Interesting article on growth in public sector jobs over the past decade. What I got from it: lots of people were hired during the pandemic to handle pandemic-related initiatives; aside from that, lots of people were hired in general; governments appear to hire in times of economic uncertainty (e.g. growth under Harper during 2008+); federal unions argue staffing levels are returning to "normal".
But the killer is the last section where the author tries to figure out if we're getting value for money. The answer is short and sour: Canadians don't think so, and internal targets aren't being met.
Are Canadians getting bang for their taxpayer buck?
... One way to gauge that is through surveys, which doesn’t leave Canada looking good relative to its international peers. The OECD polls residents at its member countries on their satisfaction with public services such as health care and education, and between 2017 and 2022, Canada experienced the largest decline in satisfaction among G7 countries for education (from 73 to 67 per cent) while the drop in health care satisfaction matched that of the United Kingdom, but to the lowest level in the G7 (from 69 to 56 per cent).
... The share of respondents who said their provincial government had done a “good” or “very good” job fell overall from close to half in the first quarter of 2019 to 30 per cent at the end of 2023. Both B.C. and Quebec, two provinces that have seen public-sector job growth rise particularly quickly, registered some of the worst declines.
... the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) reviewed four years of results reports to see how the government measured up against nearly 3,000 performance targets it had set for itself. The assessments weren’t promising. For fiscal 2021-22, roughly 25 per cent of targets were not met, up from 20 per cent in 2018-19. But that didn’t capture the full scale of the performance shortfall. One-tenth of performance targets included no information on results, while another one-third stated results would be achieved at some point in the future.
Yeah, that mixes provincial services with federal ones.
I think recording your low income status is important and shouldn't be skipped.
But the people most challenged to do so should be the first to benefit from automation as theirs would be the simplest returns with limited loss if they accidentally get too much back. Oops.
Unfortunately way too many people don't know that tax filing companies are now required to offer a free tier product for basic tax returns in Canada.
https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/e-services/digital-services-individuals/netfile-overview/certified-software-netfile-program.html
And yes, I agree that's its stupid we have to file at all. In the UK it's only needed if you're claiming itemized deductions.
That still requires recipients to be capable of gathering the appropriate information and able to access the free tier. Not everybody is. They get screwed out of their benefits.