B.C. Finance Minister Brenda Bailey continues to point to a government “hiring freeze” as one of the ways the province is saving money to protect core services in the wake of American tariffs. But as the Opposition pointed out yesterday, the so-called freeze is questionable at best.
Bailey said the freeze, which began in December, is how “we’re sharpening our pencil” and “looking for efficiencies” as the provincial treasury strains under both the weight of the NDP’s $9.5-billion deficit and the expected recession to be caused by U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs.
“Where we're looking to bring some money back into the public coffers is really through careful efficiencies reviews,” Bailey said Monday, on the eve of the provincial budget.
“You see us making decisions, for example, like a hiring freeze in the public service. That's very important in terms of how we move forward… and additional work that we intend to do to ensure that every dollar is landing where we intended it to land.”
And yet, during the time of the supposed freeze, the government also hired or promoted as many as 35 new staffers in its communications, political and executive ranks, to be paid upwards of $4.3 million in salary.
That’s according to an analysis of cabinet orders produced by the Opposition BC Conservatives. It does not include several new hires, promotions, and large pay hikes inside the office of Premier David Eby.
“These aren't front-line workers — no, no, no,” finance critic Peter Milobar said during question period. “These are public affairs officers, marketing officers, issues management directors, and it's all partisan spin doctors.”
Bailey said the hiring freeze will “flatline” public service growth, and defended the freeze not appearing to apply to the $30-million Government Communications and Public Engagement (GCPE) division.
“The truth of it is GCPE staffed down in anticipation of the election,” Bailey said. “That's actually good fiscal management, knowing that their services would not be as needed. They've been staffing up since, saving us money.”
It wasn’t clear if the finance minister was referring to the partisan communications staff that took unpaid leaves of absence to work on the NDP’s re-election campaign as the source of the drop in staffing.
A statement from GCPE said it left “predominantly entry-level positions” vacant heading into the election and is now in a three-month process to rehire. “Not all of GCPE’s vacant positions will be filled,” read the statement.
The hiring freeze was announced in December partly in response to Trump, partly in response to the record deficit and partly in response to criticism Eby heard during the election campaign that his government was hiring at a rate of five times the private sector.
The core civil service has grown more than 32 per cent since the NDP took power in 2017, compared with 3.9 per cent the six years prior. That represents an increase of 11,152 full-time equivalent people in seven years, to a total of 45,519 FTEs.
The hiring freeze does not apply to health authorities, schools, post-secondary institutions or Crown agencies. Within government, it’s also not supposed to apply to core services.
Milobar said one early on-the-ground result in his riding of Kamloops has been the region’s two local wildlife biologists moved to the north, with their positions going unfilled.
“We’ve got chronic wasting disease, all sorts of things going on, on our land base right now, and the government, who is propped up by the Green party, its response to a hiring freeze is to get rid of senior wildlife biologists and hire more communications staff,” said Milobar.
“How are you going to find efficiencies in government if you can’t find efficiencies in your communications department, of all things?”
Bailey has said NDP political staff that work for ministers are considered essential personnel, and won’t be subject to the freeze.
But that will be a difficult line to hold if important non-partisan ministry jobs like inspectors, biologists, scientists and engineers are to go unfilled, while a seemingly never-ending supply of money is redirected to hire, promote and give pay raises to communications staffers and friends of the New Democrat government.
Rob Shaw has spent more than 17 years covering B.C. politics, now reporting for CHEK News and writing for Glacier Media. He is the co-author of the national bestselling book A Matter of Confidence, host of the weekly podcast Political Capital, and a regular guest on CBC Radio.
