Border, spy agencies among worst federal workplaces: survey

OTTAWA — Employees at the Canada Border Services Agency and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service are the least likely to recommend their office as a great place to work, a survey of federal public servants suggests.

The 2024 Public Service Employee Survey asked federal government employees a range of questions about their satisfaction with their workplace, including about their leadership, well-being and compensation.

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One question asked public servants if they would recommend their department or agency as a “great place to work.”

Overall, 67 per cent of public servants gave positive answers to that question.

CBSA and Indian Oil and Gas Canada tied for worst place, with 46 per cent of respondents from those organizations indicating that they were great places to work.

Forty-eight per cent of people at the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and 49 per cent of people at the Office of the Auditor General of Canada said they’d recommend their workplace as a great place to work.

Jacqueline Roby, a spokesperson for the CBSA said there are many factors that impact an employee’s work experience. She said the agency works to create a safe workplace, cares about employees’ well-being and affirms their “right to work in an environment that is free from all forms of harassment.”

The survey suggests that CBSA employees feel worse than the overall public service in several areas, including work-life balance, getting a sense of satisfaction from their work and receiving recognition for their efforts.

Mark Weber, national president of the Customs and Immigration Union, said in an interview with The Canadian Press that he’s “not shocked” by the results and that the agency is usually “dead last” or among the bottom three.

Weber said his union communicates with the CBSA regularly about morale in the workplace and what needs to improve, but that sadly “things don’t really seem to change.”

Weber said the CBSA is well known in the federal public services as being very heavy handed when it comes to discipline and suspension, and will spend thousands to fight a grievance it would have cost them less to just settle.

“Our members tell us how disappointed they are with that regularly, and again it doesn’t really seem to change,” he said.

Weber said there’s also frustration from some members about the return-to-office mandate and, for front-line workers, the increased use of automation at borders. He added that the CBSA is short-staffed on officers and that management is getting “bloated.”

While CSIS employees scored quite low when it came to ranking their workplace, they scored slightly better than average on a question about being “proud” of the work they do, with 84 per cent giving positive answers.

They were also on par with the overall public service in answering whether they like their job overall, with 77 per cent giving positive answers.

The Union of Safety and Justice Employees said in a statement that it’s not surprised by the results of the survey and that the morale of members who work at CSIS tends to be quite low.

The union said there’s a strong perception that some union members haven’t been treated the same as non-union employees and noted a “considerable” delay in the implementation of the collective agreement negotiated in 2022.

Eric Balsam, a spokesperson for CSIS, said in an email that the department takes employees’ input seriously. He said CSIS continues to make improvements to ensure employees feel supported and valued and that it’s examining the results to find areas of strength and concern.

Two organizations — the RCMP External Review Committee and the Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying of Canada — could not have fared better in the survey with 100 per cent of their staff who responded saying the departments were a great place to work.

Invest in Canada and the Office of the Commissioner for Federal Judicial Affairs Canada both had over 90 per cent of their staff say the same thing.

The 2024 survey ran from Oct. 28, 2024, to Dec. 31, 2024, and surveyed more than 186,000 employees in 93 federal departments and agencies, for a response rate of 50.5 per cent.

It was administered by Statistics Canada in partnership with the Office of the Chief Human Resources Officer at the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 25, 2025.

Catherine Morrison, The Canadian Press