Year of the Fire Hose

As with military spending, the Carney government has turned its budget fire hose on the Communications Security Establishment and is drenching the agency in money. 

The Main Estimates for FY 2026-27, tabled in parliament on February 26th, show that the government has set CSE's budget at $2.007 billion for the coming fiscal year. As the chart below shows, the agency's budget has undergone astonishing growth in recent years, growing by 84% (76% in inflation-adjusted terms) in just two years.

FY 2025-26, the fiscal year just ending, accounts for a sizeable part of the recent growth. The 2025-26 Main Estimates projected a CSE budget of $1.221 billion, but a big dollar deluge in the June 2025 Supplementary Estimates (A) boosted the agency's budget authority to $1.591 billion. Even more money was added later, such that the agency's 2025-26 year-to-date spending is currently estimated to be $1.660 billion. 

The latest budget information confirms that this was not a one-time spike: CSE's dollar deluge is on-going and will now push the agency's budget for the first time past the $2-billion mark.

The 2026-27 Main Estimates also provide information on CSE's projected personnel spending in the coming fiscal year: $652.9 million. We only get definitive information on the number of employees at CSE after the fact in the agency's annual reports, the latest of which tells us there were 3,841 full-time permanent employees at CSE as of 31 March 2025. But we can probably venture a pretty good ballpark guess as to where things are going by looking at the personnel spending number. According to my back-of-the-envelope scribbling, that number suggests CSE will probably have a staff of around 4,500 by March 2027. 

This is consistent with what we heard back in October 2024, when CSE Chief Caroline Xavier said the agency was on track to grow to 4,000-5,000 personnel over the next several years. 

Xavier's statement suggests that CSE's growth plan has been on the books for quite a while and may well have some way left to run. The fate of such plans always depends on the money being there when it's needed. But for now, at least, the Carney government appears determined to keep the pumps running on defence and defence-related spending, so it looks like CSE will be awash in cash for some time to come.