Ottawa – Canadian Border Services Agency and Canadian Safety Intelligence Service employees have the least probable of recommending their office to work as a great place, a survey of federal public servants suggests.
The 2024 Public Service Employees Survey asked the federal government employees several questions about their workplace, including their leadership, welfare and compensation.
A question asked the public servants whether they would suggest their department or agency as “a great place to work”.
Overall, 67 percent of public servants gave positive answers to that question.
CBSA and Indian oil and gas Canada tied to the worst place, with 46 percent of those organizations with respondents show that they were great places to work.
In Canadian Safety Intelligence Service, forty -eight percent of the people and 49 percent of the Canadian Auditor General said that they would recommend their workplace as a great place to work.
Jacqueline Robbie, a CBSA spokesman, said there are several factors that affect an employee’s work experience. He said that the agency works to create a safe workplace, cares about the good of the employees and has “the right to work in an environment that is free from all forms of oppression”.
The survey suggests that CBSA employees feel worse than overall public service in many areas, including work-life balance, achieving a sense of satisfaction from their work and gaining recognition for their efforts.
National President of Customs and Immigration Association, Mark Weber, said in an interview with Canadian Press that he is “not surprised” with the results and the agency is usually between “dead last” or lower three.
Weber said that his union regularly communicates with CBSA about morale in the workplace and what is needed to improve, but it is sad that “things do not really change.”
Weber said CBSA is well known in federal public services when it comes to discipline and suspension, and thousands of people will spend to spend to fight a complaint, then they would just cost less to settle.
He said, “Our members tell us how disappointed they are regularly, and again it does not really change,” he said.
Weber said that some members are also disappointed about the return-to-office mandate and, for front-line workers, increasing use of automation on borders. He said that CBSA has a low staff on officers and this management is getting “bloated”.
While CSIS employees scored significantly to rank their workplace, they scored slightly better than average on a question about their work being “proud”, with 84 percent positive answers.
They were also with the overall public service to reply whether they like their jobs, 77 percent gave positive answers.
The Union of Security and Justice Employees said in a statement that it is not surprised by the results of the survey and the members working in CSIS are quite low.
The Sangh said that there is a strong belief that some union members have not been considered as non-union employees and “considerable” delay in the implementation of the collective agreement in 2022 is mentioned.
A CSIS spokesman Eric Balsam said in an email that the department takes the input of employees seriously. He said that CSIS has continued to improve to ensure that employees support and valuable and is investigating the results to find areas of strength and anxiety.
Two outfits – RCMP Officers Office of External Review Committee and Canada’s Commissioner Office – could not perform better in the survey with their 100 percent of the employees who replied that the departments were a great place to work.
Both Canada, the office of the Commissioner of Investment and Federal Judicial Affairs in Canada, says more than 90 percent of the employees.
The 2024 survey lasted from October 28, 2024 to 31 December, 2024, and surveyed more than 186,000 employees in 93 federal departments and agencies for a response rate of 50.5 percent.
The statistics was administered by Canada in partnership with the office of the Chief Human Resource Officer in the Treasury Board of the Secretariat of Canada.
This report of Canadian Press was first published on August 25, 2025.
Catherine Morrison, Canadian Press
