00:03:18.780So the bottom line is, out of millions and millions of government employees covered by our information requests, there were no pay cuts.
00:03:27.300And when you talk about how far back this goes, yeah, it's possible that, you know, in 1927, the Fisheries Department took a pay cut in some way.
00:03:35.700But we're talking about overwhelmingly compensation that's only ever rising and never going back, even when the economy itself retreats, it sounds like.
00:04:01.760They can't just rack up enormous amounts of debt and not worry about how they're going to pay for it.
00:04:07.600And then on the other side of the equation is government and government.
00:04:14.620And I mean, there's been hundreds of thousands of employees in government who actually received pay increases during the pandemic.
00:04:21.300In some cases, those were contracts that had been signed before the pandemic hit.
00:04:27.360But in other cases, you had the government out signing new contracts with pay increases during the pandemic.
00:04:32.360And the CTF, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, found that over 300,000 federal employees alone received a pay increase during the pandemic.
00:04:42.780And I think it's fair when people ask that question, how is this fair for everyday working people who are having to face these tough economic times?
00:04:53.380And yet they're paying for people in government who don't really have to face it.
00:04:56.740I do get the question of fairness, but if you're a public sector worker who signed up to work for whatever department or whatever municipality under a certain set of circumstances,
00:05:07.720I can understand you listening to this interview right now and saying, well, hang on.
00:05:11.440Why does other people's suffering have to become my suffering?
00:05:15.080I mean, isn't there an argument that instead of trying to be doing this race to the bottom,
00:05:19.000we could try to remove some of these barriers that were preventing the public sector from having prosperity or the private sector, rather?
00:05:25.240Yeah, and I think we have to ask the question, well, when would the public sector ever have to feel the pinch?
00:05:32.560If not now, during a downturn when everyone else is and they're the ones who are struggling to put food on their tables
00:05:40.140and they're also having to pay for pay increases and those in government to not ever be affected.
00:05:45.440It just it doesn't seem like a fair argument to say that those in government should never have their belts tightened.
00:05:51.060And to be fair, it's not it's not the case that there's never any restraint.
00:05:55.360You will see pay freezes in government.
00:05:57.540That is not you will see that from time to time.
00:06:01.940But it's the actual pay cut, you know, a 5 percent cut, a 10 percent pay cut, whatever it is.
00:06:07.220It's just it's really become unheard of in government.
00:06:09.840Like I say, the last examples that we identified went back to the 1990s in Ontario.
00:06:14.620They had Ray Days, which is similar to what I talked about with what Manitoba did, where they had unpaid days.
00:06:20.760They did do that up to 12 unpaid days.
00:06:23.100Manitoba did something similar in Alberta.
00:06:28.160PEI did something I believe it was in the late 90s, too.
00:06:30.620So you did see those examples in the 90s and at the provincial level.
00:06:34.140But really, it's been a totally different world since the 90s.
00:06:37.260And you have this this sort of two society state where you have those in government who really are not affected by what's happening in the outside world.
00:06:46.740And then those in the outside world, people in private sector and nonprofits and that that quite often do have to feel the pinch.
00:06:52.980And how does the underlying how are the underlying circumstances that led to that austerity in the 90s compared to the challenges in the last year and a half?
00:07:02.540You know, that's a very good question.
00:07:03.700My guess would be that it would pale in comparison to what we're facing today.
00:07:07.900I mean, you look at the federal government alone.
00:07:09.540They racked up hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars in debt in one year alone simply to pay for the pandemic.
00:07:17.520A lot of provinces are back swimming in debt again.
00:07:21.300So there's a lot of very tough financial situations out there.
00:07:25.340And I think really what people might want to reflect on is this.
00:07:29.280How do we address the situation we're in?
00:07:31.040We've got government spending way more than what they're bringing in in revenues.
00:07:38.560And often governments present two scenarios.
00:07:40.600They say we either cut services or we raise taxes.
00:07:44.700Now, I think a lot of the services that Canadians receive from governments, they probably wouldn't want those cut.
00:07:50.600Policing, health care, people fixing roads and bridges.
00:07:53.320And then on the other end of the equation, you've got raising taxes.
00:07:58.120No one wants to see taxes go up right now because that would hurt a lot of families that are struggling and a lot of businesses that are struggling.
00:08:04.400So you often hear these two scenarios.
00:08:06.600There is a third, and that is to do a better job with the revenues that governments have right now.
00:08:11.260And one thing they can do is cut salaries back a little bit, cut pensions back a little bit, you know, bring the compensation packages back down to size so that they're more fair with what people in outside government are receiving for the same type of work.
00:08:25.580And that's one way you can ensure the services continue.
00:08:28.200It's just done a little bit more cost effectively.
00:08:30.200I know this was a multi-government level project on your part.
00:08:36.040You went across the country, federal, provincial, municipal.
00:08:38.620What were the standout examples, really the worst examples, either for lack of transparency or just for how little in the way of restraint they were exhibiting?
00:08:49.180You know, that's a very good question.
00:08:50.880A lot of governments didn't even know when the last time was that they reduced pay.
00:08:56.540You know, like I said, Ottawa told us they don't have any records of ever doing that.
00:08:59.620I believe it was New Brunswick as well that did that.
00:09:05.260You know, in Calgary, Calgary is a city that has been struggling for a good five or six years now because of the oil and gas downturn especially.
00:09:14.360And they gave us data going back to the 1970s showing that there has been no pay cuts at all, zero.
00:09:21.400And so there's a lot of examples like that where we know that different parts of the country have struggled economically.
00:09:28.040And you can see that governments just kind of sailed right through, that there was no wage restraint whatsoever.
00:09:34.240And I think ultimately the big picture is that we see these studies from the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, from the Fraser Institute and others that show this compensation gap.
00:09:44.340Government employees making more in terms of their total compensation than people outside of government doing similar work.
00:09:50.340And so the end result is you have everyday taxpayers that have to pay more for those in government to make this higher compensation level.
00:10:00.680So, you know, the end result is it costs everyday people more in taxes.
00:10:05.060And I, you know, to be clear, I wouldn't look at the everyday worker in government and say, well, this is their fault.
00:10:13.540I mean, most people just go to work and they want to put in an honest day's work and get a good paycheck for it.
00:10:18.440But it's ultimately elected officials and governments that agree to these contracts and they've let these compensation levels run away from what would be competitive.
00:10:27.660Yeah, and I think it's also important, and I know it's outside the scope of this report, but to look at the general imbalance between public and private sector pay for the same jobs in general,
00:10:39.560because this is something I know other research has shown is already an area where there's a significant gap.
00:10:45.460So the public sector employees for the same job in the private sector are making more and pensions.
00:10:50.680I mean, we could go on all day with this, but I'm glad you've done the work on this.
00:10:53.800SecondStreet.org has the new report, finding no evidence of any major governments dropping pay despite private sector businesses having to do that or just shut down altogether.
00:11:04.160Colin Craig, SecondStreet's president, joins us now. Thanks so much for coming on, Colin.
00:11:08.240Well, thanks for having me, Andrew. And if any of your viewers or listeners would like to actually see their government responses, they're all on our website.