Public service productivity study group not looking at remote work, says member

OTTAWA — The working group tasked with measuring productivity within Canada’s federal public service has not looked at remote work, one of its members says.

Bea Bruske, president of the Canadian Labour Congress and one of the group’s seven members, said remote work “is not part of anything that we’ve discussed at this moment” and she doesn’t know if the topic will be part of the study.

The Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat, which is behind the study, would not share details about whether the group will look at remote work, despite it becoming a hot topic among public servants after many were required to return to the office at least three days a week in September.

Treasury Board spokesperson Martin Potvin said the group “will explore a wide range of issues and opportunities” based on members’ areas of expertise.

Maria Gintova, an assistant professor at McMaster University’s department of political science, said the group should be taking remote work into account.

“I think it’s an integral component of any kind of productivity study or any kind of future human resource planning,” said Gintova, who has researched the Ontario provincial and the federal public service. “It’s happening, like it or not, and the lack of strategic consideration here will … come back and bite.”

Gintova said she was not necessarily surprised the working group wasn’t looking at remote work. She highlighted a recent study in the International Public Management Journal that found only eight out of 56 departments in Canada’s federal and provincial governments conducted “thorough analyses of employee productivity, effectiveness, efficiency, or equity with telework prior to implementing their post-pandemic telework policies.”

The study group has held two meetings so far, with several more planned throughout the winter.

A final report with advice and recommendations is expected to be delivered to the president of the Treasury Board by the end of March.

Former Treasury Board president Anita Anand launched the government-led task force last year.

She said the group would look at issues including the uses of technology, the size of the public service, the relationship between the public sector and the private sector and overall declining productivity.

The Government of Canada website for the initiative said the study will examine how productivity is measured in other countries and look at how those tactics could be applied in Canada, while exploring areas where the public service can increase its productivity and finding ways to improve service delivery to Canadians.

The working group’s members include former bureaucrats, academics and researchers.

Bruske, who noted the project was launched in response to concerns that productivity was lagging, said she can’t share much information about the group’s work.

She said it’s looking at how to quantify productivity and the work has not yet reached a solutions-finding stage.

“We haven’t carved out any one particular thing,” Bruske said, adding the group is looking at the entire public service, including Crown corporations.

“My role there is to make sure that workers’ voices aren’t being lost when we’re trying to find ways to improve public sector productivity.”

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre told Radio-Canada on Tuesday that it doesn’t matter if public servants work from home, so long as their work gets done. He also said work is not getting done within the federal government, though he did not offer details about public servants’ productivity.

Poilievre called for public servants to be given clear assignments and be monitored to ensure they’re completing their tasks.

He also said he would cut the size of the federal public service, arguing that Canada has far too many bureaucrats.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 26, 2025.

Catherine Morrison, The Canadian Press