While National Newswatch does not keep an archive of external articles for longer than 6 months, we do keep all articles written by contributors who post directly to our site. Here you will find all of the contributed and linked external articles from Marlo Glass.
The mandated review of the Access to Information Act, includes proposals from the government that are 'super regressive,' says veteran journalist Dean Beeby. 'It’s just bureaucrats running the show, and we’re all going to lose, because they’re not eager at all to open the system up and be transparent.'
A former Liberal cabinet minister and prominent Sikh-Canadian is calling for Prime Minister Mark Carney to urge for the extradition of Indian officials in relation to the 2023 killing of Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar. In an interview with The Hill Times, Herb Dhaliwal said he hopes the first item on Carney’s (Nepean, Ont.) agenda in India is “the full...
Three Conservative sources, two of whom are former MPs, say a damning quote is making the rounds in their circles after a third Tory joined the Liberal caucus: 'Pierre Poilievre has become the Justin Trudeau of the Conservative Party,' says one former MP. Alberta MP Matt Jeneroux is now the third Conservative to cross the floor to the Liberals in...
Liberal MP Jenna Sudds has called for 'flexibility' after fellow local caucus colleague Bruce Fanjoy criticized requirements that public servants work in-office four days a week starting in July, and executives five days a week starting in May.
Key legislation that offers early retirement to some public servants is tied to the budget implementation bill, but Senator Peter Boehm, a former longtime public servant and deputy minister, said officials began planning for job reductions ‘some time ago' and aren’t waiting for legislation to go through. With federal public servants continuing to receive notices that their jobs may be...
Unions representing federal public servants have been making information public about how many employees may be affected by job losses, though departments are largely not confirming how many jobs will be cut.
A researcher and academic who has studied violence against women for decades says Ottawa’s bill introducing femicide into the Criminal Code could have gone further to address endemic levels of gender-based violence. Myrna Dawson, a professor with the University of Guelph and executive director of the Canadian Femicide Observatory for Justice and Accountability, said Bill C-16 represents “progress,” but she...
While grappling with job cuts and the looming spectre of a full-time return to office, the federal public service will be under the microscope to deliver on ambitious files key to Prime Minister Mark Carney’s mandate in 2026, from trade negotiations to defence procurement to building homes. That’s as a long-awaited report from an expert panel suggested the government should...
Canada’s budget watchdog says he is shifting his focus to emphasize serving parliamentarians with less media engagement after generating a spate of unflattering headlines about the Liberal government’s economic and fiscal outlook. “Since the beginning of September, we have held more meetings with parliamentarians and their staff than we would typically host over the course of the entire year,” Interim...
The federal public service is expected to employ roughly 330,000 people by 2028-29, down 10 per cent and 40,000 jobs compared to 2023-24. The budget says normal attrition through retirement, voluntary departures, and ‘previous savings exercises’ will achieve these numbers.
Union leaders are bracing for the impacts of the pending budget, with one leader saying thousands of jobs could be cut if the Liberals make good on their promise to reduce the size of the federal public service.
Auditor General Karen Hogan’s scathing report on CRA’s call centres mostly focused on long wait times, unanswered calls, and inaccurate tax information provided to Canadians, but also found a lack of oversight for the phone system’s vendor invoices.
More than one year after civil servants were mandated to work in the office three days per week, and executives four days per week, there is no standardized way for departments to track employee attendance across the federal public service. This directive was applied to the core public service in September 2024, affecting more than 279,396 workers as of March...
After skipping two national council meetings, Jenni Byrne attended the Aug. 17 meeting where delegate selection rules were passed. Conservative campaign director Jenni Byrne spoke about the party’s April election campaign loss and her future plans in a podcast interview last month, but has yet to brief the national council or the caucus about the same subject. Some senior party...
The Canada Revenue Agency’s watchdog says complaints are on the rise, while the agency forecasts a 10-per-cent reduction in staff over the next three years. Taxpayers’ ombudsperson François Boileau says his office is nearing the record-high level of complaints it received during the COVID-19 pandemic, when Canadians were scrambling to receive CERB and other emergency benefits.
Canada’s official languages commissioner Raymond Théberge says he is concerned pending budget cuts could impact official language rights and training within the federal public service.
Canada’s public service integrity commissioner is facing a massive backlog in cases and insufficient funding, which she says jeopardizes her office’s ability to expose wrongdoing in the public service and to protect whistleblowers. “We’re at five times our capacity, which means some investigations may never see the light of day,” Public Sector Integrity Commissioner Harriet Solloway said in an interview...
Global Affairs Canada’s latest report on addressing misconduct and wrongdoing in the department details dozens of cases of financial mismanagement, sexual harassment, violence, and breaches in ethics, with 22 cases resulting in public servants losing their jobs. Since the inaugural report in 2022-23, “founded” instances of misconduct and wrongdoing have more than doubled. In 2024-25, Global Affairs Canada (GAC) reported...
The federal government may have held up its end of the bargain in lowering federally-imposed trade barriers by Canada Day, but premiers are now scrambling to strike their own trade deals between provinces. “It’s solving one patchwork with another patchwork,” internal trade expert Ryan Manucha said. “It would have been nice if the federal government said ‘here’s what we will...
ESDC is projecting 6,700 job cuts over the next three years. Those numbers were published before Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne tasked departments with finding 15 per cent in program savings.
The Liberal government’s 11th-hour withdrawal of a controversial tax legislation, that was set to bring in billions of dollars from multinational tech giants, is a capitulation that was years in the making, economists and digital experts say. “This has been a source of friction for a number of years,” Michael Geist, a law professor at the University of Ottawa and...
As revelations circulate about Prime Minister Mark Carney’s willingness to discipline top bureaucrats who aren’t meeting his standards, some say it’s a chance for the public service to sharpen up and self-correct—or to finally weed out bad apples. “It’s about time,” said David McLaughlin, a former senior provincial public servant and chief of staff to then-prime minister Brian Mulroney. “Good.”...
Prime Minister Mark Carney’s pick for his top public servant is a man capable of transformative change, with a track record of being “totally, relentlessly focused,” on his prior senior roles in both the private and public sector, observers say.
A former high-ranking public servant says the Throne Speech’s pledge to significantly cut down approval times for major projects is possible, but only with radical change and a “leaner, meaner, faster” governance that eliminates bureaucratic requirements to drive nation-building projects forward.
After a $1-billion bailout, more than $3-billion in losses over recent years, and now heading into the second strike action in six months, Canada Post has hit a crossroads, and the centuries-old mail service is in need of a “radical restructuring” for the digital era, experts say.
The size of the federal public service shrank by nearly 10,000 jobs between the 2024 and 2025 fiscal years, marking the first time the civil service population hasn’t grown since 2015, according to newly published data by the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat. The drop in 9,807 jobs marks a 2.7 per cent dip in number of civil cervants, with...
First-time cabinet minister Shafqat Ali is assuming the role of Treasury Board president at a “delicate moment,” with trust frayed between the federal public service and its employer, says Canadian Association of Professional Employees President Nathan Prier. “Repairing the relationship between his workers and management in the federal public service has to be a top priority right off the bat...
After an election campaign in which Prime Minister Mark Carney went to great lengths to differentiate himself from former prime minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal era, his first post-election cabinet balances fresh faces with experienced veterans in a major shakeup of his senior team, analysts say.
From an ex-political journalist, Vancouver’s former mayor, a survivor of a mass murder, a former banking CEO and other star candidates who performed impressively on election night, Prime Minister Mark Carney has no shortage of high-profile rookie MPs to pick from for cabinet positions. The question remains: around how many veteran ministers from the Trudeau era will stay, or if...
From dusting off financial documents to preparing to welcome new ministers, there’s plenty of work to be done before King Charles III delivers the throne speech.