It seems that every couple months the Fraser Institute publishes a study suggesting the public sector is to blame for Ontario’s economic woes.
Back in February they issued a paper saying public sector wages in Ontario were too high and should be cut. They followed this up with a study in April that suggested public sector compensation had “skyrocketed” between 2005 and 2013.
Not surprisingly, both of these studies cherry-picked numbers to serve their partisan agenda. The Fraser Institute favours high profits and low wages and generally promotes viewpoints intended to make the rich richer.
Yesterday, the Fraser Institute issued another flawed study titled, An Analysis of Public and Private Sector Employment Trends in Canada, 1990-2013, which suggests that between 2003 and 2013 the number of public sector employees in Canada grew faster than the number of private sector employees. They highlighted Ontario in particular as having the biggest increase over this period.
Here is the problem: in 2003, the public sector share of employment in Ontario hit its lowest level since 1976 (year data became available) at 16.9 per cent of the total workforce.[1] This was the result of eight years of Mike Harris and Ernie Eves led governments that decimated the public service by slashing program spending and cutting thousands of jobs.
Under McGuinty, program spending recovered to some degree and the public sector share of employment began to increase (albeit population growth is likely the primary contributing factor behind this increase). However, by 2014, the public sector share of employment had only reached 19 per cent of the total workforce. This figure remains below the long-term average of 19.2 per cent.[2]
The Fraser Institute has once again employed the oldest trick in the book: take today’s numbers and compare them to the absolute lowest numbers ever and boom!..It looks like there are all kinds of public employees out there.
The reality is the Wynne government continues to slash program spending, hurting Ontario’s public services and the people who rely on them. All across the public sector, growing needs are being met with fewer and fewer resources and this will only get worse as the Liberals attempt to reduce the deficit through further public service claw backs.
OPSEU members work hard to provide valuable public services to the people of Ontario. Unfortunately, organizations like the Fraser Institute feel it is necessary to consistently attack public services and undervalue the important work public employees do.
If there is one consolation we can take from their continued attacks, it’s that they have to fudge the facts to make their point and that makes their “studies” even easier to refute.
[1] Statistics Canada. Table 282-0012 – Labour force survey estimates (LFS) “employment by class of worker, North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) and sex, annual (persons).” Accessed June 25, 2015.
[2] Ibid.