Key Highlights

• Federal Public Service growth outpaced the Canadian population, expanding by almost 40% from 2015 to 2023, while the population grew only 12%.

• Government Effectiveness, as measured by the World Bank, has fallen by 12% over the same period, despite higher expenditures and an expanding workforce.

• Real Government Expenditure increased by over 33%, yet Canadians are seeing diminishing returns in public service performance.

Government Effectiveness captures perceptions of the quality of public services, the quality of the civil service and the degree of its independence from political pressures, the quality of policy formulation and implementation, and the credibility of the government's commitment to such policies. Estimate gives the country's score on the aggregate indicator, in units of a standard normal distribution, i.e. ranging from approximately -2.5 to 2.5.