Environment Canada is cutting the jobs of hundreds of meteorologists, scientists, chemists and engineers, according to a news report in The Star. The report said it was part of the Conservative government's plans to erase a $32 billion deficit.
The cuts represent 11 per cent of the workforce at Environment Canada, calling into question the department’s ability to carry on its mandate, said Bill Pynn, national president of the Union of Environment Workers, which represents 476 of the affected workers.
"It's massive," Pynn said, saying he can't recall cuts of a similar scale in Ottawa in the last two decades.
A background paper, supplied to The Tyee by the Public Service Alliance of Canada, suggests the cuts will be even worse than Pynn estimates. Drawing on Environment Canada's "Plans and Priorities" document, PSAC forecasts the loss of 935 fulltime-equivalent positions, "about 13.5% of the workforce." (Another PSAC document predicts 1,211 FTEs lost over the next three years.)
The background paper says 34 FTEs will be cut from Water Resources, undermining independent scientific information and advice to decision makers. Another 279 FTEs will be lost in Substance and Waste Management, weakening the ministry's ability to assess environmental threats and ecosystem conservation.
Climate change and clean air will see a cut of 422 FTEs -- "nearly half of the jobs in this program activity." Weather and environmental services will lose a total of 202 FTEs. PSAC says these cuts will harm Canadians' ability to understand health and safety risks from climate change.
As of 10:00 a.m. PDT, Environment Canada had nothing on its media page about the cuts.
Crawford Kilian is a contributing editor of The Tyee.
6
Login or register to post comments
nermal
1 year ago
Not Surprised
This is exactly the kind of thing that could be foreseen when Canadians handed Stephen Harper a majority government. Shame on us.
Van Isle
1 year ago
See, it's just so simple to
See, it's just so simple to get rid of those pesky scientists/engineers. Create a deficit which creates an excuse to get rid of people, then Steve can do what he wants.
Sask Resident
1 year ago
Liberal Cuts in the 1990s
People seem to forget the deeper and haphazard cuts made by the Chretien led federal Liberals in the mid 1990s. I'm not against the cuts since many people in Environment Canada are just spinning their wheels, however the hierarchy in Ottawa will ensure that the cuts are made outside of NCR and to people who actually do something. Seems silly and counter-productive to cut monitoring programs since lots of people outside of Environment Canada can use and analyze the data, but no data means they have nothing but guesses. Most of the Weather and Environmental Prediction and Services have little or nothing to do with climate change. Atmospheric Science and Technology could disappear and the most of the work done by universities and real climatologists instead.
I hope the cuts are thought out objectively not just a way to save jobs in Ottawa, otherwise cuts will happen to those furthest away like BC and Yukon.
kootenay
1 year ago
Money to be Made
Nothing Harper does surprises me, I expect nothing but the worst from him.
It's hard to attract Foreign investors when you have strong environmental regualtions. Every good capatilist knows that when there's money to be made protection of the environment is secondary!
More foreshadowing of what's to come. Does Harper's vision for our future make you a proud Canadian?
Road Lice
1 year ago
Scientists bad for oil executives
I don't think it's as bad now as it will be when climate change scientists are rounded up and imprisoned in a re-education camp in Rona Ambrose's riding of Spruce Grove, Alberta. The jailed scientists will be forced to listen to recordings played over the prison loudspeakers of Rona Ambrose reading from Ayn Rand novels, for 23 hours a day. Ezra Levant will drive his Hummer to the camp to give guest lectures to the inmates about "ethical oil".
Why do you think Harper wants to build those new prisons?
cw
1 year ago
An older guy wonders
Is it just me or does this not smack of a certain European government in the thirties that strove to rid itself of any scientist who disagreed with its ideals - any scientist who insisted on real science?
My 2¢ worth.