Ottawa Citizen: 'The federal government paid out over $171 million in bonuses to executives and public servants for 2019-2020, despite departments achieving less than half of their performance objectives overall that same year.
'The latest numbers from the Treasury Board Secretariat (TBS) are contained in documents tabled in Parliament recently following a question from the Conservatives.
'“It’s pay for failure,” said Conservative MP Kelly McCauley.
'In the documents, TBS noted that bonuses were dolled out to 89 per cent of the public sectors’ executives, or 7,232 people, in 2020-2021.
'Bonuses were also paid out to 2.7 per cent of public servants who rank below the executive class, or just over 7,800 individuals. But public servants are in most cases allowed to claim pay for working overtime, whereas executives cannot.
'Though the bonuses were paid in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, the government said they were mainly tied to performances in the previous year (2019-2020).'