The PSC aims to protect the integrity of hiring and promotion within 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 The PSC has set out four program activities that are done to reach its strategic outcome: The 2003 Public Service Employment Act (which came into force on December 31, 2005) emphasizes the values of merit, non-partisanship, fairness, access, transparency and representativeness.
The essential requirements can include official language proficiency, asset qualifications, operational requirements (e.g., availability to do shift work or work on weekends), and organizational needs (e.g., need to increase the hiring of women) that have been identified by the head of a department or agency.
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.