Public Service Commission of Canada


The Public Service Commission of Canada is an independent government agency that safeguards merit-based hiring, non-partisanship, representativeness of Canada's diversity, and the use of both official languages in the Canadian public service. The PSC aims to protect the integrity of hiring and promotion within the public service. As well, the Commission works to protect the political impartiality and non-partisanship of public servants. The Commission develops staffing policies and provides guidance to public service managers and recruits Canadians into the public service. To ensure the staffing system in the government is properly maintained, the PSC has the authority to audit and investigate to ensure departments and managers make improvements. While typical government departments are headed by Ministers, the PSC is an independent agency that is headed by a President who reports to the Canadian Parliament.

Mandate and goals

The PSC has the mandate to appoint people to the public service, and to promote people within the government which can in turn be delegated to deputy heads. The PSC can also assist government departments with recruitment and assessment services.
The PSC oversees the integrity of the hiring and promotion system, and makes sure that the hiring process is not compromised by partisan interference from elected officials. Part of this overseeing role involves collecting and analyzing data on hiring and promotion in the public service. As well, the PSC performs audits across the staffing system, examining hiring and promotion files, to ensure that employees are hired and promoted based on merit. Lastly, the PSC administers the Part VII of Public Service Employment Act that recognizes the rights of public service employees to engage in political activities while maintaining the principle of political impartiallity in the public service.

The mission of the PSC is to achieve "A highly competent, non-partisan and representative Public Service, able to provide services in both official languages and in which employment practices are characterized by fairness, access, representativeness and transparency

Program activities

The PSC has set out four program activities that are done to reach its strategic outcome:
The 2003 Public Service Employment Act emphasizes the values of merit, non-partisanship, fairness, access, transparency and representativeness.
Merit refers to the use of essential qualifications during the hiring and promotion process. This means that people who are hired and promoted in the public service must possess certain competencies, skills, and experience, rather than based on political connections or partisan affiliations. The merit principle requires that every person who is appointed to the public service has met the essential qualifications and requirements established for the position. The essential requirements can include official language proficiency, asset qualifications, operational requirements, and organizational needs that have been identified by the head of a department or agency.
Non-partisanship means that appointments of people to the public service have to be made without political influence from Ministers or partisan officials. Although Canadian public servants were disallowed any involvement in political activities in their private time throughout much of the 20th century, in 1967, legislative changes allowed public servants to request permission to take leave without pay to run in an election. In 1991, a Supreme Court decision gave public servants the right to engage in political activities. The 2003 Public Service Employment Act clarified what political activities public servants are allowed to engage in.
Public servants can engage in political activities such as supporting a candidate in an election or taking leave without pay to run in an election, but they have to maintain their political impartiality as public servants. In order to comply with the non-partisanship values in the Act, public servants must only do the types of political activities that do not conflict or impair their ability to fulfill their responsibilities in a politically impartial manner. The type and degree of political activities that a public servant can engage in depends on several factors, such as the visibility of the political activities that the public servant wants to engage in and the visibility of the public servant in their job in the public service.

Historical timeline