PUBLIC SERVANTS' $190-MILLION PAYDAY
EXECUTIVES'
BONUSES SLAMMED AS `COMPLETELY UNJUSTIFIABLE'
Nearly 90 per cent of federal public sector executives, as well as thousands of other federal bureaucrats, went home with $190 million in total bonuses in 2021-2022.
The bonuses represent an 11 per cent jump from the previous year ($171 million), which coincided with the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Details of the total bonuses paid out in 2021-2022 are contained in an order paper question tabled in Parliament late last week at the request of Conservative MP Kelly Mccauley.
In an interview, Mccauley said the bonuses were particularly egregious as they were paid out at a time when a host of government services were crumbling, such as the passport, access to information and immigration visa systems.
“We should not be rewarding departments that have people waiting outside 12 hours in the snow for a passport. We shouldn't be rewarding anyone at immigration when there's record backlogs for reuniting families,” Mccauley said.
The documents show that no less than 89 per cent of public sector executives (7,752) were paid a bonus last fiscal year, based on their performances in 2020-2021. That's just over 500 more than the previous year, according to government data published last spring by National Post.
Public service executives have access to performance or at-risk bonuses because they are not allowed to claim overtime pay.
Another 8,317 “non-executive” public servants — or three per cent of their total ranks — also received a bonus last fiscal year. That's also roughly a 500 jump from the previous year.
The documents do not provide a breakdown of how much of the $190 million, which includes both performance bonuses as well as “at-risk pay,” went to executives specifically,
According to the government's website, executives must meet or exceed commitments contained in their respective annual performance agreements as well as show six “leadership competencies” to be eligible for a bonus.
“Performance pay is an important component of executives' total compensation package but must be re-earned each year,” Treasury Board Secretariat spokesperson Barb Couperus said in a statement.
“The at-risk nature of performance pay helps to hold executives accountable for delivery of results and excellence in leadership. Executives who do not meet performance expectations or cannot be assessed are not eligible for performance pay.”
In an interview, Mccauley called the bonuses “frustrating” and “disappointing” at a time when Canadians are reeling financially from COVID-19 lockdowns and decades-high inflation rates, among other rising costs.
He also noted that in 20202021 (which last year's performance bonus payments were based on), government departments and agencies only met 45.7 per cent of their combined 2,722 departmental performance results, according to a federal database.
“It's garbage,” Mccauley said. “I think it's completely unjustifiable considering targets met.”
“When you're missing targets over 50 per cent of the time, taxpayers should not be rewarding failure,” he added. “It makes it more egregious when you read that one of every six restaurants are expected to shut down and people's livelihoods were taken away.”
But the government says drawing a link between executives' performance pay and a department's ability to achieve its self-imposed objectives is a false equivalency.
For example, executive bonuses can be based on whether a manager ensures proper access to mental health services for their staff.
“Departmental plans set out broad, high-level targets for departments while performance targets for individual employees are set using specific criteria, which include management excellence and corporate objectives. To draw a parallel between the two does not provide an accurate assessment of either one,” Couperus said.
The Department of Justice paid out the highest amount of bonuses last fiscal year, dolling out $18 million to 295 executives (96 per cent of the total number) and 1,350 non-executives (29 per cent).
The second highest bonus total was by the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) totalling $15.9 million to 499 executives and over 2,000 non-executives.
At Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC), which oversees Canada's passport program and other federal benefits and services, and Global Affairs Canada both paid out almost $11 million in bonuses.
Such a high total of bonuses to ESDC was particularly egregious to Mccauley considering the ongoing fiasco of the passport program during the pandemic.
The fifth top bonus payer is an outlier compared to other departments. The Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OFSI), a small regulatory agency with under 1,000 employees, paid a total of $10.5 million in bonuses to nearly every single one of its employees.
In a statement, OFSI spokesperson Elizabeth Roach said the agency's collective agreements signed with most of its non-executive employees exceptionally allows for both overtime and performance pay, which can reach up to 16 per cent.
“OSFI has very few entrylevel positions and hires mid- to late-career seasoned financial sector and actuarial professionals in order to successfully fulfil its mandate,” she said. “Each employee has a set of measurable goals set at the beginning of each fiscal year and is evaluated at the end of the year based on the degree that they meet or exceed their performance metric.”