While millions of Canadians struggle to make ends meet, half a million federal and provincial public servants have received a pay raise since the start of the pandemic, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) has denounced. .
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In its annual report released on Monday, the FCC estimates that a total of 528,347 federal and provincial government employees received a pay raise in 2020 and 2021, while none cut their employees’ salaries during the pandemic.
In Quebec, the number of employees who received a raise during the pandemic is 42,149. Ahead of La Belle Province, Ontario has increased the largest number of civil servants (64,958).
“We do not all experience the pandemic in the same way, lamented Franco Terrazzano, the federal director of the FCC, in a press release on Monday. We see that there are two pandemics: an imprint of misery in the private sector and one full of financial gains for politicians and civil servants.
According to documents obtained by the FCC, these salary increases for civil servants in the governmental and paragovernmental sectors cost Quebec taxpayers $3.1 billion.
“This year, the Quebec government plans to spend $53.1 billion to pay its civil servants. This represents 55% of program expenditure. The deficit will reach $6.8 billion,” the report reads.
“The government must look at what it spends to pay its civil servants to return to a balanced budget,” said Renaud Brossard, the Quebec director of the FCC.
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