Dubé aims to cut his ministry’s surplus of civil servants through attrition
Posted March 18, 2025 2:39 pm.
Quebec Health Minister Christian Dubé said Tuesday “it’s not normal for there to be more civil servants with the creation of Santé Québec.” He said he wants to eliminate positions through attrition, a natural process in which the number of employees is reduced, particularly following retirement.
The Journal de Québec reported Tuesday morning that hundreds of civil servants have been added since the creation of the new government corporation. Questioned on the matter in the National Assembly, Dubé acknowledged this was not normal.
“We can’t have more civil servants than we had before,” he said.
Dubé wouldn’t say whether any civil servants would lose their jobs, but he did specify that “most of these people have job security.” He said that there are around 350,000 employees in the civil service and the Quebec government, and on average, between 15,000 and 20,000 people retire each year.
“If we plan things well, we can use the attrition to send people into retirement at no cost,” he explained.
Civil servants could also be relocated. According to Dubé, it will be a matter of months before the restructuring is complete. At the end of the process, he said there will be fewer civil servants in place than there were before the creation of Santé Québec.
–This report by La Presse Canadienne was translated by CityNews
