As public servants wait to learn their fate, scientists and labour leaders are warning these cuts could significantly impact the health and safety of Canadians as well as Canada’s wildlife and environment.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is the kind of research that I believe that Canadians need and want at this time,\u201d retired ECCC scientist Christine Bishop told Laura Lynch, host of What On Earth. \u201cThey have to look for other ways to trim the fat in the government.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018Canadians should be very concerned\u2019<\/p>\n
Carney’s first budget, delivered in November<\/a>, announced plans to shrink the federal bureaucracy by 16,000 full-time equivalent positions \u2014 which is not necessarily the same as 16,000 individuals \u2014 over three years.<\/p>\n ECCC will reduce its workforce by roughly 10 per cent, or the equivalent of 840 full-time roles, department spokesperson Samantha Bayard wrote in an email.<\/p>\n Despite the cuts, she wrote the department remains \u201ccommitted to its mandate and advancing Canada\u2019s leadership in environmental protection, nature stewardship, science and weather services, clean technology, and building a greener, more sustainable future.<\/p>\n Sean O’Reilly, president of the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada (PIPSC), isn\u2019t convinced the department can cut hundreds of jobs and stay true to its mandate.<\/p>\n PIPSC represents thousands of public servants who are bracing for job cuts, including those at ECCC.<\/p>\n While he\u2019s worried about his union\u2019s members, O\u2019Reilly says he\u2019s also concerned about the safety and well-being of Canadians.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThese aren’t just numbers on a spreadsheet. This is real science being cut,\u201d he said. “You can’t cut public science or staff without increasing public risk.\u201d<\/p>\n On Jan. 27, an email went out to ECCC\u2019s Science and Technology Branch (STB) staff from assistant deputy minister Marc D\u2019Iorio, warning that 120 full-time roles would be cut over the next year, starting in April.<\/p>\n \u201cEssential scientific programs that support policy, operations, and services to Canadians will be maintained or strengthened,\u201d read the memo, which several ECCC employees shared with CBC.<\/p>\n \u201cThe focus will be on efficiency, integration, and impact, rather than eliminating critical functions. Some reductions were targeted in areas where extensive expertise exists outside the Department or the public service.\u201d<\/p>\n ECCC did not respond to CBC\u2019s questions about D’lorio’s email or which teams, specifically, would face cuts. <\/p>\n While PIPSC doesn\u2019t yet know which areas of research will be affected, O\u2019Reilly says the people at ECCC do essential work.<\/p>\n \u201cThey work with avalanches, hurricanes, and severe weather events. What’s going to happen to those alerts in Canada if those folks aren’t there to do that work?\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201c[They are] the ones that prevent oil spills from becoming catastrophes, you know, who are ensuring dangerous goods don’t explode on our railways.\u201d<\/p>\n Throughout Canada\u2019s history, he says, a failure to adequately invest in the public service had real, and sometimes deadly, consequences.<\/p>\n He pointed to the 2013 fatal rail disaster in Lac Megantic, Que., which researchers from Toronto\u2019s York University blamed on \u201c a decades-long process of deregulation and reduced resources <\/a>\u201d at Transport Canada, or Canada\u2019s struggle to respond quickly to the COVID-19 pandemic, which some doctors blamed on chronic underresourcing at Canada\u2019s Public Health Agency<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThese cuts today potentially could mean a crisis tomorrow,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n ECCC did not respond to questions about whether the cuts would impact weather forecasting and alert systems.\u00a0<\/p>\n WATCH | Public servants brace for layoffs: Public servants speak out over job cuts as thousands more put on notice<\/p>\n Canadian public servants are speaking out over the federal government’s plans for deep job cuts, after thousands more were notified they could be affected. Some say the situation is creating a Hunger Games-style atmosphere of fear and uncertainty.Pesticides, microplastics and forever chemicals<\/p>\n Bishop, who spent decades working as a federal ecotoxicologist before retiring three years ago, says the team was already a \u201cskeleton crew, and any staff reductions will likely have devastating effects on essential research.\u00a0<\/p>\n She and her colleagues worked alongside Indigenous communities to monitor the impacts of environmental contaminants on wildlife and the environment \u2014 things like pesticides, microplastics, forever chemicals or diluted bitumen from the oilsands.<\/p>\n It\u2019s the kind of work that she believes matters to everyday Canadians.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople are definitely interested in knowing what’s going on in the environment and how it might relate to, you know, their own health,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cAnytime I spoke to people in the public about the work that we did \u2026 people are saying, \u2018Yes, I’m interested in that and we need more of that.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Private, academic research not enough<\/p>\n Both Bishop and O\u2019Reilly say private and academic research can\u2019t fill the gap left in the wake of public service cuts.\u00a0<\/p>\n ECCC scientists, says Bishop, are \u201cspecifically required to do applied research to ask questions of immediate interest to Canadians.\u201d<\/p>\n That\u2019s not the case at academic institutions or private companies, O\u2019Reilly adds, where research is driven by funding availability, profitability, or, at best, curiosity.<\/p>\n \u201cPublic science is the science that isn’t as glamorous, it isn’t profitable, potentially, [as what] businesses are doing. And so that public science is the science that needs to be done,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt takes years and years to build up good public science, but it only takes a moment to cut it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LISTEN | Full interviews with scientist Christine Bishop and union leader Sean O’Reilly: What On Earth24:10What Ottawa\u2019s job…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":454184,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[49,48,295,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-454183","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-environment","11":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=454183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454183\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/454184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=454183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=454183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=454183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1770243308_410_default.jpg\")
Sean O’Reilly, president of the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada, says cuts to Environment Canada could lead to a ‘crisis’ down the line. (Justin Tang\/The Canadian Press)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1770243308_739_default.jpg\")
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