Government Operations Committee on March 12th, 2026

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

That's wonderful.

We'll suspend for about five minutes and bring in our new witnesses.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you, everyone. We are back in session. I appreciate your patience.

We have a second half of the meeting with witnesses regarding CER, the comprehensive expenditure review.

We have opening statements. We'll start with Mr. Harlow. Then we'll welcome back Ms. DeSousa, and then we'll have either Mr. O'Reilly or Ms. Poirier. I ask everyone to please keep to five minutes or below in order to stop me from having to cut you off.

Mr. Harlow, the floor is yours.

Thanks very much. Go ahead.

[Gregory Harlow, President, Association of Justice Counsel]

Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee.

Thank you for the opportunity to appear today.

The Association of Justice Counsel, or AJC, is the federal union representing Canada's legal team, which is more than 3,500 federal Crown counsel and articling students employed by the Government of Canada, including the Department of Justice, the Public Prosecution Service of Canada and 34 additional federal agencies, tribunals and courts across Canada. AJC members are the legal backbone of Canada's democracy, ensuring fairness and accountability by upholding rights and the rule of law, and protecting Canadians.

The committee's study of the comprehensive expenditure review is most welcome. Your examination of these decisions, ensuring that the concerns of organizations like ours are on the public record, reflects the seriousness of what we are seeing. The AJC is deeply concerned about how the cuts stemming from the expenditure review will impact the administration of justice in Canada.

It became clear in 2025 that a series of decisions, particularly the $40-million reduction to the Department of Justice budget over the next two years, which will reach $58 million by the 2028-29 fiscal year, and the nearly $2-million reduction to the budget of the Public Prosecution Service in the upcoming year, have begun to hollow out Canada's legal capacity.

The impact was exemplified in February of this year, with the $9.5-million budget cut at the bureau of pensions advocates within the Department of Veterans Affairs Canada. While the government has stated that this was not part of the comprehensive expenditure review, the fact remains that this fiscal decision was made within the context of the expenditure review.

The bureau of pensions advocates is a national team of lawyers who provide legal advice and representation to veterans appealing disability benefit decisions, either through departmental review or through the Veterans Review and Appeal Board. These lawyers represent veterans who must challenge their own government to receive the benefits they are owed and who are successful in doing so approximately 89% of the time when they appealed the initial decision denying them benefits.

In February, the BPA announced that it would cut 22 lawyers working on term contracts, out of a total of 61 lawyers. That's over one-third of its legal capacity. Some of these lawyers have served for years as term employees.

This occurs while demand for service is rising. The bureau expects approximately 25,000 new files in 2026, which follows a 200% increase in demand since 2018. These cases can be complex, involving occupation illness, cancers, military sexual trauma and PTSD. BPA lawyers' caseloads are significant. At least one term lawyer reported carrying a caseload of approximately 300 files in any given month. Regional impacts are expected. Veterans in some regions may lose in-person access to BPA lawyers as a result.

BPA lawyers work closely with veterans to develop files and present arguments. This work establishes precedents that shape how similar cases are handled. The results are often significant for veterans, including retroactive payments when entitlements should have been recognized earlier, as well as significant decisions that have become relevant to under-represented groups of veterans, including women. AJC members deliver accountability for Canadian veterans, again, resulting in increased benefits 89% of the time.

These financial decisions to cut counsel are not strategic or thoughtful. The numbers demonstrate a need for strategic investments in legal capacity in key departments and organizations, such as the BPA. My members are deeply concerned about their own livelihoods and for their clients: veterans who will not receive assistance if these cuts are realized.

As one of our members remarked, this staffing cut at BPA means that the increase in wait times could limit the retroactivity period of the disability benefits. Some elderly clients could become incapacitated or could even die while waiting for a hearing date.

AJC members continue to deliver justice and accountability for Canadians every day. However, the government's current trajectory, with cuts and reductions in counsel ranks, will remove or drive away experienced legal professionals and weaken Canada's ability to govern effectively and defend itself in an increasingly complex era of legal reality.

Hollowing out the ranks of counsel in a rule-of-law society undermines the institutions Canadians rely on for fairness, accountability and public safety, leaving Canadians vulnerable to legal defeat by those interests better able to fund their legal fights.

I am joined today by the AJC's director of advocacy and bargaining, Sayward Montague, and we'd be pleased to respond to any of the committee's questions.

Thank you very much for your time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you very much, Mr. Harlow.

Ms. DeSousa, welcome back. The floor is yours for five minutes.

[Sharon DeSousa, National President, Public Service Alliance of Canada]

Good afternoon. My name is Sharon DeSousa and I'm the national president of the Public Service Alliance of Canada.

Thank you for inviting me to appear as part of your study on the comprehensive expenditure review. I apologize that I cannot be there in person today. I'm in New York and serving as a delegate to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women.

I'm joining you today from the traditional and sacred homeland of the Lenape peoples. As a visitor on these lands, I commit myself to put truth, reconciliation and decolonization at the centre of my work.

PSAC represents over 245,000 workers in every province and territory across Canada. Over 180,000 of these workers are employed by the federal public service and believe investing in our public services is the best way to build a strong, stable economy that supports us through challenging times. Every dollar invested in federal public services generates a return of up to $1.28 for the Canadian economy and $1.22 to boost our GDP.

Public service workers deliver critical supports that millions of people rely on every day. They manage national emergency responses, inspect our food, work overtime during wildfire season and protect our health, our borders and the environment. However, this work is at risk of being negatively impacted by the severe cuts of $56.7 billion from 2025 to 2029.

In July 2025, the finance minister launched the comprehensive expenditure review, directing departments and agencies to find ambitious savings by reducing their spending by 15% by 2029. Departments had only about 35 business days to submit their proposals, leaving no time for proper research, consultations or assessments. Over 13,000 PSAC members have received workforce adjustment notices, and the government plans to cut a total of 30,000 public service jobs within three years.

This government is choosing to cut public services first, and explain later. Cutting public services has impacts that will cost taxpayers more in the long term: slower service delivery, reduced administrative capacity and stalled progress on departmental and legal obligations like the Pay Equity Act. The government is years behind launching a pay equity plan for workers in its core public administration, and the pay equity commissioner's office is severely understaffed. Under the act, over 1.3 million workers would be paid for equal work of equal value. Over the past 40 years, women in the workforce have accounted for one-third of Canada's economic growth. Funding cuts kill this progress.

Instead of eliminating jobs, the government should be cutting the billions being spent on private consultations and outsourcing. The government's main estimates for 2025-26 show that they plan to spend $26 billion on professional and special services.

Billions in savings are also being lost by scaling back the office portfolio reduction plan. Instead of saving up to $6 billion, the government will waste billions to maintain its office space portfolio while forcing workers into offices four days a week unnecessarily. This has never been about fiscal discipline. It's always been about optics. It's performance penny-pinching.

Transforming Canada's public service requires strategic planning that involves reviewing staffing needs across federal programs and services and close collaboration with workers and unions to develop a unified staffing strategy. If Prime Minister Carney's government isn't prepared to honestly lay out what programs and services will be impacted by these cuts, we shouldn't consider this an expenditure review. It's a reckless hacking exercise.

The size of the public service should be determined by meeting the needs of the people it serves. Canada's population has grown, and it will continue to grow and age in the coming years. It's crucial that the federal government commits to investing in Canada's public services so that our economy can face the challenges ahead.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you very much.

We will now go to Mr. O'Reilly.

The floor is yours, please.

[Sean O'Reilly, President, The Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada]

Mr. Chair and members of the committee, thank you for the invitation to appear today.

I'm the president of The Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada.

PIPSC represents more than 85,000 professionals, most of whom work in the federal public service as scientists, engineers, IT specialists, auditors and inspectors. Our members help keep Canadians safe every day, quietly and reliably. They inspect the bridges you drive on and the runways you land on so that small cracks do not become catastrophic failures. They chart underwater hazards so that cargo ships and ferries can navigate our coasts safely. They monitor and issue product recalls before the products cause illness or harm. They defend government networks from cyber-attacks, protecting citizens' data and the integrity of essential public services—and so much more. In short, they are the experts who make sure that the critical systems Canadians rely on every day actually work.

Most of this work is invisible to the average Canadian. When systems work properly, Canadians rarely notice, but when expertise is reduced, risks increase. These reductions mark a clear break from past workforce adjustments. They risk removing critical expertise at scale and reshaping the capacity of the public service for years to come. This isn't about protecting bureaucracy. It's about protecting the expertise and operational capacity of the systems Canadians rely on every day.

I'd like to begin with one example that illustrates what is at stake with the comprehensive expenditure review: the proposed cuts affecting scientists, veterinarians and inspectors at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. Millions of Canadian families trust that the food they buy to feed their children is safe. Hundreds of international trading partners trust that Canada's inspection and certification system will ensure that the food we export meets rigorous safety standards. When the trust is misplaced, the consequences can be severe. Food-borne illness can spread before contamination is detected. Export markets can be shut down overnight when confidence in a country's food inspection system is shaken. When that experience is lost, it is extremely difficult to replace.

There is a similar risk in another area that Canadians rely on every day: rail safety.

Canada’s rail system moves millions of passengers and billions of dollars in goods across the country each year. Its safety depends on engineers and technical specialists at Transport Canada who oversee complex infrastructure, equipment standards, and operating practices. Rail safety depends on trained professionals who detect problems before accidents occur.

These engineers and technical specialists oversee infrastructure, equipment standards and operating practices. When that expertise is weakened, the consequences can be serious.

More broadly, the comprehensive expenditure review raises a fundamental question about how the government chooses to find savings. Canadians want a strong country with public institutions they rely on. That strength depends on the expertise inside the government. Cuts that remove the expertise may look efficient on paper, but when expertise disappears, the risks and costs return later.

When internal capacity is weakened, governments frequently turn to outsourcing to fill the gap, yet federal spending on external consultants has already reached historic levels. Outsourcing has doubled since prepandemic levels, and by the government's own estimates, spending has come to $26 billion, which is a 100% increase since 2019.

This isn't just fiscal discipline. It is dependent on private firms that charge up to 26% more than equivalent public service staff. Every taxpayer dollar spent on private consultants is a dollar not spent on building internal public expertise. The result is a hollowed-out public service forced to rent back the very skills it once had in-house. That's not efficiency or savings; that's waste.

If the goal of the CER is to find real savings, outsourcing is the obvious place to start.

Your average person does not often have the opportunity to stop a nationwide disaster before it happens, but that is exactly the opportunity you have now.

By protecting the expertise that keeps Canadians safe, you can help prevent the next crisis instead of studying it afterward. When expertise disappears, problems don’t; they just show up later, they're bigger and they cost far more to fix.

I look forward to your questions.

I'm joined by Christine Poirier, our director of the task force on WFA and RTO.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you, Mr. O'Reilly.

We'll start for six minutes with Mr. Richards.

Welcome back to OGGO, sir.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Airdrie—Cochrane, AB]

Thank you.

Mr. Harlow, talking about the cuts to the bureau of pensions advocates, which represents veterans when they go to the Veterans Review and Appeal Board, you mentioned in your opening remarks that 89% of the time, the veteran ends up with increased benefits or a decision to reject their benefits overturned. That means it's the place where veterans actually get the help they need.

Can you speak to the impact that this is going to have on veterans and their benefits?

[Gregory Harlow]

Fundamentally, what's going on here is a case of justice delayed is justice denied. My understanding is that there's already a one-and-a-half-year wait for one of these appeal cases to go through the system. It can be easily anticipated that, with a 40% reduction in staff, that wait period is going to extend beyond that one and a half years. In fact, I think Mr. El-Daher, who testified earlier this week, estimated that it would go from one to three years to up to five years now. That's just outrageous. A criminal in this country has the right to a trial in 18 months, but the people who defend us can wait for years to get their appropriate benefits.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Airdrie—Cochrane, AB]

When you put it that way, there aren't even words for that. It is just sickening. That's what it is.

The government continues to maintain that there were no cuts to services to veterans as a result of its budget. It continues to maintain that. There were no cuts to veterans.

Is there any way in your mind that this could be characterized as anything other than a cut to services to veterans, when you're talking about them waiting up to five years to get a decision? Is there any way this could be characterized as anything other than a cut to their services?

[Gregory Harlow]

No, of course not, and it's not just a cut; it's a decimation. In fact, it's worse than a decimation. A decimation is technically a 10% elimination. This is three times that.

No, this is a massive cut to an essential service that ensures veterans get the disability benefits they deserve.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Airdrie—Cochrane, AB]

Would you be prepared to speak to the effect that would have on a veteran?

[Gregory Harlow]

Obviously, it depends on the particular veteran in question and where they are. If they are aged, they might die while waiting for their benefit. If they are young, it may have other impacts on them in terms of impecuniosity during the period of time they're waiting. It may result in pile-on effects in terms of additional mental health challenges while dealing, potentially, with physical health challenges. I think the possibilities are legion, and you can just imagine what they may be.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Airdrie—Cochrane, AB]

Absolutely. Unfortunately, we don't have to imagine them. We already see them, even with the wait times there are now.

I sit on the veterans affairs committee. We just finished a study on suicide prevention among veterans. One of the biggest things is the sanctuary trauma of not being able to get help from the very place they're supposed to get help. Now this is just going to add extra effects. That's one of the biggest impacts on mental health and, potentially, suicidality among veterans, so this is grave, frankly.

Were you or anyone in your union consulted at all before these cuts were announced?

[Gregory Harlow]

No.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Airdrie—Cochrane, AB]

Not at all.

I would assume that, following the announcement of those cuts, you probably reached out to try to have some conversations, at the very least, about what the impacts will be. Were you afforded the opportunity to be consulted after the decision?

[Gregory Harlow]

To be fair, no, we haven't. That's because I only became aware of this about a month or maybe a month and a half ago through one of my members, whose term is actually being terminated at the end of this month, so he will be unemployed as of the end of this month. He is one of the lawyers who work with the Department of Veterans Affairs.

He thought it was important, essentially on his way out the door, that his union be made aware of the impacts this is going to have on the clients he serves. Even though he will essentially be done with work in the next 21 days, he wanted his union to know what kinds of impacts this was going to have on people, and veterans in particular.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Airdrie—Cochrane, AB]

This shows how much the people who are being let go care about the veterans they're supposed to be there to serve, I would say.

Essentially, you didn't find out about it other than the fact that one of your advocates who received a layoff notice came to you after it happened. Is that how you found out about this?

[Gregory Harlow]

Yes. Technically, it's not a layoff notice, because he's a term employee. He's been advised that his term contract won't be renewed.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Airdrie—Cochrane, AB]

Yes. It's pretty shocking to think that there wouldn't have been any conversations before or after about the impacts this would have. It's really shocking, actually.

Well, with 20 seconds, I don't know what I can ask you, but I really appreciate the information you've provided us. It's shocking and disgraceful, frankly, that this is happening.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Mr. Gasparro.

[Vince Gasparro, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Thanks to all of you for attending and thank you for your service.

We had Treasury Board officials appear earlier this week to discuss the comprehensive expenditure review. They explained that, as part of the review, departments were directed to focus on their core mandates and priorities, specifically by identifying savings in programs and activities that are underperforming, duplicative or not central to the federal mandate.

Wouldn't you agree that it would be responsible of the federal government to conduct a review like this to ensure that departments stay focused on their priorities?

[Sean O'Reilly]

I believe these departments should be focusing on their priorities. My concern is that we are cutting core services. I look at the cuts at the CFIA and the fact that we're going to be affecting the food safety system. If you look at Health Canada, what's going to be happening there with vaccines and medical reviews?

If they really want to focus on savings, there are many ways to save money within the federal public service. First and foremost is outsourcing, at $26 billion. That's a lot of money, and I have not yet seen a reduction of that. I've heard year after year that we're going to reduce it, and I continue to see public servants working alongside consultants doing the same work for more money.

These are not back office cuts. These are core cuts that are going to be affecting Canadians.