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?
Let’s dig in.
Today:
Classification creep and workarounds: Just two complaints.
One pie, many slices: How the executive hierarchy diverged.
Protect critical roles: Step one in the new playbook.
But is this reform? “Scarcity can be your friend.”
Corporate memory goes, too: When executives rush the exits.
The risk of becoming glorified assistants: The warning 10 years ago.
THE NUMBERS
“All those chickens have come home to roost”
We’ll start with a snapshot from the clerk’s annual report to the prime minister:
9,155: executives
50.1 average age
43.4: average age of public servants
36: deputy ministers
45: associate deputy ministers
56.9: average age of deputy ministers
52.9: average age of associate deputy ministers
53.4: average age of EX-4 to EX-5 (these are assistant deputy ministers)
49.9: average age of EX-1 to EX-3
The federal budget called for the elimination of 1,000 executive jobs over the next two years, including 650 positions flagged in the spending review last summer. The rationale: too many layers, too many bosses, an executive-to-employee ratio that’s out of whack.
To hit the target, deputies across the core public service must cut their executive ranks 12 per cent by March 2028. They’ve also been handed a playbook outlining what the hierarchy should look like — guidelines that will quietly determine how many executive jobs survive.
Separate agencies are urged to follow suit on the same timeline. Treasury Board has set a reduction target for each department. Those that already met it through the spending review are spared. Everyone else is on the hook. Executives are being reduced proportionately to — or more than — the non-executive workforce.
Now, insiders say this drive to reduce executives is first and foremost about saving money while sending send a loud, clear message — to Canadians and to rank-and-file public servants — that executives are feeling the pain of the cuts, too.
But done properly, it is supposed to speed decision making and improve murky accountability – two big priorities of Michael Sabia. It means flatten layers, distribute work more fairly among executives, better align responsibilities with pay.
It’s unclear whether the 12-per-reduction applies to deputy ministers. The easiest way to reduce the main pipeline to the top deputy posts is to not backfill associate deputy ministers as they retire. Stay tuned for the next phase of Sabia deputy-minister shakeup to see how many associate positions get filled.
OCHRO — the Office of the Chief Human Resources Officer — got the ball rolling last summer with a crackdown on executive growth, especially assistant deputy ministers. The complaints were familiar: classification creep, workarounds, promotions for special projects, endless reorganizations.
The pandemic accelerated the growth. So did the Trudeau government’s appetite for new announcements. Mounting geopolitical crises have further accelerated it. More initiatives, more crises, more executives to manage them. As one executive said: “All those chickens have come home to roost.”
At the time, OCHRO found the number of assistant deputy ministers had grown by 140, a 50-per-cent jump since 2015. There were 421 across departments when only 355 positions were approved — and some misclassified at levels higher than the jobs warranted. Departments were given guidelines and a December deadline to fix the problem.
More titles. Less work. Slower delivery. “The same pie is being sliced into smaller pieces,” OCHRO warned. "Jobs are being created without bigger mandates.”
The problem isn’t just too many executives — it was too many titles and too many rungs. Over time, the hierarchy grew in two directions.
First, the horizontal sprawl. Departments piled on “senior,” “associate,” and “assistant” titles to jobs that often did overlapping work at various levels.
Second, vertical stacking. Too many layers. Before anything could move, decisions had to travel up and down long approval chains: EX-1 to EX-2 to EX-3 to EX-4 and EX-5. Files bounced upward for sign-off, then back down for revisions. Things slowed to a crawl.
Both need to be flattened to shorten the chain of command. That’s the goal: fewer titles within each level, and fewer levels in the chain. By all accounts, the aim is to stop files from climbing the ladder more than three times. Fewer stops. Clearer accountability. Faster decisions.
THE FIX
What the playbook is telling departments
- Protect critical roles
Keep positions that:
- Deliver the department’s core mandate or advance government priorities.
- Support mission-critical operations where vacancies cause real problems.
- Touch Canada’s economy, health, or security.
- Manage legislative/regulatory functions or maintain public trust.
