Canada faces increasingly complex pressures, including climate-related disasters, public health threats, cybersecurity risks, economic uncertainty, and rapid technological change. Meeting these challenges requires a modern, well-supported, and evidence-driven public service with the institutional knowledge and professional capacity to respond effectively.
Fiscal responsibility and institutional capacity should not be treated as competing objectives. PIPSC recognizes the government’s objective of improving efficiency, modernizing public administration, and ensuring long-term fiscal sustainability. Across multiple policy areas, however, decisions are being implemented in ways that reduce capacity without addressing the underlying structural drivers of inefficiency. This will not strengthen the public service or improve fiscal outcomes. In many cases, it risks producing the opposite result: greater dependence on contractors, weaker oversight, delayed service delivery, diminished accountability, and avoidable system failures.
Budget 2026 presents an opportunity to pursue modernization in a way that strengthens, not weakens, the federal public service. Our recommendations focus on improving long-term sustainability, rebuilding internal capacity, reducing unnecessary costs, and ensuring that operational decisions are grounded in evidence, transparency, and responsible governance.
We recommend the federal government:
1. Invest in Public Service Capacity, Not Cuts
2. Rein In Costly Outsourcing and Rebuild Internal Expertise
3. Ensure Fair and Transparent Implementation of ERI
4. Strengthen Public Science, Integrity, and Evidence-Based Decision-Making
5. Modernize Workplaces Through Presence With Purpose
6. Build a Responsible Public Interest AI Framework
7. Prevent the Next Phoenix Failure
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