Public service executives got more than $146 million in performance pay last year

OTTAWA — Executives in the core federal public service received $146.3 million in performance pay last year.

Data from the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat shows 7,987 executives earned performance pay, which is awarded to employees who achieve specific performance objectives.

The data indicates there were 8,140 executives at the time in the core public service — departments and agencies under the purview of the Treasury Board — meaning just over 98 per cent of executives earned performance pay.

The data also shows 559 executives received additional bonuses as part of their performance pay, which are calculated as a percentage of salary and only awarded for exceptional performance.

The average total performance pay per executive was $17,972, the data says, while the average bonus was $6,134.

The data says 153 executives did not receive any performance pay.

Treasury Board data shows 9,340 executives were working in the federal public service — including separate agencies — in 2025, though the department says it only gathers information for the core public service.

That means employees at separate agencies, such as the Canada Revenue Agency, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, are not accounted for in this data.

Departments and agencies across the public service have started notifying staff of coming job cuts as the government looks to cut program spending and administration costs by about $60 billion over the next five years through its “comprehensive expenditure review.”

The review will see the elimination of about 40,000 public service jobs — out of a peak of 368,000 in 2023-24 — and of 1,000 executive positions over the next two years.

A Government of Canada website providing data on workforce reductions in the core public service up to the end of January says it’s currently targeting a reduction of 8,230 employee positions and 425 executive positions across 24 departments through the workforce adjustment or career transition processes.

It says 15,755 employee positions and 642 executive positions will be eliminated, in part through attrition and vacated positions.

Numbers for some departments have yet to be confirmed.

Franco Terrazzano, federal director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, questioned why most government executives are getting performance pay when their departments “can barely pass their own tests and when the government is massively in debt.”

Government of Canada data shows that in 2024-25, just under 54 per cent of federal organizations met their performance targets. The remaining targets were not met, had no result available or were to be achieved in the future. The website noted that totals are incomplete, as data is not yet available for two organizations.

“Prime Minister Mark Carney needs to make the bureaucracy more affordable for taxpayers and he should start by ending the taxpayer-funded bonuses,” Terrazzano said.

“The government is broke and taxpayers can’t afford to bankroll big bonus cheques each and every year for highly paid government executives.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 3, 2026.

Catherine Morrison, The Canadian Press