The strike by the Public Service Alliance of Canada – with more than 150,000 members, it accounts for nearly half of all federal government employees – is being described as the largest in Canada since … the 1991 PSAC strike.
Of course, a lot has changed since then. In 1991, the federal government employed roughly 218,000 people (that’s the core public service, not counting agencies such as the RCMP or Crown corporations such as the CBC and Canada Post) for a population of just over 28 million: roughly one federal public servant for every 129 citizens. As of 2022, it employed about 336,000 for a population of just under 39 million: a ratio of one to 116.
