May: The Executive Cuts
2026/01/26 1 Comment
The latest overview of the approach in considerable detail:
Too many layers. Everyone knew it.
The executive ranks have been climbing for decades despite warnings about bloat and slow decision-making. Now a 12-per-cent cut is coming: about 1,120 executive jobs disappearing across 90 or so departments.
The cuts will ensure Canada’s executive hierarchy is “a pyramid, not a cylinder,” says one senior bureaucrat. The big driver is saving money. But it’s also about speed. Fewer layers, faster decisions. That’s the plan, anyway.
There are 9,155 bureaucrats who occupy five levels of executives (EX-1 to EX-5) between directors and assistant deputy ministers. But it’s not just them.
Many expect PCO clerk Michael Sabia to also trim the deputy minister ranks, too, as he reshapes the senior bench of public service leaders. He started with a pre-Christmas shuffle — bigger than any seen in years — and promised another. No one at the top is safe, it seems.
“The cuts are a shock to the system, like a taser,” says one senior official. But can cutting layers fix the public service and speed up decision-making like the Carney government expects?…
Source: May: EXs, cuts and layers
About Andrew
Multicultural Meanderings 
My primary difficulty with these cuts is that they are not aligned with the fundamental questions. Is this an activity that the federal government must undertake? If not, is this an activity that both the federal government and others may undertake? If not, why is the federal government undertaking this activity?
This is the time to do less with less, not to try to do the same with less!