Mayors call for federal support for laid off public servants

Article content

Ottawa Mayor Mark Sutcliffe remembers the 1990s when he started the Ottawa Business Journal alongside other entrepreneurs.

Those were the years of a Liberal spending review, under then prime minister Jean Chretien, under which a fifth of public servants lost their jobs. It was part of the Liberals’ total review of government, its role in society and the need to reduce the federal budget.

Article content

Sutcliffe saw the flood of workers knocking on the door of the private sector in Ottawa. At the time, a program for laid-off workers was put in place to support their transition out of the public sector, he told reporters at a press conference on March 31.

The program provided training, resources and supports as those public servants looked to other sectors, such as Ottawa’s burgeoning tech industry, Sutcliffe said.

“What I recall is that it was a very effective program and that it supported the local economy at a time when this big transition was taking place,” Sutcliffe said.

Now, 30 years later, another spending review is under way as the federal government looks to curb the size of the public service, which is Ottawa’s biggest employer. In 2024, there were almost 367,77 workers in the federal public service (up from 257,034 public servants when the Liberals were elected in 2015) and 155,505 of those workers were based in the National Capital Region. 

Article content

More cuts are likely coming to the public service after the federal election, but the size of those cuts will largely depend on what political party forms the next government.

That’s why Sutcliffe, along with Gatineau Mayor Maude Marquis-Bisonnette, sent a joint letter to the main federal parties asking for more economic support for the Ottawa-Gatineau region.

Transitional programs for laid-off public service workers were one of eight key priorities the mayors outlined in their letter, along with transit support and more municipal representation at the National Capital Commission.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre and Liberal Leader Mark Carney have signalled cuts are coming if either forms government. Poilievre’s party has signalled its intention to reduce the public service by 17,000 a year through attrition, while Carney has said he will cap the number of public servants and use AI to run a leaner government machine.

Article content

Sutcliffe is concerned about what cuts could mean for the regional economy, noting that if a major employer in any city changed how it did business, transition plans would be in place, “which is what we need for Ottawa,” he said.

“If the next federal government is going to reduce the number of federal employees in Ottawa, that there is some type of transition plan for our local economy, and some type of transition plan for those individual employees who want to keep working,” Sutcliffe said.

Ottawa-Gatineau will need to understand the magnitude of job reductions, which Sutcliffe expects that supports to be comparable to the magnitude of job reductions, Sutcliffe added.

The mayor has also said there is an opportunity for regional economic development agencies like Invest Ottawa to partner in transitioning public servants.

In their letter, the mayors wrote that skill-training tailored to the local job market and tax incentives or grants for local corporations can encourage the hiring of public servants.

Our website is your destination for up-to-the-minute news, so make sure to bookmark our homepage and sign up for our newsletters so we can keep you informed.

Article content