Even Homero must be aghast at this one....

[Obvious Li]

By Daniel Proussalidis, Parliamentary Bureau



Tuesday, December 11, 2012 6:53:51 EST PM

(QMI AGENCY FILES)



OTTAWA — Canada's army of 375,500 federal civil servants costs taxpayers almost $44 billion per year in salaries and benefits, with the average annual full-time pay now more than $114,000.



In his latest report, Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page also finds federal civil servants got sweet raises that "outpaced not only (consumer price index) inflation but also compensation growth in the Canadian business sector and the provincial and territorial levels of government over the last ten years."



Page's study looked at the size of the federal civil service and how government budget plans will affect it.

[Obvious Li]

just think what this country could do with even half of that 44 billion back......more/better schools, eliminate poverty, better health care, hospitals.....and on and on and on it goes...it is insanity

[Romero]

The report points out that the 13-year period of growth comes after an earlier decade, between 1990-91 and 1998-99, when both personnel expenses and number of employees declined as a result of budget cutbacks introduced by then Liberal finance minister Paul Martin.



Since then, however, the public service has more than made up for lost time and has reached new heights in terms of number of workers and compensation.



http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/12/11/average-public-servant-costs-taxpayers-114k-a-year-pbo-reveals/">//http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/12/11/average-public-servant-costs-taxpayers-114k-a-year-pbo-reveals/

Conservatives, eh?

[Anonymous]

Even Romero acknowledges the Tories have been too leftist with overpaid, under worked federal snivel serpents. One the bright side though Romero, you will be pleased to know the feds plan on getting rid of 25,000 of those parasites over the next three years. I realize it is only a drop in the bucket, but you would have to agree it is a step in the right direction.

Kevin Page, Ottawa's scrupulously independent Parliamentary Budget Officer, said in a report released Tuesday that the federal government lavishes nearly $44 billion in pay and perks on its 375,000 civil servants. That works out to a staggering $114,000 each per year.

 

The average in the private sector is under $70,000.

 

The prickly Page often rubs the government the wrong way with his investigations into federal spending. For instance, Page was first to sound the alarm on cost overruns in the F-35 fighter purchase — more than two years ago, even before the auditor general had chimed in.

 

Now Page is warning that spending on civil servants is so out of control that there is no way the government of Stephen Harper will reach its goal of balancing Ottawa's massive budget in the next three or four years unless it can remain true to its announced plan to cut about 25,000 federal workers over the next three years.

 

But, in a sense, Page is only echoing findings that have been issued elsewhere over the last five years.

 

The budget officer, for instance, has determined that compensation in the federal civil service has outpaced inflation for the past dozen years. Ottawa's minions have also seen their pay grow faster than that of their counterparts in other levels of government and much, much faster than salaries in the private sector.



That is nothing new, though. James Lahey, a former deputy secretary to the federal cabinet — one of Canada's most senior civil servants — concluded more than a year ago that federal pay had increased 22% against inflation in the past two decades, while pay in the private sector had come ahead less than 10%.

As far back as 2008 — before the recession began — the Canadian Federation of Independent Business estimated that there was a 42% pay gap between federal workers and private-sector employees with comparable jobs when salaries, hours of work, vacations, perks and pensions were totalled. Since private-sector compensation has suffered during the recession and public-sector compensation has not, this gap has almost certainly widened.

 

The federal civil service has made back any cuts it suffered in the austerity measures of the mid-1990s, and then some.

 

This time last year, Toronto's C.D. Howe Institute revealed that Ottawa also underestimates the cost of the rich, rich pensions it offers to nearly 90% of its workers. (Under a quarter of private-sector workers have employer pension plans.) Instead of being on the hook for $147 billion in unfunded pension benefits, taxpayers owe closer to

 

$227 billion for current and past civil servants.

 

In short, because Ottawa permits civil service pensions to accrue benefits at twice the rate allowed in the private sector, the 80% of Canadians who do not work for a government will have to pay and pay and pay through their taxes (or is that through their noses?) to keep civil servants living large after they retire.

 

Federal workers take 17 "non-vacation" days off each year — essentially sick days and stress days — compared to fewer than nine per year for private-sector workers.

 

They work an average of 30% less per week and are more likely to take all their vacation days. And the average age at which federal civil servants qualify for a full pension is 58, compared to 62 or higher in the private sector (assuming the private-sector workers even have pensions).

 

It used to be that government workers took less pay because they worked less, had greater job stability and good pensions. Now they get much better pay, too.

 

Page's findings add to the growing evidence that civil servants in Canada are becoming a new privileged class.

http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/sunnews/straighttalk/archives/2012/12/20121212-072113.html">http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/sunnews/st ... 72113.html">http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/sunnews/straighttalk/archives/2012/12/20121212-072113.html

I am not a "snivel serpant" and my compensation as a provincial civil servant is most likely below private sector standards.

[Leopardsocks]

What is intriguing is that we have a similar problem here. As does most other western nations.



Why is that, I wonder? Why do the same maladies affect similar countries almost identically?



What common social and economic forces combine to create a cloned State that makes the same mistake as its duplicates? We are, after all, sovereign nations.



Any guesses?

[Anonymous]

What is intriguing is that we have a similar problem here. As does most other western nations.



Why is that, I wonder? Why do the same maladies affect similar countries almost identically?



What common social and economic forces combine to create a cloned State that makes the same mistake as its duplicates? We are, after all, sovereign nations.



Any guesses?

What maladies do you mean Leopardsocks?



I enjoy my job that is all.

[Leopardsocks]

The malady of bloated bureacracy, with wages much higher than necessary.



For example, 30 years ago, people would work in the private sector for higher wages, while others worked in the public sector for lower wages, but higher security. The salary gap was around 30% in some cases.



Now, public service salaries are on average HIGHER than that of their private counterparts, but with the same tenure and benefits.



The biggest employer in our State is the Government. More people are paid to sit ata desk and produce nothing than those in the manufacturing sector. Now, if we produce nothing, how can we afford to pay people who DO nothing?

[Anonymous]

The malady of bloated bureacracy, with wages much higher than necessary.



For example, 30 years ago, people would work in the private sector for higher wages, while others worked in the public sector for lower wages, but higher security. The salary gap was around 30% in some cases.



Now, public service salaries are on average HIGHER than that of their private counterparts, but with the same tenure and benefits.



The biggest employer in our State is the Government. More people are paid to sit ata desk and produce nothing than those in the manufacturing sector. Now, if we produce nothing, how can we afford to pay people who DO nothing?

Shen Li and Obvious Li agree with you.



I am a provincial civil sevant and my wages and benefits are not that extravangant.



I do sit at a desk, but I work and I could make at least as much in the private sector too.



I stay where I am because I like the ladies I work with, my flexible schedule that allows me to spend more time with my children and my pension.

[Leopardsocks]

Please dont take the issue personally. My wife is a public servant. I used to be one, but left in disgust when I saw what was happening. I could not be part of what was a great big public scam...that we "need" thousands and thousands of staff to deal with issues that are created by the very Government that employs them.



The point is that the money has to come from somewhere to pay these inflated wages, and their holidays, and their pension. And those that produce the wealth are a diminishing class, reducing income tax revenue and consumption revenue. As of this day, Australia now employs MORE people in non-production vocations than production jobs. Put another way, the dwindling number of producers are having to hold up a bureaucracy they cannot afford.



Step 1. In Australia, abandon the Federation constructed from 7 separate State Governments...presumably your "Provinces". No more provincial power poseurs.

Step 2. Eliminate all duplicated Government Departments.

Step 3. One nation, one government.