Ottawa’s bureaucracy has swelled to the point where more than 9,400 federal managers are taking home at least $150,000 a year, even as Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne lectures Canadians about “tightening belts.”Blacklock's Reporter says cabinet admitted in response to a Commons inquiry that 9,455 federal managers are pocketing six-figure salaries. Of those, 8,282 are buried in the federal core administration. The rest are sprinkled across Crown corporations, where layers of executives continue to multiply.The Bank of Canada leads the parade with 394 managers earning $150,000 or more. The Business Development Bank has 106, Farm Credit Canada 86, CMHC 78, the Great Lakes Pilotage Authority 74, and the CBC 47. .Even small and obscure agencies like the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation and the Canadian Race Relations Foundation are shelling out six-figure salaries to executives.Despite Champagne’s September 4 pledge that Ottawa will cut spending, the numbers tell a different story. Cabinet has nearly doubled the cost of executive pay since 2016 — from $1 billion to $1.9 billion annually — while ordinary Canadians face higher taxes, soaring food prices and housing costs, and service backlogs across government.“Yes it is worrisome,” former Parliamentary Budget Officer Yves Giroux testified before a Commons committee. He said Ottawa’s ballooning bureaucracy hasn’t translated into better performance. “We haven’t seen similar improvements when it comes to service.”
