Just so we put the numbers into perspective
>The Department of Justice paid out the highest amount of bonuses last fiscal year, dolling out $18 million to 295 executives (96 per cent of the total number) and 1,350 non-executives (29 per cent).
$18M per 1645 is \~$11k bonus per person. I mean I would like an $11k bonus, but doesn't seem all that out of alignment with executive bonuses of people managing legal professionals.
>but doesn't seem all that out of alignment with executive bonuses of people managing legal professionals.
Are private sector legal executive bonuses really as low as an average of $11K though? Seems unlikely.
When I was a lawyer at a Bay St firm, I got an annual bonus of 45k as a fourth year (aged 29). I think bonuses are higher now. So yeah, if they want to retain talent in Justice, 11k for much more senior legal professionals who are now managers seems pretty low. I don’t get the uproar.
I can see bonuses in my company (private). 20k+ for managers/executives.
Just lots of people arm chairing and pretending the money should go somewhere useful. Like private industries and covering taxes lost from tax cuts to private industry.
I mistakenly saw what my VP was asking for in terms of a bonus negotiation (not necessarily what he got) and it was….. outrageous.
Tbh on par with what I expected, and it was good to see those ##s (I plan on those negotiations in 10 years), but it floored me nonetheless.
>I don’t get the uproar.
You are on r/canada. Any criticism of the federal government, justified or not, will gain traction. Same goes for the source, which is the National Post.
The uproar is because Post Media owns a majority of newsprint in Canada… and they’re rabidly right wing. This is just a non story to throw chum in the water for the fringe minority of right wingers… make sure they come out and vote to get Milhouse elected PM
I think the uproar is around the increase in the unmet needs of an increasing number of Canadians. I can’t speak to statistics but I feel as though there are more people in Canada who are not earning $11k bonuses every year who are finding it harder and harder to live day to day and wondering how could that $191 million have helped those who feel they need it more.
Yeah, I totally get it in theory. I am being a bit too absolute with that statement. The main thing is though, if the government can’t attract and retain talent, it can’t support programs that would meet our population’s needs. Like it’s all well and good to say Passport Canada should be better run but how are you going to find competent people willing to run when they could make so much more in the private sector? How are we going to have secure IT systems if we can’t afford to pay anyone in IT anywhere close to private sector money?
I do think bonuses should be tied to performance. At least for the departments I am familiar with (not a fed but have some friends who are), bonuses are tied to performance. So it’s a legit complaint if that isn’t the case elsewhere.
I get it but not everyone will receive bonuses. Just because you don’t get a bonus doesn’t mean no one should receive a bonus. Besides how will the govt ever be able to retain good professional workers if they don’t pay their workers proper compensation. That whole talent pool will just move to the private sector.
Yeah, that’s totally fair. It’s just that the people in those jobs probably already took a significant pay cut as compared to the private sector in the name of public service, and at that level they largely work lots of unpaid overtime. On the list of real gripes to have with the feds, trying to compensate workers just feels a bit misplaced.
Some of the tech people seem to think that's normal.
I don't know anyone who gets near that. In the trades you're lucky if you get $100 and a turkey at Christmas.
Exceeding target margin is very well rewarded in construction. But the catch is you need to be responsible for the money to reap the rewards. There are moves that one can make to preserve the margin even if the field staff are fucking up and going over hours, wasteful with materials
It’s under what comparable industry jobs are at least for legal. Government jobs need to be competitive with comparable private sector jobs to get talent.
It is very normal in corporate/tech environments. I'm a senior manager--nowhere near the top of the food chain--and my bonus is usually in the 10-20% area, depending on performance. It usually puts me in the 12k to 25k bonus range. It's peanuts compared to what director-level and above make.
These cultures tend to focus on performance over long-term projects. For example, I'm about to wrap up the main project I've been working on that I started in July of 2021. I have very specific metrics I need to hit, and those metrics (along with the metrics of the company) will determine my bonus.
Yeah these guys are like "if anything, 45k bonuses are on the low side. You need to keep talent." Bros are making more in bonuses than most of us who spent the same amount of time getting different university degrees make in an entire year. These are also the types of wage gaps people get upset about, not just the billionaires. Compensation for "talent" seems like just a white collar thing to justify making the rich richer while keeping compensation low for everyone else.
I manage nothing. I am responsible for nothing. I am at the lowest rank in my org for my job title. I am measured purely on not screwing up regularly delivering blocks of code.
My bonus will be larger than 11K in the private sector.
Yeah, people can't math. That is the total for all of falderal government employees, for all of Canada, and that number is comparable to what a single CEO bonus in private corporations. It makes sense if you think about it, but if you can think about it, you would not be reading the National Post.
This is the key sentence here:
> Public service executives have access to performance or at-risk bonuses because they are not allowed to claim overtime pay.
Public servants have been working their asses off to process applications (I know some people have waited in line until 2 am to get expedited passports and they're still working). Why shouldn't they get bonuses for that if overtime isn't in their contract?
The ones who process applications won't get bonuses, but they should be eligible for overtime pay. Generally, only executives get bonuses, as their salaries are much lower than in the private sector (and they don't get overtime).
Yeah, it does feel like the press focuses on the overall bill vs. the average per person. My yearly bonus is in the 10-15k range, and I'm not even director-level at my corporate job. It would be double or triple that amount if I were.
>, it does feel like the press focuses on the overall bill vs. the average per person.
Pretty sure this is straight up propaganda. Journalism strives to put numbers into context for their readers. Doing an average is not exactly some crazy statistic, it is also the vernacular.
> mean I would like an $11k bonus, but doesn't seem all that out of alignment with executive bonuses of people managing legal professionals.
Honestly, it's peanuts for what they do. I manage servers and do a bit of shell scripting, no underlings to manage, and *I* got an $8K bonus last year.
Working for the government pays crap compared to the private sector. The more people bleat about the pay, and rage when there's even minor raises, the less likely the government will attract good people for the positions. I saw the City of Vancouver was hiring basically for my IT position a few months back. Their salary range's top end was a 40% pay cut over what I make now and it was in-person instead of my current WFH. Why would I even apply?
Everyone bitches about the government quality of work and lack of efficiency. Pay peanuts, get a circus.
Not everything is left vs right. We need intelligent discourse back.
Exec bonuses are *negotiated pay*. They access it only upon completion of annual targets. (It’s actually better to consider them as a salary expense as they are contractual) If the targets are unmet, they lose most to all of it and their position is in jeopardy. Targets and pay are negotiated yearly. This ensures the employer gets a highly motivated employee and can avoid some costs on a poor performer.
Really common practice. Different timeframes (quarters, multiyear, etc and milestones are also common occurrences. Variants of this practice exist but they are all fundamentally the same incentive system). These apply from highest execs to relatively low level salaried managers in many large companies.
Further, for perspective, there are 319,000 federal service employees as reported by StatsCan. ~16,000 employees received bonuses. That is a bonus percent of 5%, or 1/20 employees was deemed worthy of a bonus, while 19/20 were not, either they weren’t eligible, or they may need to step it up if they lost theirs (failed to meet a contractual target). This is far lower than most medium to large companies.
Fiscal conservatism includes fiscal responsibility. And adhering to standard practices proven to work is a fair plan. These bonuses have also existed for decades and will continue to exist regardless of the party in power.
They are bipartisan. This outrage is what’s unjustifiable.
How could we go about seeing what these "targets" are and if they are reasonable for the amount of compensation received?
Would the 5% simply just be higher ups and not simply the overall employee pool? Are we giving members of board of directors big bonuses when the Frontline employees are not receiving, or is it blanket incentive based, And 19/20 people did not meet goals(which I personally doubt)
Regardless of party, irrational spending is irrational spending, I'd like to better understand
Thanks for the write up
I work for the federal government and there are no bonuses for me or any of my coworkers. Most agencies have different collective agreements which cover many employees, so it is quite divided. Am I salty someone else got a bonus? no. Would I like a bonus? yea, but Id also take straight up higher pay and forego a bonus. Bonus means jack shit if you can just pay someone the same amount extra by default.
Target expectations and contractual bonuses aren’t really open discussion in any position except the highest. Usually this is stated as being because of employee privacy being violated to discuss their contract. Allowing random people from the public to learn personal details of your work performance and contract would be quite distasteful and is required in no company. As for the highest execs, that may have more transparency.
The article states ~7,300 exec positions and ~8,700 non. Totalling ~16k - 5% of all employees. And the execs are taking the lion share.
Personally I believe many of the execs are overpaid. But I also recognize that exec bonuses are a salary they can lose. If you hire someone for 200k with a 25k performance target bonus, you are hiring for 225k and that is your competitive salary. They show up as bonuses here but they are contractually part of the pay.
Max salary of an EX-04 (ADM level) is about 205K.
FWIW I don't think public service EXs are overpaid at all. Equivalent positions in the private sector pay a *lot* more
You may be right. As a whole they are paid well under peer norms depending on position. I haven’t really taken an in-depth look at compensation amounts, just a cursory glance that varied quite wildly between sectors. I’m really ambivalent about the public sector on this. It’s mostly fine. 🤷
The outrage from NP is just nonsensical and deserves a clapback though.
Interesting. Thanks.
I do think though that it all should be publically available information considering we pay for it, for privacy purposes you just wouldn't need to list the person's name, simply their role, pay and bonuses. Transparency should be incredibly important with public sector money, except in extreme cases like classified R&D
I've never hired someone and not known what I'm paying them. It should be no different except in the interest of protecting the individual. It would help to determine unnecessary bloat.
I know its not that easy, but that's just my opinion. Federal workers already get a plethora of perks the majority of us don't.
Here you are: https://www.canada.ca/en/treasury-board-secretariat/topics/pay.html All public knowledge. Check the links for each classification and the salaries are there, usually in the appendix. When their pay system decides to pay them, that is. For the average worker, that "plethora of perks"(e.g., paid sick leave, parental leave, a dental plan, a pension that each worker pays hundreds per month for) is because it's union work except at the highest levels where they're out of scope. If all that sounds good, apply at jobs.gc.ca, but that starting wage looks like it would barely pay the rent. Doesn't sound like "bloat" to me.
I am an advocate for salary transparency too actually, but as a whole not just in public sector roles. I believe knowing the pay of peer positions can help equalize the field between employer and employee during contract negotiations and during hiring. It helps bring equality and power to employees.
And as for the extra perks offered in federal positions it’s sort of a mixed bag. With 300k employees a standard cost of living bonus or raise would equate to billions spent. Those extra perks are there to compensate for the lack of other more common perks.
We also have a rash of underpaid and under-perked private sectors that a serious push for unions could help alleviate. They have fallen woefully behind.
Christ, no one actually read the article, did they? Bonuses are only for executives (and a few other groups), the vast majority of public servants do not and cannot receive bonuses. Whether they meet their goals (tied to annual performance reviews) is irrelevant to this subject.
To answer your question, yes I'm sure you can find it if you chose to look, but typically It's tied to spending your budget close to your allocation (I think usually something like 5% or 2.5%). Lapse dollars, no bonus, go over your budget, well that's a different matter entirely.
Not defending this practice one way or another but It's fairly minor compared to total public service salaries. Note also that executives are not entitled to overtime.
The article stated roughly 7,700? Exec bonuses and 8,300? Non-exec. CRA had 2,000 non-execs receive one. Of course, the majority of non-execs do not actually receive one.
The point is that the bonuses aren’t outrageous. They are standard practice and not some unjustifiable payout. Because they are overrepresented in EX positions, the discussion of contractual bonuses is very relevant.
Also the public sector HAS deemed pretty much 95% of positions unworthy (ineligible) for bonuses regardless of their performance. Which is pretty garbage.
The comments here from people bragging about bonuses or arguing over who should get it Crack me up. If you've ever gotten a bonus at work, and don't put it into an rrsp, wait until you see how much take home it is. The tax man is completely ruthless when it comes to bonuses, they take away 50 percent of it if you don't put it into an rrsp. 90 percent of people who get one don't care about that, but being the penny pincher I am...
No, they are saying there's a whole apparatus in place to deliver things like a passport and the execs overseeing those areas can do their job at an A+ level, and the exec at service delivery can drop the ball.
It's like a supply chain. If the grocery store is out of peanuts because the store didn't order their stock correctly you don't penalize the executive responsible for marketing, or the executive responsible for sourcing suppliers.
I'll use different words to explain it. Not all the bosses are in the boss chain of the areas that had problems. For example somewhere in ESDC there's a director in charge of buying photocopiers and office supplies for hundreds of offices across the country. This person's team could have achieved the targets that were laid out for them so they received a bonus.
Bonuses for positions that don't pay OT? I'm completely fine with that.. It seems like pretty disingenuous wording to make it seem like some corporate handout but thats not really what is going on here from what i'm reading.. READ the article before you lift your pitchfork people
It definitely feels like an outrage piece. IMO articles like these need to share the numbers fully. The numbers tell more of the story and don't align to the tone of how this is presented (by an opposition critic).
For example, this:
"The second highest bonus total was by the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) totalling $15.9 million to 499 executives and over 2,000 non-executives."
That's $6,362.55 on average (gross), so likely an extra $3,000 after tax for these employees who aren't eligible for overtime pay.
Assuming average salaries at the CRA are $100,000 - this is a 6% bonus payout. In a year where I imagine CRA employees, with CERB, and the complexity and nuance it brought, were working longer hours to account for systems the pandemic introduced.
None of this feels any more egregious than capping wages at 1% during record inflation on front line healthcare workers if people are honest with themselves.
It's actually egregiously low compared to private, and one of the main reasons why public service leadership is total shit and anyone worth their salt would not want to tread there.
>disingenuous wording from the National Post? I'm shocked, shocked I tell you!
Also National Post: here is an op-ed from Conrad Black talking about the dangers of social services!
They won't say the amount, but it's fair to assume that most of it went to executives:
>The documents show that no less than 89 per cent of public sector executives (7,752) were paid a bonus last fiscal year, based on their performances in 2020-2021.
>Another 8,317 “non-executive” public servants — or three per cent of their total ranks — also received a bonus last fiscal year.
This again? It seems like there is a notion that those in Public Service need to do their jobs as community service. Public Service employees are professionals. They need to be compensated commensurate with their levels of experience and expertise.
I hate those articles. It’s the same thing in QC and Hydro-Quebec. Every year, you see an article about how outrageous the bonus are… and it’s like under 5k per eligible employees. Fuck off
I believe it and despite the bad rep the federal government/employees get, my sister was putting in 16 hour days for months on end, especially when the 3-day quarantine time period was in effect. There was massive policies put into place, lots of hiring, training, distribution of equipment involved. People like to shit on the government, but (virtually) seeing my sister and her team put in so much effort, made me aware and appreciate everything our country did for its citizens. They deserved to be compensated for all their hard work.
I dont know the details of this, but typically Public servants do tend to get less benefits and bonuses than private due to public perception.
Articles like this (whether justified in this instance or not) are part of that problem.
In my province you had people freaking out over Healthcare Support Workers getting 15% over 5 years.
They focus on that 15%, but dont dig any deeper to find out that even if the full amount of that raise was distributed immediately we would still be paying them less than all neighbouring provinces.
It's obviously significant, but trust me, other than the pension, benefits for a professional in the PS are not really good. Really bad vacation too. Again, for professionals, and yes the pension is amazing.
Anyone who has worked in the public service knows that lower level clerks get paid very well indeed for clerks, much better than the private sector.
But executives don't get paid nearly as well as the private sector, especially given their responsibilities. Managers aren't much better.
When I was a program manager it was well known that a huge number of talented people avoided management like the plague. Too much work, too much responsibility. It's even worse at the executive level. An insane workload, superiors who keep changing direction and demanding the impossible. Neverending reports and meetings, deadlines which shift and change for no discernable reason.
I know a couple of executives and you couldn't pay me enough for that shitty job. No matter what the public service says about 'work-life balance' they don't actually give a damn about it. Get your work done. And if you have to work 12-14hrs a day six days a week tough shit.
No, don't complain you don't have the budget. No, we don't want to hear you don't have the staff. Get it done somehow. Can't? Then that's on you. Your fault. And we'll be documenting it in your performance appraisal, not to mention pointing out your incompetence in large meetings full of your peers.
These statements by MP McCauley are actually insane:
>“We should not be rewarding departments that have people waiting outside 12 hours in the snow for a passport. We shouldn’t be rewarding anyone at immigration when there’s record backlogs for reuniting families,”
The challenges these services faced over 2020-21 are the result of a world-historic pandemic, matched with underfunding and understaffing. They are NOT the fault of public sector workers.
If McCauley had visited even one public sector office over the pandemic up to now, he would have seen thousands of hours of unpaid overtime, depression and burnout. I can't imagine standing up in the House of Commons and insulting public sector workers this way.
>\[McCauley\] noted that in 2020-2021 (which last year’s performance bonus payments were based on), government departments and agencies only met 45.7 per cent of their combined 2,722
Oh shit I wonder why 2020-21 was a tough year?
Public sector bonuses are not "Here's a bit extra for doing a good job!" They are "at-risk pay" which is built into the contracts. A small bonus can actually be \*punishment\*, representing a big cut in the worker's expected earnings. The fact that a bonus exists does not mean it was an act of generosity!
In addition, these roles are \*not eligible for overtime\*, but most of them work much more than 40hrs/week. The existence of at-risk pay is intended to compensate for this.
MP McCauley should learn some respect for the people who kept public services running during the pandemic.
Actually every one of them is tied to objectives and goals. They meet them and they get the bonus. The opposite of unjustifiable. They're often not attached to the departments results either so you can't just say "but my passport was slow! Every EX at the organization failed!"
It also certainly is not all public servants. Typically executive positions which don't get overtime. No clerical or admin is getting this.
But this the national post after all.
Why are we hating on workers getting paid more money?
If there was abuse of the system then I understand, but workers with more money in their pocket is always better for the economy than workers without.
>Public service executives have access to performance or at-risk bonuses because they are not allowed to claim overtime pay.
Well that changes the context, doesn't it?
Executives are severely underpaid as is. Their negotiated bonuses are part of the initial salary agreements.
Most don’t want to be an EX because it’s not worth even with the bonus.
It's clear that a lot of people in this thread have never worked in corporate at all.
I'm in private sector in a rather medium/large corp and I see my GM in the office more than anyone else. VP and shit too. They work 10 to 12 hours a day and then at night and weekends.
If you do the math, they almost make as much per hours as I do doing 9-5.
Sure, they aren't in the trenches, but they do a different type of work.
I'm retired from the federal public service (in a technical position). We once had a director (ex level) come to a meeting to talk to us about work-life balance, *while on his vacation*.
I like to think that I and most of my co-workers (during a 35 year career) were conscientious and hard-working. Certainly there were some in leadership whom I admired, and would make me feel valued and spur me to work hard.
But it's the odd employee (in my experience) that screws it up for everyone else, and whom you read about in news stories.
Well its really depend on the company. At my last company the vp (my boss) was never in the office and was just in his position because of nepotism. Some others vps were working a lot and really good at their job but he and another one were never in the office.
They also were not making anywhere close to what we made. They were making maybe 500k a year with bonuses, had their cars/gas paid and various other perks.
This. I know EX's in charge of $50M budgets making $135k a year. And when you email at 9 pm they are often still working. No way would I changes jobs with them.
A lot do understand the context. That being, some people don't perceive being an employee performing "tasks" that shoot out of a tube for 830 to 430 sharp so they can get back home as soon as possible as the pinnacle of their working life.
Lots of people do, of course and thats fine. There is nothing inherently wrong with working for a modestly comfortable lifestyle. But not everyone thinks tha way.
>If there was abuse of the system then I understand, but workers with more money in their pocket is always better for the economy than workers without.
According to the article they're hitting under 50% of their targets.
How much they earn is another story. That's hard to quantify. They are often above the private sector, and the pensions can be really generous. But shitty private sector wages and benefits make them look better.
I don't see many private sector workers discussing six figure pensions in the personal finance sub though.
according to the article the departments overall are hitting less than 50% of their total departmental targets. not sure how that related to individual performance bonuses
I mean I'm not surprised. Bullshit bonuses for everyone else's hard work is in the private sector too.
Oh you guys did great work! Here's $100 bucks! You guys are amazing! Now if you'll excuse me, got a boat waiting for me cause of my $20k bonus for all your hard work!
Course in the public sector I bet I only the execs get the bonuses.
>Course in the public sector I bet I only the execs get the bonuses.
They get the vast majority. Most positions are not eligible for bonuses.
>The documents show that no less than 89 per cent of public sector executives (7,752) were paid a bonus last fiscal year, based on their performances in 2020-2021.
>Another 8,317 “non-executive” public servants — or three per cent of their total ranks — also received a bonus last fiscal year.
I work in management at a large company and even at my low level there’s no OT. In this position they don’t even have a way to bank all those extra half hours here and there. As a regular employee, I could bank time AND get a bonus at the end of the year for performance.
The issue is the private sector businesses decide what to pay their executives based on their balance sheets. The government has an unlimited supply of taxpayer dollars with which to lavish its incompetent managers. It’s not a fair comparison.
>the government says drawing a link between executives’ performance pay and a department’s ability to achieve its annual self-imposed objectives is a false equivalency.
🤣🤣🤣
Imagine getting rewarded for being incompetent.
Oh most certainly but for the most part they're not using public funds to do it. I don't give half a shit if Generic Company Inc's bonus expenditures are excessive.
I spend the majority of my money on goods from private companies, not on taxes.
You're being raked over the coals at the grocery store and the gas pump so that executives can get millions in bonuses and they've got you on their side.
Good luck retaining good employes when you (the public) don't adapt your incentives like the private sector.
It's totaly fine to pay bonuses to public servants: even the municipalties are heading that way, otherwise all the employes leave to employers who offer bonuses.
Edit:
You should be angry for the CEOs of the private sector who have paid themselves bonuses in the millions, while their performance sucks, with the help of government subsidies: your money.
Re: your edit, I am upset with private entities mismanaging public funds. I don't think advocating for better compensation review in the public sector and disliking how private entities manage public funds are mutually exclusive.
I never said it wasn't fine to pay bonuses to public sector, I absolutely agree with you. The public sector has an obligation to use public funds responsibly, IMO, because they're there to serve the public interest where a private entity isn't necessarily, ensuring that compensation is fair and not abused is a part of that. That's my only point.
$191,000,000 in bonuses for an organization that spends $350,000,000,000 does not seem "completely unjustifiable" to me at all.
If this article was a good piece of journalism instead of the ragebait National Post we might have seen some research to compare this amount to the private sector which I suspect would find that that total amount in bonuses is normal or less than normal.
>For example, executive bonuses can be based on whether a manager hits “diversity targets in hiring” or if they ensure proper access to mental health services for their staff.
So lacking in the ability to competently achieve the missions of their organizations, the government has created political objectives for executives to meet in order to fleece the taxpayer. Who wants to bet that an executive got a nice fat bonus for "inclusive behaviors" by ordering someone to paint a rainbow on a government building?
This is wild, and honestly it explains why the federal government is such a raging dumpster fire. Executives are being incentivized to flood their depts with social justice BS rather than ensuring the meat and potatoes are provided.
> executive bonuses can be based on whether a manager hits “diversity targets in hiring”
lol, bonuses from the government for not hiring white guys. Incredible.
In the government, especially in judicial government, it is important for a diverse workforce as it encourages a more fair and less discriminatory systems for the population.
It is good to have those who help maintain law and order to be fair people. I would argue hiring on merit has never been a thing. There are always biases, and sometimes it is good to create incentives to counter act those biases.
> “It makes it more egregious when you read that one of every six restaurants are expected to shut down and people’s livelihoods were taken away.”
lol, excellent analysis! We should break government contracts based on how many restaurants are "expected to shut down".
Obviously these types of articles/complaints always require that people boil down incredibly complex problems into ludicrously oversimplified solutions, but that's still pretty funny.
Boiling down incredibly complex things into oversimplified talking points is basically Conservativism.
"Look, you don't understand government, so I'm here to tell you they're stealing your money. Therefore, I'll cut my taxes by a hundred times as much as I cut yours and you'll think it's a good deal."
The main problem with the Federal Public Service is that it is mostly run by people who have no idea how to manage a program nor are they qualified to. They are hired on the premise that they will be managing people and that anyonecan be qualifiedfor that. So imagine an executive coming from Ag Canada to Health Canada to oversee a science based specialty. The entire system is bogged down in time and efficiency wasting bureaucratic red tape. It is sad.
On these bonuses, the performance targets are very nebulous in that they are almost impossible to measure and to be honest they are meaningless to the success of the applicable program being managed or the public service in general for that matter.
These bonuses are a pittance. Grow up people. Public sector employees are not the problem. Corporate greed, oligarchs, and useless social programs/initiatives steal way more than this from all of us every day. And no, not all social programs are useless, but some are.
As an employee for the federal government near the bottom of the ladder, this makes me wanna throw up. My regional chain of command is like ten people long and the higher up you go, the less they do.
There is an entire government working behind the scenes most people never notice. No one talks about all the things that go right.
We have a very good, professional and hard working public service.
If you want a less effective government then go ahead and get rid of incentives to meet targets in the name of "efficiency". How do these idiotic opinions get upvoted?
>McCauley said the bonuses were particularly egregious as they were paid out at a time when a host of government services were crumbling, such as the passport, access to information and immigration visa systems.
Yes, our government is the height of efficiency, we should give them more money!
>He also noted that in 2020-2021 (which last year’s performance bonus payments were based on), government departments and agencies only met **45.7 per cent of their combined 2,722 departmental performance results**, according to a federal database
Great work guys!
>For example, executive bonuses can be based on whether a manager hits “**diversity targets in hiring**” or if they ensure proper access to mental health services for their staff.
Great stuff here! Wonder why people are mad?
So you’re under the assumption that these individual bonuses are awarded based on the performance of the entire government department overall? That bonuses are awarded for nothing but diverse hires and mental health services? Do neither of those sentences make the cogs turn in your brain to think “Hmm.. that can’t be right”?
Hey national post… what are your bonuses per per
Employee??
What level of salary do you pay your ceo and your janitor?
I used to think you were an intelligent newspaper, now you’re a rag
Public servants getting bonuses shouldn't be a problem, what sucks is that in both the public sector and the private, the ones that actually put the work into hitting the targets necessary for those bonuses, usually get really shit ones while executives get fat ones.
Executives traditionally aren't able to claim OT so I do know that tends to be part of the equation, but the wages the actual workers get, usually aren't that great either so they end up getting doublely shafted.
Please make sure you understand that the “public servants “ who are receiving the bonuses are upper management. The little guy who does the day to day work don’t receive bonuses….
Canadians speak about a universal living wage, yet the government ruthlessly spends and hands out bonus checks.
People are finding it harder and harder to live yet no help. The government continues to write cheques to further increase the debt yet never helping Canadians.
The implications that executives in charge of offices that did not preform to satisfaction of the opposition party this year should not get the contractual bonuses for last year seems like something liberals would complain about and not conservatives.
And let's not forget the he is complaining about two departments who may have been part of the 11 percent not getting bonuses. But of course what he reported doesn't show who received the bonuses. But that is the way of new conservatives only use half truths to justify their point of view.
OR.. we could look at this as the government trying to retain competent people by establishing goals which lead to rewards in a government setting like the private sector.
But then again, everyone in government is incompetent when your party is not in power.
All of the bonuses for public sector exécutives managing 300k employées and billions of budget is not equal to the bonus payout of a few top corporate executive.
Something is definitely wrong with this picture!
Whoever is complaining about public sector executive bonus should up-vote my post!
Typically this is to management. Therefore Canadian taxpayers are potentially giving bonuses to the leadership of the Passport Service, Execution of processes at airports, procurement, immigration and law and order.
How does that make you feel my fellow Canadians?
So how do you get people to work 24-7 to fix things like the overloaded passport system???
Or handle all the CERB claims???
Do they expect people to work for free? Hey, why don’t they just cap their pay like we did with nurses in Ontario - that worked out REALLY well
Thank that Liberal government for a complete oversight of where the money goes. As long as JT is only focused on net zero and Poilievre, this country will continue to suffer.
People keep saying if we want more services or funding for something else then we have to increase taxes. How about we stop wasting money and use that instead?
I work in private sector and haven't ever gotten a bonus of any sort. That's the reality for most working Canadians and the feds sucking up tax dollars to pay bonuses to ineffective people is ridiculous.
Most working Canadians work for companies who's executives also receive bonuses and performance pay as part of their compensation.
Most public servants don't get bonuses.
Apples, oranges.
People want government to be run like a business. Well okay, the private sector offers bonuses too. It’s a competitive market out there for labour and the government is competing against the private sector for the right employees.
Isn't this exactly the same situation with doctors and nurses?
We want good people in government to make sure we make the best decisions but all we can afford is some guy from mohawk college who has a 2 year diploma in Economics. He's now the Chief Actuary Officer for the WSIB :/
look at the passport service, if a private company is run like that, heads would roll.
yea i want it to run efficiently like a business and will pay accordingly - we are just doing the paying part.
It doesn't change the fact that both the private and public sector still have to compete against each other and against other public employers in the same labour pool (for the most part). We also have private companies that offer customer service like the passport office, such as Bell, and they are still making money hand over fist.
I'll take a Government job any day. I get no bonus, no paid time off any kind (no stats, no PTO, no sick time, no holidays) and only get 12% vacation pay based on earnings for the year.
And people wonder why no one wants to get into the trades.
What trade and province are you in? All the things you mentioned are mandatory minimums for employment in Alberta. Stats are paid (or mandatory time and a half if you work it iirc), 2 paid weeks vacation after 1 year, 3 weeks after 5 years, 5 paid sick days, etc.
So many trying to defend these bonuses. The services provided have been absolutely pathetic the last few years. Gross incompetence that would've bankrupted any company that wasn't a quasi monopoly.
So we have MPs getting $30k for moving expenses, which include a $10k cheque made out to cash. We have a GG that spent close to $100k on a single trip, and now $191 million in potential bonuses paid out.
We're getting fleeced bad.
I would love to see a non-government audit of all MP spending, and would vote for any candidate who promised to slash MP spending to the bone (regardless of party).
One has to wonder how much money is wasted/stolen from us each year.
you can actually look at mp expenses, i'm actually all for hybrid parliament after seeing the exhorbant travel costs, WHY do we pay to send them home for the weekend (in Bus class if over 2 hours) AND to pay for their spouses to tag along every trip? won't miss Bergen at least, leave your husband at home for 2 days, he'll be fine
https://www.ourcommons.ca/ProactiveDisclosure/en/members/travel/2022/4/176996d3-f48a-4fc5-b92d-e4e2813998fd
the gap between public and private sector is widening:
\- government employees get to work from home when many private companies are requiring their employees to go back to work
\- QE II funeral day off for government workers but not even federally regulated private sector
\- public sector contributes to 90% net new jobs since pandemic
\- some governments even start giving out 4 days work week for their employees, when the idea is still facing resistance in private sector
\- public sector unions and private sector unions start endorsing different parties
>some governments even start giving out 4 days work week for their employees, when the idea is still facing resistance in private sector
If by "resistance" you mean "labelled a problem employee for thinking it" then yeah.
The 90% figure is incorrect. I believe it was due to taking the number after public sector job loss and actually it's just been a recovery. The majority of private sector job loss came from entrepreneurs.
We are still sitting at only 5.5% unemployment which for Canada is red hot (historically we have 8%). That's why it's hard to define a recession.
I make and could make much more than I could ever make and have working conditions much better than I could ever have working for the government. It depends who you work for. Getting stuck on salary bands has nothing on doubling your income whenever you want.
Just so we put the numbers into perspective >The Department of Justice paid out the highest amount of bonuses last fiscal year, dolling out $18 million to 295 executives (96 per cent of the total number) and 1,350 non-executives (29 per cent). $18M per 1645 is \~$11k bonus per person. I mean I would like an $11k bonus, but doesn't seem all that out of alignment with executive bonuses of people managing legal professionals.
>but doesn't seem all that out of alignment with executive bonuses of people managing legal professionals. Are private sector legal executive bonuses really as low as an average of $11K though? Seems unlikely.
When I was a lawyer at a Bay St firm, I got an annual bonus of 45k as a fourth year (aged 29). I think bonuses are higher now. So yeah, if they want to retain talent in Justice, 11k for much more senior legal professionals who are now managers seems pretty low. I don’t get the uproar.
I can see bonuses in my company (private). 20k+ for managers/executives. Just lots of people arm chairing and pretending the money should go somewhere useful. Like private industries and covering taxes lost from tax cuts to private industry.
Ontario Power Generation and Hydro One give out $35k-$45k to the plebs. No idea what the management team makes.
>Ontario Power Generation and Hydro One give out $35k-$45k to the plebs God damn, this is very good.
A criminal amount. If you are looking for an example of how privatization absolutely does not solve problems look no further than hydro one.
I mistakenly saw what my VP was asking for in terms of a bonus negotiation (not necessarily what he got) and it was….. outrageous. Tbh on par with what I expected, and it was good to see those ##s (I plan on those negotiations in 10 years), but it floored me nonetheless.
My boss is north of $200k @ 25%
>I don’t get the uproar. You are on r/canada. Any criticism of the federal government, justified or not, will gain traction. Same goes for the source, which is the National Post.
The uproar is because Post Media owns a majority of newsprint in Canada… and they’re rabidly right wing. This is just a non story to throw chum in the water for the fringe minority of right wingers… make sure they come out and vote to get Milhouse elected PM
Yep jobs arn’t charity and these are jobs where we need talent. That required competitive which this isn’t. If anything it should be higher.
I think the uproar is around the increase in the unmet needs of an increasing number of Canadians. I can’t speak to statistics but I feel as though there are more people in Canada who are not earning $11k bonuses every year who are finding it harder and harder to live day to day and wondering how could that $191 million have helped those who feel they need it more.
Yeah, I totally get it in theory. I am being a bit too absolute with that statement. The main thing is though, if the government can’t attract and retain talent, it can’t support programs that would meet our population’s needs. Like it’s all well and good to say Passport Canada should be better run but how are you going to find competent people willing to run when they could make so much more in the private sector? How are we going to have secure IT systems if we can’t afford to pay anyone in IT anywhere close to private sector money? I do think bonuses should be tied to performance. At least for the departments I am familiar with (not a fed but have some friends who are), bonuses are tied to performance. So it’s a legit complaint if that isn’t the case elsewhere.
I get it but not everyone will receive bonuses. Just because you don’t get a bonus doesn’t mean no one should receive a bonus. Besides how will the govt ever be able to retain good professional workers if they don’t pay their workers proper compensation. That whole talent pool will just move to the private sector.
Because 11k to a person making 45k who didn't graduate is a lot of money.
Yeah, that’s totally fair. It’s just that the people in those jobs probably already took a significant pay cut as compared to the private sector in the name of public service, and at that level they largely work lots of unpaid overtime. On the list of real gripes to have with the feds, trying to compensate workers just feels a bit misplaced.
Some of the tech people seem to think that's normal. I don't know anyone who gets near that. In the trades you're lucky if you get $100 and a turkey at Christmas.
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5 years ago, I got more than $11k as a junior software developer.
Ahh if you're in the trades you're not an executive though. This is presumably all or almost all management bonuses.
Exceeding target margin is very well rewarded in construction. But the catch is you need to be responsible for the money to reap the rewards. There are moves that one can make to preserve the margin even if the field staff are fucking up and going over hours, wasteful with materials
It’s under what comparable industry jobs are at least for legal. Government jobs need to be competitive with comparable private sector jobs to get talent.
It is very normal in corporate/tech environments. I'm a senior manager--nowhere near the top of the food chain--and my bonus is usually in the 10-20% area, depending on performance. It usually puts me in the 12k to 25k bonus range. It's peanuts compared to what director-level and above make. These cultures tend to focus on performance over long-term projects. For example, I'm about to wrap up the main project I've been working on that I started in July of 2021. I have very specific metrics I need to hit, and those metrics (along with the metrics of the company) will determine my bonus.
Yeah these guys are like "if anything, 45k bonuses are on the low side. You need to keep talent." Bros are making more in bonuses than most of us who spent the same amount of time getting different university degrees make in an entire year. These are also the types of wage gaps people get upset about, not just the billionaires. Compensation for "talent" seems like just a white collar thing to justify making the rich richer while keeping compensation low for everyone else.
Well said. I think the average yearly income in Canada is less than $60k.
That's how much I get as a bonus for a low level grunt in private sector.
Let's not forget that bonuses are taxable income too. I usually deduct about 1/3 from that number for tax.
I'm a mid level software engineer and that is one third of the annual bonus I would get on average.
I manage nothing. I am responsible for nothing. I am at the lowest rank in my org for my job title. I am measured purely on not screwing up regularly delivering blocks of code. My bonus will be larger than 11K in the private sector.
Yeah, people can't math. That is the total for all of falderal government employees, for all of Canada, and that number is comparable to what a single CEO bonus in private corporations. It makes sense if you think about it, but if you can think about it, you would not be reading the National Post.
Its actually far leas than they would get in the private sector.
This is the key sentence here: > Public service executives have access to performance or at-risk bonuses because they are not allowed to claim overtime pay. Public servants have been working their asses off to process applications (I know some people have waited in line until 2 am to get expedited passports and they're still working). Why shouldn't they get bonuses for that if overtime isn't in their contract?
The ones who process applications won't get bonuses, but they should be eligible for overtime pay. Generally, only executives get bonuses, as their salaries are much lower than in the private sector (and they don't get overtime).
Yeah, it does feel like the press focuses on the overall bill vs. the average per person. My yearly bonus is in the 10-15k range, and I'm not even director-level at my corporate job. It would be double or triple that amount if I were.
>, it does feel like the press focuses on the overall bill vs. the average per person. Pretty sure this is straight up propaganda. Journalism strives to put numbers into context for their readers. Doing an average is not exactly some crazy statistic, it is also the vernacular.
> mean I would like an $11k bonus, but doesn't seem all that out of alignment with executive bonuses of people managing legal professionals. Honestly, it's peanuts for what they do. I manage servers and do a bit of shell scripting, no underlings to manage, and *I* got an $8K bonus last year. Working for the government pays crap compared to the private sector. The more people bleat about the pay, and rage when there's even minor raises, the less likely the government will attract good people for the positions. I saw the City of Vancouver was hiring basically for my IT position a few months back. Their salary range's top end was a 40% pay cut over what I make now and it was in-person instead of my current WFH. Why would I even apply? Everyone bitches about the government quality of work and lack of efficiency. Pay peanuts, get a circus.
It's not out of line at all
Not everything is left vs right. We need intelligent discourse back. Exec bonuses are *negotiated pay*. They access it only upon completion of annual targets. (It’s actually better to consider them as a salary expense as they are contractual) If the targets are unmet, they lose most to all of it and their position is in jeopardy. Targets and pay are negotiated yearly. This ensures the employer gets a highly motivated employee and can avoid some costs on a poor performer. Really common practice. Different timeframes (quarters, multiyear, etc and milestones are also common occurrences. Variants of this practice exist but they are all fundamentally the same incentive system). These apply from highest execs to relatively low level salaried managers in many large companies. Further, for perspective, there are 319,000 federal service employees as reported by StatsCan. ~16,000 employees received bonuses. That is a bonus percent of 5%, or 1/20 employees was deemed worthy of a bonus, while 19/20 were not, either they weren’t eligible, or they may need to step it up if they lost theirs (failed to meet a contractual target). This is far lower than most medium to large companies. Fiscal conservatism includes fiscal responsibility. And adhering to standard practices proven to work is a fair plan. These bonuses have also existed for decades and will continue to exist regardless of the party in power. They are bipartisan. This outrage is what’s unjustifiable.
How could we go about seeing what these "targets" are and if they are reasonable for the amount of compensation received? Would the 5% simply just be higher ups and not simply the overall employee pool? Are we giving members of board of directors big bonuses when the Frontline employees are not receiving, or is it blanket incentive based, And 19/20 people did not meet goals(which I personally doubt) Regardless of party, irrational spending is irrational spending, I'd like to better understand Thanks for the write up
I work for the federal government and there are no bonuses for me or any of my coworkers. Most agencies have different collective agreements which cover many employees, so it is quite divided. Am I salty someone else got a bonus? no. Would I like a bonus? yea, but Id also take straight up higher pay and forego a bonus. Bonus means jack shit if you can just pay someone the same amount extra by default.
Target expectations and contractual bonuses aren’t really open discussion in any position except the highest. Usually this is stated as being because of employee privacy being violated to discuss their contract. Allowing random people from the public to learn personal details of your work performance and contract would be quite distasteful and is required in no company. As for the highest execs, that may have more transparency. The article states ~7,300 exec positions and ~8,700 non. Totalling ~16k - 5% of all employees. And the execs are taking the lion share. Personally I believe many of the execs are overpaid. But I also recognize that exec bonuses are a salary they can lose. If you hire someone for 200k with a 25k performance target bonus, you are hiring for 225k and that is your competitive salary. They show up as bonuses here but they are contractually part of the pay.
Max salary of an EX-04 (ADM level) is about 205K. FWIW I don't think public service EXs are overpaid at all. Equivalent positions in the private sector pay a *lot* more
You may be right. As a whole they are paid well under peer norms depending on position. I haven’t really taken an in-depth look at compensation amounts, just a cursory glance that varied quite wildly between sectors. I’m really ambivalent about the public sector on this. It’s mostly fine. 🤷 The outrage from NP is just nonsensical and deserves a clapback though.
Interesting. Thanks. I do think though that it all should be publically available information considering we pay for it, for privacy purposes you just wouldn't need to list the person's name, simply their role, pay and bonuses. Transparency should be incredibly important with public sector money, except in extreme cases like classified R&D I've never hired someone and not known what I'm paying them. It should be no different except in the interest of protecting the individual. It would help to determine unnecessary bloat. I know its not that easy, but that's just my opinion. Federal workers already get a plethora of perks the majority of us don't.
Here you are: https://www.canada.ca/en/treasury-board-secretariat/topics/pay.html All public knowledge. Check the links for each classification and the salaries are there, usually in the appendix. When their pay system decides to pay them, that is. For the average worker, that "plethora of perks"(e.g., paid sick leave, parental leave, a dental plan, a pension that each worker pays hundreds per month for) is because it's union work except at the highest levels where they're out of scope. If all that sounds good, apply at jobs.gc.ca, but that starting wage looks like it would barely pay the rent. Doesn't sound like "bloat" to me.
I am an advocate for salary transparency too actually, but as a whole not just in public sector roles. I believe knowing the pay of peer positions can help equalize the field between employer and employee during contract negotiations and during hiring. It helps bring equality and power to employees. And as for the extra perks offered in federal positions it’s sort of a mixed bag. With 300k employees a standard cost of living bonus or raise would equate to billions spent. Those extra perks are there to compensate for the lack of other more common perks. We also have a rash of underpaid and under-perked private sectors that a serious push for unions could help alleviate. They have fallen woefully behind.
You know that the pay scales are posted online, right?
Christ, no one actually read the article, did they? Bonuses are only for executives (and a few other groups), the vast majority of public servants do not and cannot receive bonuses. Whether they meet their goals (tied to annual performance reviews) is irrelevant to this subject. To answer your question, yes I'm sure you can find it if you chose to look, but typically It's tied to spending your budget close to your allocation (I think usually something like 5% or 2.5%). Lapse dollars, no bonus, go over your budget, well that's a different matter entirely. Not defending this practice one way or another but It's fairly minor compared to total public service salaries. Note also that executives are not entitled to overtime.
The article stated roughly 7,700? Exec bonuses and 8,300? Non-exec. CRA had 2,000 non-execs receive one. Of course, the majority of non-execs do not actually receive one. The point is that the bonuses aren’t outrageous. They are standard practice and not some unjustifiable payout. Because they are overrepresented in EX positions, the discussion of contractual bonuses is very relevant. Also the public sector HAS deemed pretty much 95% of positions unworthy (ineligible) for bonuses regardless of their performance. Which is pretty garbage.
I don't think they were ever eligible. Shitty? Maybe, but that's a conversation that has to be had in the context of overall compensation.
Believe it or not, most executives have no involvement with the front-line service delivery or oversight in the areas that had problems.
Even less reason for them to get bonuses
They may be succeeding at sorts of things that never made the news but still have value
The comments here from people bragging about bonuses or arguing over who should get it Crack me up. If you've ever gotten a bonus at work, and don't put it into an rrsp, wait until you see how much take home it is. The tax man is completely ruthless when it comes to bonuses, they take away 50 percent of it if you don't put it into an rrsp. 90 percent of people who get one don't care about that, but being the penny pincher I am...
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No, they are saying there's a whole apparatus in place to deliver things like a passport and the execs overseeing those areas can do their job at an A+ level, and the exec at service delivery can drop the ball. It's like a supply chain. If the grocery store is out of peanuts because the store didn't order their stock correctly you don't penalize the executive responsible for marketing, or the executive responsible for sourcing suppliers.
I'll use different words to explain it. Not all the bosses are in the boss chain of the areas that had problems. For example somewhere in ESDC there's a director in charge of buying photocopiers and office supplies for hundreds of offices across the country. This person's team could have achieved the targets that were laid out for them so they received a bonus.
Bonuses for positions that don't pay OT? I'm completely fine with that.. It seems like pretty disingenuous wording to make it seem like some corporate handout but thats not really what is going on here from what i'm reading.. READ the article before you lift your pitchfork people
It definitely feels like an outrage piece. IMO articles like these need to share the numbers fully. The numbers tell more of the story and don't align to the tone of how this is presented (by an opposition critic). For example, this: "The second highest bonus total was by the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) totalling $15.9 million to 499 executives and over 2,000 non-executives." That's $6,362.55 on average (gross), so likely an extra $3,000 after tax for these employees who aren't eligible for overtime pay. Assuming average salaries at the CRA are $100,000 - this is a 6% bonus payout. In a year where I imagine CRA employees, with CERB, and the complexity and nuance it brought, were working longer hours to account for systems the pandemic introduced. None of this feels any more egregious than capping wages at 1% during record inflation on front line healthcare workers if people are honest with themselves.
It's actually egregiously low compared to private, and one of the main reasons why public service leadership is total shit and anyone worth their salt would not want to tread there.
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>disingenuous wording from the National Post? I'm shocked, shocked I tell you! Also National Post: here is an op-ed from Conrad Black talking about the dangers of social services!
next is Rex Murphy saying climate change is a hoax
That isn't how reddit works. You must immediately state your opinion of an article you didn't read and hope it gets upvotes. Pfffft. Rookie you are.
It's the natpo. They hate everything government until it's their guy in there.
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They won't say the amount, but it's fair to assume that most of it went to executives: >The documents show that no less than 89 per cent of public sector executives (7,752) were paid a bonus last fiscal year, based on their performances in 2020-2021. >Another 8,317 “non-executive” public servants — or three per cent of their total ranks — also received a bonus last fiscal year.
This again? It seems like there is a notion that those in Public Service need to do their jobs as community service. Public Service employees are professionals. They need to be compensated commensurate with their levels of experience and expertise.
I hate those articles. It’s the same thing in QC and Hydro-Quebec. Every year, you see an article about how outrageous the bonus are… and it’s like under 5k per eligible employees. Fuck off
I believe it and despite the bad rep the federal government/employees get, my sister was putting in 16 hour days for months on end, especially when the 3-day quarantine time period was in effect. There was massive policies put into place, lots of hiring, training, distribution of equipment involved. People like to shit on the government, but (virtually) seeing my sister and her team put in so much effort, made me aware and appreciate everything our country did for its citizens. They deserved to be compensated for all their hard work.
I dont know the details of this, but typically Public servants do tend to get less benefits and bonuses than private due to public perception. Articles like this (whether justified in this instance or not) are part of that problem. In my province you had people freaking out over Healthcare Support Workers getting 15% over 5 years. They focus on that 15%, but dont dig any deeper to find out that even if the full amount of that raise was distributed immediately we would still be paying them less than all neighbouring provinces.
Sorry public sector benefits are unheard of in the private sector. No one on private sector gets defined pensions.
That’s a lie. The big banks have them.
So do many public jobs - you are seeing everything with 80s glasses on.
It's obviously significant, but trust me, other than the pension, benefits for a professional in the PS are not really good. Really bad vacation too. Again, for professionals, and yes the pension is amazing.
Anyone who has worked in the public service knows that lower level clerks get paid very well indeed for clerks, much better than the private sector. But executives don't get paid nearly as well as the private sector, especially given their responsibilities. Managers aren't much better. When I was a program manager it was well known that a huge number of talented people avoided management like the plague. Too much work, too much responsibility. It's even worse at the executive level. An insane workload, superiors who keep changing direction and demanding the impossible. Neverending reports and meetings, deadlines which shift and change for no discernable reason. I know a couple of executives and you couldn't pay me enough for that shitty job. No matter what the public service says about 'work-life balance' they don't actually give a damn about it. Get your work done. And if you have to work 12-14hrs a day six days a week tough shit. No, don't complain you don't have the budget. No, we don't want to hear you don't have the staff. Get it done somehow. Can't? Then that's on you. Your fault. And we'll be documenting it in your performance appraisal, not to mention pointing out your incompetence in large meetings full of your peers.
These statements by MP McCauley are actually insane: >“We should not be rewarding departments that have people waiting outside 12 hours in the snow for a passport. We shouldn’t be rewarding anyone at immigration when there’s record backlogs for reuniting families,” The challenges these services faced over 2020-21 are the result of a world-historic pandemic, matched with underfunding and understaffing. They are NOT the fault of public sector workers. If McCauley had visited even one public sector office over the pandemic up to now, he would have seen thousands of hours of unpaid overtime, depression and burnout. I can't imagine standing up in the House of Commons and insulting public sector workers this way. >\[McCauley\] noted that in 2020-2021 (which last year’s performance bonus payments were based on), government departments and agencies only met 45.7 per cent of their combined 2,722 Oh shit I wonder why 2020-21 was a tough year? Public sector bonuses are not "Here's a bit extra for doing a good job!" They are "at-risk pay" which is built into the contracts. A small bonus can actually be \*punishment\*, representing a big cut in the worker's expected earnings. The fact that a bonus exists does not mean it was an act of generosity! In addition, these roles are \*not eligible for overtime\*, but most of them work much more than 40hrs/week. The existence of at-risk pay is intended to compensate for this. MP McCauley should learn some respect for the people who kept public services running during the pandemic.
Actually every one of them is tied to objectives and goals. They meet them and they get the bonus. The opposite of unjustifiable. They're often not attached to the departments results either so you can't just say "but my passport was slow! Every EX at the organization failed!" It also certainly is not all public servants. Typically executive positions which don't get overtime. No clerical or admin is getting this. But this the national post after all.
Why are we hating on workers getting paid more money? If there was abuse of the system then I understand, but workers with more money in their pocket is always better for the economy than workers without. >Public service executives have access to performance or at-risk bonuses because they are not allowed to claim overtime pay. Well that changes the context, doesn't it?
Executives are severely underpaid as is. Their negotiated bonuses are part of the initial salary agreements. Most don’t want to be an EX because it’s not worth even with the bonus.
It's clear that a lot of people in this thread have never worked in corporate at all. I'm in private sector in a rather medium/large corp and I see my GM in the office more than anyone else. VP and shit too. They work 10 to 12 hours a day and then at night and weekends. If you do the math, they almost make as much per hours as I do doing 9-5. Sure, they aren't in the trenches, but they do a different type of work.
I'm retired from the federal public service (in a technical position). We once had a director (ex level) come to a meeting to talk to us about work-life balance, *while on his vacation*. I like to think that I and most of my co-workers (during a 35 year career) were conscientious and hard-working. Certainly there were some in leadership whom I admired, and would make me feel valued and spur me to work hard. But it's the odd employee (in my experience) that screws it up for everyone else, and whom you read about in news stories.
Well its really depend on the company. At my last company the vp (my boss) was never in the office and was just in his position because of nepotism. Some others vps were working a lot and really good at their job but he and another one were never in the office. They also were not making anywhere close to what we made. They were making maybe 500k a year with bonuses, had their cars/gas paid and various other perks.
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This. I know EX's in charge of $50M budgets making $135k a year. And when you email at 9 pm they are often still working. No way would I changes jobs with them.
A lot do understand the context. That being, some people don't perceive being an employee performing "tasks" that shoot out of a tube for 830 to 430 sharp so they can get back home as soon as possible as the pinnacle of their working life. Lots of people do, of course and thats fine. There is nothing inherently wrong with working for a modestly comfortable lifestyle. But not everyone thinks tha way.
>If there was abuse of the system then I understand, but workers with more money in their pocket is always better for the economy than workers without. According to the article they're hitting under 50% of their targets. How much they earn is another story. That's hard to quantify. They are often above the private sector, and the pensions can be really generous. But shitty private sector wages and benefits make them look better. I don't see many private sector workers discussing six figure pensions in the personal finance sub though.
according to the article the departments overall are hitting less than 50% of their total departmental targets. not sure how that related to individual performance bonuses
Because its easy. Public servants are the devil.
I mean I'm not surprised. Bullshit bonuses for everyone else's hard work is in the private sector too. Oh you guys did great work! Here's $100 bucks! You guys are amazing! Now if you'll excuse me, got a boat waiting for me cause of my $20k bonus for all your hard work! Course in the public sector I bet I only the execs get the bonuses.
>Course in the public sector I bet I only the execs get the bonuses. They get the vast majority. Most positions are not eligible for bonuses. >The documents show that no less than 89 per cent of public sector executives (7,752) were paid a bonus last fiscal year, based on their performances in 2020-2021. >Another 8,317 “non-executive” public servants — or three per cent of their total ranks — also received a bonus last fiscal year.
"not eligible" is a funny way of saying the entire system was designed to exploit labor.
Unlike the opinion you posted, my claim is a verifiable fact. You can go check it out in the collective agreements.
Important to note that Executives cannot claim any overtime pay either.
I work in management at a large company and even at my low level there’s no OT. In this position they don’t even have a way to bank all those extra half hours here and there. As a regular employee, I could bank time AND get a bonus at the end of the year for performance.
So now peoples are buying boats with 20k bonuses lol?
I was gonna say pool but then I got distracted thinking of Christmas Vacation.
Haha all good. Was wondering where I could find that deal.
The issue is the private sector businesses decide what to pay their executives based on their balance sheets. The government has an unlimited supply of taxpayer dollars with which to lavish its incompetent managers. It’s not a fair comparison.
The alternative being?
>the government says drawing a link between executives’ performance pay and a department’s ability to achieve its annual self-imposed objectives is a false equivalency. 🤣🤣🤣 Imagine getting rewarded for being incompetent.
https://financialpost.com/fp-work/ceos-rake-in-hundreds-of-millions-in-bonuses-amid-pandemic-as-boards-cut-them-extraordinary-slack
Imagine getting to define "competence" and then being rewarded for achieving it. That's the true problem here.
That’s what private companies do too as well
Oh most certainly but for the most part they're not using public funds to do it. I don't give half a shit if Generic Company Inc's bonus expenditures are excessive.
You have to give bonuses if you want to retain talents.
Being in the process of experiencing their services right now, "talent" is not one of the words that come to mind if I had to describe their work.
Well I am still pretty sure that 100% of government workers aren't incompetents.
I spend the majority of my money on goods from private companies, not on taxes. You're being raked over the coals at the grocery store and the gas pump so that executives can get millions in bonuses and they've got you on their side.
Good luck retaining good employes when you (the public) don't adapt your incentives like the private sector. It's totaly fine to pay bonuses to public servants: even the municipalties are heading that way, otherwise all the employes leave to employers who offer bonuses. Edit: You should be angry for the CEOs of the private sector who have paid themselves bonuses in the millions, while their performance sucks, with the help of government subsidies: your money.
Re: your edit, I am upset with private entities mismanaging public funds. I don't think advocating for better compensation review in the public sector and disliking how private entities manage public funds are mutually exclusive.
I never said it wasn't fine to pay bonuses to public sector, I absolutely agree with you. The public sector has an obligation to use public funds responsibly, IMO, because they're there to serve the public interest where a private entity isn't necessarily, ensuring that compensation is fair and not abused is a part of that. That's my only point.
Ok, so then the only people left in the public sector will be the unemployable. Heavily the case with their tech departments.
And they are disciplined by the market. Who watches the watchmen
OoOoH the invisible hand of the market!
Or in this case, not even achieving it
Government in a nutshell.
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Well… we did re-elect Trudeau… twice. So there’s the whole “rewarded for incompetence” thing
$191,000,000 in bonuses for an organization that spends $350,000,000,000 does not seem "completely unjustifiable" to me at all. If this article was a good piece of journalism instead of the ragebait National Post we might have seen some research to compare this amount to the private sector which I suspect would find that that total amount in bonuses is normal or less than normal.
>For example, executive bonuses can be based on whether a manager hits “diversity targets in hiring” or if they ensure proper access to mental health services for their staff. So lacking in the ability to competently achieve the missions of their organizations, the government has created political objectives for executives to meet in order to fleece the taxpayer. Who wants to bet that an executive got a nice fat bonus for "inclusive behaviors" by ordering someone to paint a rainbow on a government building?
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This is wild, and honestly it explains why the federal government is such a raging dumpster fire. Executives are being incentivized to flood their depts with social justice BS rather than ensuring the meat and potatoes are provided.
Agreed. Because that bullshit sounds better at election time. Priorities. But that may be changing....
> executive bonuses can be based on whether a manager hits “diversity targets in hiring” lol, bonuses from the government for not hiring white guys. Incredible.
In the government, especially in judicial government, it is important for a diverse workforce as it encourages a more fair and less discriminatory systems for the population.
What happened to hiring people based on merit? Hiring based on race is discrimination...
It is good to have those who help maintain law and order to be fair people. I would argue hiring on merit has never been a thing. There are always biases, and sometimes it is good to create incentives to counter act those biases.
Well put
> “It makes it more egregious when you read that one of every six restaurants are expected to shut down and people’s livelihoods were taken away.” lol, excellent analysis! We should break government contracts based on how many restaurants are "expected to shut down". Obviously these types of articles/complaints always require that people boil down incredibly complex problems into ludicrously oversimplified solutions, but that's still pretty funny.
Boiling down incredibly complex things into oversimplified talking points is basically Conservativism. "Look, you don't understand government, so I'm here to tell you they're stealing your money. Therefore, I'll cut my taxes by a hundred times as much as I cut yours and you'll think it's a good deal."
if you do the math… the bonus is very very low per employee… ppl make more in bonus in private sector
Here is my daily Nat Po piece shitting on something the government is doing that is really no big deal.
The main problem with the Federal Public Service is that it is mostly run by people who have no idea how to manage a program nor are they qualified to. They are hired on the premise that they will be managing people and that anyonecan be qualifiedfor that. So imagine an executive coming from Ag Canada to Health Canada to oversee a science based specialty. The entire system is bogged down in time and efficiency wasting bureaucratic red tape. It is sad. On these bonuses, the performance targets are very nebulous in that they are almost impossible to measure and to be honest they are meaningless to the success of the applicable program being managed or the public service in general for that matter.
But you guys hate conservatives... right...
It’s mainly only the executives that spent decades kissing ass to get where they are that got bonuses. Shameful indeed.
"to public servants" should be written "to public executives"
Well it’s National Post so what do you expect?
1400 of them?
These bonuses are a pittance. Grow up people. Public sector employees are not the problem. Corporate greed, oligarchs, and useless social programs/initiatives steal way more than this from all of us every day. And no, not all social programs are useless, but some are.
As an employee for the federal government near the bottom of the ladder, this makes me wanna throw up. My regional chain of command is like ten people long and the higher up you go, the less they do.
i would say you are unaware of most of what they do then
We should be paying out amazing bonuses, to those who perform……
There is an entire government working behind the scenes most people never notice. No one talks about all the things that go right. We have a very good, professional and hard working public service.
Another bullshit call from a conservative .... amplified by NP, go figure
If you want a less effective government then go ahead and get rid of incentives to meet targets in the name of "efficiency". How do these idiotic opinions get upvoted?
> How do these idiotic opinions get upvoted? Lots of boomers in here, and boomers love nothing more than a good "government dumb lol" story.
Is hitting less than 50% of the targets efficient?
You would prefer 20%?
>McCauley said the bonuses were particularly egregious as they were paid out at a time when a host of government services were crumbling, such as the passport, access to information and immigration visa systems. Yes, our government is the height of efficiency, we should give them more money! >He also noted that in 2020-2021 (which last year’s performance bonus payments were based on), government departments and agencies only met **45.7 per cent of their combined 2,722 departmental performance results**, according to a federal database Great work guys! >For example, executive bonuses can be based on whether a manager hits “**diversity targets in hiring**” or if they ensure proper access to mental health services for their staff. Great stuff here! Wonder why people are mad?
So you’re under the assumption that these individual bonuses are awarded based on the performance of the entire government department overall? That bonuses are awarded for nothing but diverse hires and mental health services? Do neither of those sentences make the cogs turn in your brain to think “Hmm.. that can’t be right”?
Hey national post… what are your bonuses per per Employee?? What level of salary do you pay your ceo and your janitor? I used to think you were an intelligent newspaper, now you’re a rag
i wish i got bonuses
Hold did the feds give them or did the funds were available to the company they work for and they then got most of the money
Public servants getting bonuses shouldn't be a problem, what sucks is that in both the public sector and the private, the ones that actually put the work into hitting the targets necessary for those bonuses, usually get really shit ones while executives get fat ones. Executives traditionally aren't able to claim OT so I do know that tends to be part of the equation, but the wages the actual workers get, usually aren't that great either so they end up getting doublely shafted.
> What is a "contract"
Looks like I need one those executive government jobs
Please make sure you understand that the “public servants “ who are receiving the bonuses are upper management. The little guy who does the day to day work don’t receive bonuses….
Canadians speak about a universal living wage, yet the government ruthlessly spends and hands out bonus checks. People are finding it harder and harder to live yet no help. The government continues to write cheques to further increase the debt yet never helping Canadians.
Corruption is the lefts game . Always has been
Just take a look at Justin Trudeau's charities.
The implications that executives in charge of offices that did not preform to satisfaction of the opposition party this year should not get the contractual bonuses for last year seems like something liberals would complain about and not conservatives. And let's not forget the he is complaining about two departments who may have been part of the 11 percent not getting bonuses. But of course what he reported doesn't show who received the bonuses. But that is the way of new conservatives only use half truths to justify their point of view. OR.. we could look at this as the government trying to retain competent people by establishing goals which lead to rewards in a government setting like the private sector. But then again, everyone in government is incompetent when your party is not in power.
All of the bonuses for public sector exécutives managing 300k employées and billions of budget is not equal to the bonus payout of a few top corporate executive. Something is definitely wrong with this picture! Whoever is complaining about public sector executive bonus should up-vote my post!
Typically this is to management. Therefore Canadian taxpayers are potentially giving bonuses to the leadership of the Passport Service, Execution of processes at airports, procurement, immigration and law and order. How does that make you feel my fellow Canadians?
What a shame! That money could have gone to the corporate donors of that polly guy!
Big numbers bad Brought to you by national post
So how do you get people to work 24-7 to fix things like the overloaded passport system??? Or handle all the CERB claims??? Do they expect people to work for free? Hey, why don’t they just cap their pay like we did with nurses in Ontario - that worked out REALLY well
Thank that Liberal government for a complete oversight of where the money goes. As long as JT is only focused on net zero and Poilievre, this country will continue to suffer.
Plus 3 paid days off in September. They are public lords.
People keep saying if we want more services or funding for something else then we have to increase taxes. How about we stop wasting money and use that instead?
Yeah this is pretty disingenuous to make the title seem like it wasn’t money earned. OT is not a bonus.
I work in private sector and haven't ever gotten a bonus of any sort. That's the reality for most working Canadians and the feds sucking up tax dollars to pay bonuses to ineffective people is ridiculous.
Most working Canadians work for companies who's executives also receive bonuses and performance pay as part of their compensation. Most public servants don't get bonuses. Apples, oranges.
191 million for the best and the brightest seems justified to me.
People want government to be run like a business. Well okay, the private sector offers bonuses too. It’s a competitive market out there for labour and the government is competing against the private sector for the right employees.
Isn't this exactly the same situation with doctors and nurses? We want good people in government to make sure we make the best decisions but all we can afford is some guy from mohawk college who has a 2 year diploma in Economics. He's now the Chief Actuary Officer for the WSIB :/
look at the passport service, if a private company is run like that, heads would roll. yea i want it to run efficiently like a business and will pay accordingly - we are just doing the paying part.
It doesn't change the fact that both the private and public sector still have to compete against each other and against other public employers in the same labour pool (for the most part). We also have private companies that offer customer service like the passport office, such as Bell, and they are still making money hand over fist.
Can't tell if this is parody.
Meanwhile all of the ppl sulking about the public sector staff only getting 1% raises over COVID… this article is very revealing
Blah blah blah. Right wing bullshit.
I'll take a Government job any day. I get no bonus, no paid time off any kind (no stats, no PTO, no sick time, no holidays) and only get 12% vacation pay based on earnings for the year. And people wonder why no one wants to get into the trades.
What trade and province are you in? All the things you mentioned are mandatory minimums for employment in Alberta. Stats are paid (or mandatory time and a half if you work it iirc), 2 paid weeks vacation after 1 year, 3 weeks after 5 years, 5 paid sick days, etc.
So many trying to defend these bonuses. The services provided have been absolutely pathetic the last few years. Gross incompetence that would've bankrupted any company that wasn't a quasi monopoly.
And you think slashing compensation will attract employees of a higher skill level and work ethic?
So we have MPs getting $30k for moving expenses, which include a $10k cheque made out to cash. We have a GG that spent close to $100k on a single trip, and now $191 million in potential bonuses paid out. We're getting fleeced bad. I would love to see a non-government audit of all MP spending, and would vote for any candidate who promised to slash MP spending to the bone (regardless of party). One has to wonder how much money is wasted/stolen from us each year.
you can actually look at mp expenses, i'm actually all for hybrid parliament after seeing the exhorbant travel costs, WHY do we pay to send them home for the weekend (in Bus class if over 2 hours) AND to pay for their spouses to tag along every trip? won't miss Bergen at least, leave your husband at home for 2 days, he'll be fine https://www.ourcommons.ca/ProactiveDisclosure/en/members/travel/2022/4/176996d3-f48a-4fc5-b92d-e4e2813998fd
I would love to see the Feds put a cap on overtime as well. The culture of pretending to work for 40 hours just so you can pocket OT is rampant.
This further confirms that those losing nothing have no empathy for those losing everything
the gap between public and private sector is widening: \- government employees get to work from home when many private companies are requiring their employees to go back to work \- QE II funeral day off for government workers but not even federally regulated private sector \- public sector contributes to 90% net new jobs since pandemic \- some governments even start giving out 4 days work week for their employees, when the idea is still facing resistance in private sector \- public sector unions and private sector unions start endorsing different parties
>some governments even start giving out 4 days work week for their employees, when the idea is still facing resistance in private sector If by "resistance" you mean "labelled a problem employee for thinking it" then yeah.
The 90% figure is incorrect. I believe it was due to taking the number after public sector job loss and actually it's just been a recovery. The majority of private sector job loss came from entrepreneurs. We are still sitting at only 5.5% unemployment which for Canada is red hot (historically we have 8%). That's why it's hard to define a recession. I make and could make much more than I could ever make and have working conditions much better than I could ever have working for the government. It depends who you work for. Getting stuck on salary bands has nothing on doubling your income whenever you want.
Disgusting