programs and services will be affected by all these cuts across all these departments for ordinary Canadians,” Yeo asked in a statement Friday.

Unions such as PSAC have frequently shared updates on how many of their members have received workforce adjustment letters since the process began after the federal government tabled Budget 2025 on Nov. 4.

Earlier this month, Natural Resources Canada confirmed that it had sent letters to 700 employees as part of the process to cut more than 400 jobs by 2029.

The government also said it sent early retirement offers to nearly 68,000 public servants in recent weeks.

The cuts come as Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberal government embarks on the most significant reform of the public service in decades in an attempt to streamline services and “right-size” a bureaucracy that has grown by over 100,000 in the past decade.

Between 2015 and 2025, the number of federal public servants swelled to 358,000 from 257,000, according to government data.

In the fall budget, the government said it would achieve the cuts through attrition, voluntary departures, early retirements and layoffs.

The budget also confirmed sweeping 15 per cent spending cuts over three years for most federal organizations outside of the departments of public safety and national defence.

National Post

cnardi@postmedia.com

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