Size of Government Has Exploded over Past 10 Years

Today's budget-cutters were yesterday's budget-boosters.

As Treasury Board President Tony Clement sharpens his budget-cutting knives, he goes in fully aware that the size of the public service has ballooned over the past 10 years. That holds especially true for the five years of the Harper government, during which federal spending jumped 22 per cent, from $222 billion in 2006-07 to $270.5 billion in 2010-11. Internal briefing notes prepared for Clement show that the core federal public service grew on average three per cent a year from 2000 to 2010. The number of public servants exploded from 211,925 to 282,955, an increase of 34 per cent, even though Canada's population grew only by 11 per cent over that period of time. Clement, when he's not busy dancing around questions about his role in the G8 spending spree, has been tasked with trimming five to 10 per cent from each department's budget to help beat the deficit.