My email at home, my website messages, and my Teams messages at work have been beeping at me quite regularly ever since the federal budget came down. Many of them are from people who I haven’t heard from in a while, saying, “So, what’s new?” followed almost immediately by “…and what do you know about the upcoming cuts?”. It’s not a surprise question.

From the supply side, I did work on Strategic Review and DRAP 10+ years ago for our branch of about 750 people. In addition, I have spent a good portion of my last 20 years not only as a manager but also plugged into the broader management agenda in my branch and department. Partly by job function, partly by interests. And, of course, people know I am heavily interested in HR stuff. So, it’s not an unreasonable thought that I might know something.

On the demand side, “nobody knows nothing!” Rumours are flying, pundits are pontificating, and staff are nervous, to say the least. Any insight people can glean, they’ll take.

The problem? I know nothing either. Nothing really concrete, at least. All I really have is some background and context to interpret things a bit differently.

What are the three main factors at play?

The biggest factor at play is the huge growth in the size of the public service since DRAP, and through the pandemic. When the Program Review cuts hit in the 1990s, the Government rebuilt slowly afterwards. Their approach of offering generous buyout packages (a combo push/pull option to retirement) removed many people at the top of the echelons. It gave executives a fair amount of breathing room. To build some of the organizations they wanted instead of the ones they inherited. But when DRAP hit, the buyout packages were not as attractive (deliberately so), and so they had to use the Workforce Adjustment (WFA) provisions to push people out the door or to other positions. This didn’t exactly result in the structures that were needed over time, so since then, lots of weird and wonderful things have happened.

The overall size of the public service ballooned to 360K people. An extra 100K from leaner times. Many of them are working in call centres or programs designed to help Canadians during the pandemic. CERB, for example, required a large number of people to process initial claims with limited eligibility validation, and there has been tremendous pressure to cut them after CERB, even though many are now working to determine whether the claimants were actually eligible. All parties said at the time, “Give them the money, check later”, but now that it is later, nobody wants to spend the money to reclaim money that many knowingly weren’t eligible to receive.

There also seems to have been a huge increase in the number of executives. Now, that is not as unrelated as some people think. Executives are “ranked” / “classified” by four main variables:

• Size of their program and operating budgets
• Number of people under them, including direct reports
• Visibility of their files
• Complexity of their files

So, as we add staff, the number of executives will eventually go up semi-proportionally. We added to the budget; the number of executives went up. But honestly? The biggest growth in EXs is the visibility and complexity of files, combined with a hidden feature of the pandemic’s shift in work for employees. Lots of people want to say that the work is still getting done the same as before the pandemic, that RTO is unneeded, and there is no difference; in fact, they argue that we’re doing more and better than before. Except for one area where that is glaringly untrue. Horizontal coordination, the backbone of good program policy, has been severely undermined by relying solely on Teams meetings. Previous informal liaisons between work units disappeared as Teams meetings drove interactions towards transactional exchanges, and departments and their executives are frequently dealing with silos that had been all but eliminated before the pandemic. Now they’re back, stronger than ever. Which means executives are frequently creating things in isolation and then trying to shoehorn them together in meetings. Previously, many objections or obstacles would have been addressed before a formal proposal hit a committee; now, some things are going back 2 or 3 times to committees to “work out” the kinks. And with the added visibility in today’s digital world, plus the complexity of a post-pandemic environment? Some executives are being appointed to ride herd on a single file where previously the same level would have covered 4 or 5 files of similar ilk. DMs and ADMs are tapping EXs to dig into policy files, often horizontal in nature, to make sure “someone has this covered.”

Almost every member of every political stripe on the Hill says the same thing right now. The PS is too large and too top-heavy. We need to whittle it down, and not with a small carving knife. Hence, the Comprehensive Expenditure Review. It’s a machete, not a scalpel.

Secondly, the cuts are targeting positions, not people. Sort of. This point isn’t about “don’t take it personally”. It is about how they decide which positions to eliminate. So, while the PS is too large, they aren’t saying, “reduce the workforce by 10%”. They’re saying to reduce the spending. They’ll do all the basic stuff – reduce travel, reduce training, reduce postage, whatever. The equivalent of someone running around their house and turning off lights in rooms while forgetting they’re running Christmas lights outside for six months of the year. The piddly stuff won’t move the needle. Cutting an EC-02 doesn’t move the needle. That means cutting one EX-01 saves way more money than an EC-02. If they can collapse two divisions into one and get rid of an EX-01 salary, they’ll do it. But a position here or there isn’t enough.

Instead, they are cutting whole programs (think Program Review and Strategic Review) and functions (think DRAP). Eliminating a program is easy to understand; functions are a bit more complicated. Translation is a popular hit right now. Departments are deciding, for example, to no longer have human translation of internal documents. If it is not leaving the building, so to speak, they’ll have AI do the first cut and then ask someone with native or learned French skills to proofread (and yes, it goes both ways, but generally speaking, it’s English to French likely 90% of the time). Internal translation services and official translation services will be used for official external use documents only. So, if you’re a translator, and suddenly there’s a huge drop in translation requests, do they need as many people doing translation? Or as many people coordinating the requests themselves? Nope. And even within coordination groups, they may consolidate management functions. That’s relatively easy to understand “how” and maybe even “why”; it is not so easy to understand the potential downstream effects of say the next 10 years of capacity lost in translation (no pun intended).

Similarly to translation, they might re-scale the size of groups. In the distant past, I was responsible for coordinating relations with foreign countries. Generally, I had 22 countries for our team, spread across a group of 4-5 people. The powers that be could have easily come along and said, “Great, do it with 3.” Note, this doesn’t mean what most people assume immediately, i.e., that 3 people will absorb the extra work of the other 2. Instead, the work and workload would be adjusted, resulting in more responsive than proactive and superficial coverage, but sure, it’s a scalable function. Or they could have said to grow the unit, and do it with 8. Both are viable choices; most functions are scalable, even if the people doing the job don’t always agree.

Which means executives are going through to see if:

• a program can be eliminated/reduced/consolidated;
• a function can be eliminated; and/or,
• a program or function can be scaled differently.

Many of these decisions are being made 2-3 levels above the employee, and to be honest, look a lot like people playing with virtual org charts. I used to joke back in the 1980s and 90s that DMs and Ministers seemed to have velcro/felt org charts and every couple of years, someone knocked them off the wall, and they tried to put them back up, but never got it quite right. There’s also the old joke about a new CEO being given 3 envelopes on their first day from the old CEO with advice to open them when they hit a problem they couldn’t solve. First wall, the CEO opens the first envelope, and it says, “Blame your predecessor!”. Second wall: the envelope says “Reorg!”. Third wall: the envelope says, “Prepare three envelopes!” We’re at the second-envelope stage.

But, with each of the three decisions, positions are identified to be eliminated, with a $ figure attached to it. They keep adding up the “cuts” until it reaches the magic $ number. People worry that this stage is designed to get rid of deadwood or poor performers. Mostly not, because your name is rarely attached to the early decisions. If you’re the court jester to the King, and you’re the only one, well, that would be hard to hide when they say they’ll eliminate the court jester position. If they’re eliminating some of the research function on program X, the people making the decisions probably have no idea who most of the people are in that unit. Once the decisions are made, somebody in the HR side will be in charge of giving all the names to their boss and on up to the DM to say, “Here’s the list of positions being eliminated”, along with a rationale for each, and the name of the incumbent.

As an aside, it is regularly said that all of these decisions will be made humanely. Except there is no “humane” component in this part. It’s only about the boxes. Which sounds terrible until you consider the alternative — would you WANT them deciding which PERSON to get rid of?

Thirdly, the public service has been aging but people haven’t been retiring as soon as they are eligible. The public service pension is generally set up for three tiers of retirees based on years of service:

1. Those with less than 30 years of service, who will receive a reduced percentage for going early;
2. Those with 30 years of service, who will get an unreduced pension of 60%; and,
3. Those with more than 30 years of service, who will get a sliding increase from 60% up to a maximum of 70% at 35 years of service;

The “challenge” for government? Public servants frequently are eligible to retire in their late 50s and yet DON’T retire. At least not in droves. It took large incentives in the 90s to get them to go; light incentives in the 2010s didn’t do hardly anything. WFA provisions had to be used last round to create large enough incentives for people to leave, but not 1:1 — it’s hard for people to understand easily, but point 2 above about not targeting “people”, but targeting programs/functions/positions means that you could target 100 people for potential layoff that way and perhaps only 5% were the more costly older generation. Like me. So then there was and will be a TON of stress for those who wanted and want to stay, swapping jobs (aka alternating) with those interested in leaving, etc.

And while there are lots of great slide decks all over the government about the aging workforce and how we are all eligible to retire, NOBODY seems to leave simply at eligibility. But you know what? The pandemic and WFH made it WAY WORSE. I know several people who were ITCHING to retire in 2019 or so. Ready to go within a year. Primed, set, eager. Then they got to work from home. No commuting. No traffic. No getting up early or coming home late. A bathroom 20 feet from your desk. Nobody cooking fish in the lunch room. No annoying coworkers. No issues with scents, or hearing someone’s argument with their mother for the 7th time this week in an open office. The “friction” of going to work dropped way down. So people went, “Hmm…let’s see. I can take my 60% now, OR I could work a couple of more years at my highest salary ever, work from home, get maybe 65% or more…”. It wasn’t a tough call. Those ones who were eager to go? You might have thought working through all the transition stuff would have been a pain, but a significant number said, “Hey, if you can’t go anywhere anyway, why not work from home and keep earning?”. They delayed their departure. On top of PS employees generally delaying their departures ANYWAY. Attrition numbers are WAY down across government.

So, yeah, the government needs to do something significant if they want to reduce numbers. And every political party says the numbers have to go down significantly. The NDP has trouble with the issue since it means cutting unionized jobs, but even they think the PS is too big in at least some areas.

What is confounding people from knowing what’s happening?

TBS and Finance set CER targets for all departments, which subsequently reviewed everything in the last 2 years and onward to figure out how to reduce their staffing footprint and presented multiple options to the powers-that-be. Some departments had early contributions; most were gearing up for this past budget. And then the budget was announced, and all departments got their CER-related instructions.

And the wheels fell off.

Departments had submitted CER proposals, but not all were accepted. Some proposals were accepted as is… so easy-peasy. Some proposals were rejected… sooooo, we’re not doing that. But, then, how do we meet our targets? Unclear. And some proposals were tweaked … which led some departments to have to go back and ask, “So, what did you mean by X?”. Departments have spent a lot of time over the last 6-8 weeks figuring out what they have to do and when.

The initial focus is on who is initially “affected”, not who will be fully surplus. Most departments that didn’t get the jump last year will be sending out letters in the new year. People are setting up tracking sites, tracking how many employees are in each department, how many have received affected notices, how many have been declared surplus, and optimistically, how many people have alternated successfully, took ERI or left government through opting. Most of that data will NOT be available anytime soon. The early stuff? Sure. Most of which is irrelevant to everyone except the people in that unit. The info past “affected” status is going to be very hard to come by. Right now, all the potential decisions have made it up to the DMs for most departments, and come mid-January, the letters will go out.

Lots of details will still be unknown even after the letters go out. For example, Department X might need to reduce its budget by 12% over three years. But there’s the new Early Retirement Incentive for people to retire with a penalty waiver. How many people will take it? Who knows? Nobody. We have some rough #s (65K+) on how many people received letters saying they were eligible i.e., if they turn 50 or more in 2026 and are under 30y service, they’re likely eligible (ERI is not formally available yet).

But separate from what I mentioned above about people CHOOSING to go later, huge swaths of those people who received the letter are in no position to voluntarily retire and take 50-60% of their salary. They had kids later in life who are heading to university, maybe they’re still paying off mortgages, looking after aging parents, paying off other debts, or juggling a new lifestyle after their partner’s job went feet-up during the pandemic.

We do know that for the last 15 years, people have NOT been retiring as soon as they are eligible without a penalty, so why would we expect huge swaths to go now without a penalty but with even less money in hand? In an established group of about 80 people, probably 12-15 got the letter. If they all took ERI, that would be a 15-18% reduction in staff and likely a 25-30% reduction in salary since long-serving older staff are often in the higher positions. That would be a huge question for that group’s management to try and do WFA around; they wouldn’t need to do as much WFA if they all took the ERI. And that scenario exists in almost every unit across government. They are trying to hit the target when there is an element that is moving around on its own and won’t be known for some time. How much is the gap between the target and the ERI segment towards meeting the target? Not to mention figuring out “affected”, “surplus”, and how to get there.

Humanity has its limits. I mentioned above that there are many references to ensuring decisions are made humanely. Except no one really understands what that means. It doesn’t mean that if they decide to eliminate a position, say PM-04, and there is only one PM-04 position occupied by Hildebrand, and thus she’s the one to be declared surplus, that they would look and say, “Oh, wait, Hildebrand is taking care of aging parents, is a single parent to two kids, and this is totally going to mess up her life, so we should choose someone else”. None of those factors have anything to do with the decision. “Humanely” generally means they won’t be complete AHs when they tell her, won’t treat her like crap when they are waiting for her to decide, will make sure she’s supported by EAP, the union, etc., that she knows her options, etc. They’ll support her, but they’re still going to cut her, and if there are a whack of PM-04s doing the same job, they’ll do a SERLO fairly so everyone has a reasonably equal chance.

Yet trying to do anything else would be almost like a Ted Lasso moment. There’s a scene in Ted Lasso, Season 3, Episode 9, where Roy is doing a press conference after one of their team members went after a fan in the stands who had yelled something offensive. With a language warning for a couple of F bombs (it is the Roy Kent character, after all), here’s the clip:

None of us knows what is going on in other people’s lives at any given moment. Not everyone’s, not anyone’s. So to try to second-guess who “deserves” to be laid off (a short answer: nobody) and who should be shielded would be complete folly. And highly patronizing. As well as none of our xxxxxxx business, according to Roy. Most of what we can hope for is the old Google adage — don’t be evil.

If I think about all the teams I’ve managed over the last 20+ years, the people I could conceivably know best for the potential impact on them, not a single person in there would be “unaffected” (no pun intended) by being laid off. It disrupts anyone’s life in incalculable ways. Even in my case, I am nearing retirement and would probably welcome a surplus letter right now. But that is not without questions, not without considerations, not without consternation. I might be the member of my current team who is best placed to take a hit, if a hit comes, but that has nothing to do with the decisions made above about which levels/positions will be affected. For better or worse (mostly better, imho, given some potential biases out there), they make a lot of the decisions blind.

I also think we have a double-edged sword for understanding what is “right” for some, but not “right” for others. Take the announcements early in December that there would be letters coming in January. A large number of employees immediately went online to post about how this is so evil of management, etc., to tell people this before Christmas, arguing that they should have waited, blah blah blah. Except, of course, not everyone celebrates Christmas, so their sense of entitlement to change everyone’s notification time over THEIR holiday is a bit offensive. Or, more pointedly, employees have previously told unions and unions have previously told management that they want to know everything they can as soon as it is available, and not to hold any news back, to err on the side of early transparency. And, of course, if they weren’t told until January, numerous people (some of them the same people) would complain that they should have been told earlier, so that they might not have spent as much money at Christmas, etc. There’s no good time to get the news; but unions have said “whenever you know anything, tell us”.

On the positive side, I think, almost all executives this time have had experience dealing with WFA and cuts. In Program Review in the ’90s, nobody had done this before in their career. In DRAP, very few executives who were left in government had previously been executives in the early ’90s. This time around? Eleven years after DRAP? Almost all of the EX-03s and above were already at least EX-01 when DRAP happened the last time. Not all, but the vast majority. And those that weren’t already executive level at least went through it themselves or with staff under them. They have actual experience. Will it make it better? Hopefully so.

When DRAP happened last time, lots of silly things happened. People found draft letters on printers. DGs posted public lists of staff and said, “If your name is on the list with an asterisk, come get your affected letter.” Some DGs said, “Hey, we’ll invite you to short meetings today if you’re affected. If you don’t get an invite, you’re not affected.” Except then people went in and looked at everyone’s calendars to see if they had any “short” meetings booked, or even in some cases, could see the DG’s public calendar to see who was invited and who was not.

Some people who were affected already last year have experienced the “improved” process where EVERYONE gets invited to individual meetings, and the DG says, “We have completed the WFA process and you [ARE or ARE NOT] affected.” They then proceed to read all the stuff everyone else hears, too. Everyone gets the same spiel, mostly, so no one knows what you were told. Privacy is respected, at least. Of course, it means it takes longer to do it that way, too. There is no perfect way to notify people they’re being laid off / declared surplus but at least they can smooth some of the stupid edges. Although usually within about 15 minutes, most people tell each other anyway because they want to know if it is just them, who else is in the same boat, what has the other person heard so far, etc.

As I said, though, humanity has its limits. And the biggest limit of all? The people tasked with being “humane” are also human, too. They’re not perfect. They are not in perfect situations. They’ll do their best to blunt a blow, but the blow is still going to land. I will also say that many of the EXs delivering the news had limited say in which cuts were made or to whom. Sometimes it is blanket decisions to say “get rid of research positions”. But even if they chose your position, and thus you, that doesn’t mean they’re happy about it. They were told to eliminate $750K in salary as part of a large government initiative. They don’t get to say “no, I don’t want to do that.” And it’s not easy on them either, some of whom not only are getting cut themselves but also have to represent the employer in conversations with you. During the first big day of DRAP notifications back in the 2010s, I wandered around at the end of the day to offices, in some cases to those of executives who also were told they were surplus a few days previously and weren’t allowed to tell anyone, to see hollow shells of people who had spent the day “firing” staff. I’m not suggesting people who are being laid off should feel sorry for the person telling them, but they should also know that the person firing them may have no choice, or in some cases, may have been surplused too. It’s likely a bit challenging to be “humane” when you’re in freefall yourself.

Lastly, the most obvious reason that people don’t know stuff is that things are supposed to be confidential until the letters are issued. Do DGs “know” now? Probably yes, or at least, 98% of the likely scenario with about 98% certainty at this point. But, as most people in the public service already know, a new job isn’t official until you have a signed letter of offer; equally, a WFA letter isn’t final until it’s signed and given to the employee. Lots of things can happen on the margins. And even after being “affected”, that status can be lifted.

The part I find a bit disingenuous is that most departments are saying the same thing: that the CER, which covers three years, is being done all at once, and that anyone who will be affected in the next three years will be notified in January. In effect, “one round” of letters that will happen this coming month. I hear the words, I understand the intent, I get the plan. But I think it is just that — a plan. The classic phrase is that no battle plan survives engagement with the enemy, and the enemies here are time and money.

The Government is going to reduce the size and cost of the public service through regular attrition (unknown rates), early retirement incentives (unknown rates), and WFA measures (mostly known rates at the time of notification). But if regular attrition and ERI don’t move the needle, will the “planned” WFA be enough? And if the government decides that a program that was safe this year suddenly smells next year like yesterday’s garbage, does anyone really believe they won’t consider cutting that program, too? The administrative letters in January will go out based on the information and goals we have now. But that information and those goals can change next year. Those are political decisions, not administrative.

So, Paul, what does that mean for you then?

That’s usually the next question I get from people. They accept the above, the context, and that I don’t know anything. Then they assume still that I do know something and want to know what it means for me. Sigh.

I don’t know anything. I don’t.

But I can figure out some options for myself based on all of the above. And many of those options are the same for others.

A. I have less than 30 years of service and am over the age of 50, so I’ll likely be able to consider the new ERI. It isn’t passed yet, but it would apply to me. I could take my pension based on 29 years aka 58% and change, pro-rated out, with no penalty. Sometime in the next year. Would I do it? No. The waiver does almost nothing for me, it saves me a few weeks or months, max, and there are other factors that are more relevant to me than a potential penalty waiver.

B. I can just ignore all of it and retire. My mental health has taken a sh**-kicking in 2025, and to be blunt, very little of it has anything to do with work. I wouldn’t be leaving to get away from something, but I could retire and just focus on other parts of my life that need tending. I’m tired, ready for a change. A few years ago, I might have thought that I would be leaving something undone, or letting people down in some way. Maybe even letting my ego tell me I was somehow too important to just walk away…not irreplaceable, but “significant”, I guess. In the last three years, I’ve realized who I am and what I bring to the table, as well as some things I don’t bring to the table anymore. I have a specific view of how to do my job, it works well, and I’m good at it but it is not the only way to run the railroad and others would do it just as well or better, even if differently. I have my take, and that’s all it is. Better in some ways, perhaps, not so in others. Soooo, my website tracker suggests that I’m going to last until August of 2027, that was my planning date. I think that has probably moved up.

C. If I’m affected, I will consider the three options. Or, more pointedly, I would consider two of the options. I have no interest in sticking around for another year trying to find another job. I don’t need to, my finances are in good enough shape. If I’m honest, I suspect I won’t be affected, at least not by function or program. I’m the sole manager for operations in a program that has some visibility. But I’ve still taken the time to consider what it would look like to take a transition support measure, severance, potential EI, and a potential educational allowance. I’ve spent a lot of time in the last two years thinking about what my retirement would or should look like, and while things went pear-shaped a bit in the last couple of months (for reasons other than finances), I’m in good shape to opt if that’s the roll of the die. Probably with an educational allowance to do a Master’s in Fine Arts. 🙂

D. I could consider alternating with someone. This would be the same as C, just if I’m not affected. The WFA options could give me up to $150-$175K to do, which isn’t chickenfeed.

E. I could stick with my original date of August 2027. There’s nothing wrong with that plan; it’s the original version of B. Worst case scenario would be just doing my current job, which is good, until then. But I might do some project stuff before I exit, maybe something without staff or weekly deadlines. I make a good salary, I could pay down more of my mortgage, and ignore the noise.

I’m going, the only question is when.

If someone doesn’t make the decision for me, with a letter, I’ll weigh my variables regularly over the next six months. Back in DRAP days, one of my DGs used to say, “Everyone should know their number.” In other words, what is YOUR number where you say, “Yep, I’m going.”

My variables are not that surprising. Finances are the most important variable, obviously, including general #s (I’m updating everything with a retirement refresher course in February); a pending buyback; my wife’s retirement options; and a significant purchase / cost that I’m reconsidering for retirement. But mental health is probably a bigger variable for me than it is for some, as is health in general, I guess.

And if I’m honest, I like the idea of being able to take a whammy for someone else in the PS who is farther from retirement and whose life might be more disrupted than mine.

But, like I said…I don’t really know anything.