“Basically, they’re doing away with research. If you’re not going to facilitate industry, creating a gimmick for sale in two years, they don’t want to hear from you. Basically every research program that sort of put Canada ahead worldwide in agriculture, these guys just don’t see a value for any more,” said Bob Kingston, president of the Agriculture Union, which represents 235 of the affected Agriculture workers.
The department told 681 people May 8 that their jobs could be cut in coming months.
The cuts affect 144 commerce officers, 79 scientists, 76 IT specialists, 29 engineers, 14 biologists, five research managers and three procurement officers represented by the Public Service Alliance of Canada. PSAC has 235 affected members at the department. It also affects 96 members under the Canadian Association of Professional Employees, which represents economists and social scientists at the department.
The Professional Institute of the Public Service Alliance of Canada has 350 affected members at the department.
“It looks to me that they’ve kind of gotten rid of, obliterated, a couple of key programs. There’s not only scientists gone—research scientists, physical scientists—but there’s also … science managers, five of those, which tells me that entire programs are gone, and once they’re gone they won’t be coming back,” said Gary Corbett, president of the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada, which represents 57,000 workers in the public sector.
The affected workers’ duties include developing crop management strategies to minimize agriculture’s environmental impacts and producing data on food markets for producers, according to PIPSC.
Mr. Kingston said this latest round of cuts would close a range management facility in Kamloops, B.C., the only one operating in the province.
“With the last budget, they got rid of a good chunk of them, and now they’re getting rid of the rest,” he said.
The centre looks at different techniques for using soil and managing land and grazing to ensure a healthy environment.
“They came up with all kinds of restoration and prevention recommendations that have been used over the years,” he said.
Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada is streamlining programs to make it easier for producers and processors to do business with the government, said spokesperson Patrick Girard.
“We continue to maintain core activities where government has a unique role and adds value and are working collaboratively with our partners so that producers and processors can gain maximum returns from the market,” he said.
Mr. Girard also noted the government is investing $3-billion over the next five years through its Growing Forward 2 agreement into innovation, competitiveness, and market development.
Due to the 2012 budget, past cuts to Agriculture have stopped the Shelter Belt program, which gives trees to farmers to plant on their property to prevent soil erosion and the Community Pasture program, where small ranchers could pay a fee to have their herds supervised on Crown land. The Cereal Research Centre in Winnipeg, Man., was also closed due to cuts, according to the unions.
“When you lose scientists, when you lose long-range thinkers, I think you lose innovation and in the end you lose something economically down the road. You’re not as well-positioned if you don’t have the brains behind it, and that’s unfortunate for agriculture in Canada and the Canadian people,” said Mr. Corbett.
The unions expect that most of the people who were told their jobs could be cut will ultimately be laid off, while others will have to compete for the remaining posts.
Mr. Girard said the department is unsure how many people will ultimately be laid off after voluntary departures are factored in.
“Governments don’t stand still, and [Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada] continues to align its resources – human, financial and physical assets – to deliver on our priorities,” said Mr. Girard.
“We are making changes to our operations to adjust to our reference levels which have been affected by on-going restraint, the conclusion of programs that were scheduled to come to an end, the completion of Economic Action Plan funding, and a greater focus on funding going directly to producers,” he said.
Agriculture and Agri-Food has committed to cutting $252.9-million from its budget by 2014-2015. Last year it cut $14.9-million and this year is it expects to cut $158.4-million, according to the 2012 budget. The department would not say how much it expects to save with this latest round of job cuts.
In 2013-2014, Agriculture’s planned spending is $2.5-billion, and it employs the equivalent of over 5,700 full-time people.
“Having already pillaged the National Research Council, Conservatives are now stripping the innovative ability of the second-largest research department. They cut business risk management, allegedly to make farmers more innovative. Now they cannot even rely on the department for science,” said Liberal Frank Valeriote (Guelph, Ont.), his party’s Agriculture critic in Question Period May 10.
NDP Treasury Board critic Matthieu Ravignat (Pontiac, Que.) said the minister was “turning his back” on advances in agriculture in Question Period that day.
Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz (Battlefords-Lloyminster, Sask.) disagreed with the characterizations.
“We continue to analyze our programming and put the right foot forward to build a strong farmgate in this country,” he said in Question Period last week.
Since the 2012 budget, which announced $5.2-billion in cuts to departments by 2015, almost 30,000 people have been told their jobs could be cut. The actual number of job losses will be fewer, but public service staffing rules obligate employers to notify all workers who occupy a particular job type that their post could be cut, even if the department plans on cutting only a small number of those positions.
According to Treasury Board Secretariat, 16,220 federal jobs were cut by December 2012. Of those, 9,390 were cut by attrition. In total, the government expects to cut 19,200 jobs by 2015.
Mr. Kingston said he and his membership are concerned about what is happening to Agriculture’s capacity for science.
“How they feel about this government’s view on science is probably beyond words, or at least repeatable words,” he said.
“Almost to a person, if you ask them about the long-term effects of doing away with basic research as a country, we’re heading for a disaster in this. This is the most shortsighted government I’ve ever seen,” he added.
Some workers are weary of successive rounds of cuts, and are ready to move on, said Mr. Corbett.
“The morale is down, and people all around them are wondering whether they’re going to be next,” said Mr. Corbett.
According to Treasury Board Secretariat, Agriculture will cut a total of 1,144 full-time jobs due to the 2012 budget. Last year about 900 people were told their jobs could be gone.
“People are still pretty proud of the work they do, but they’re not too happy about the department right now,” said Mr. Kingston.
Nearly 1,000 public servants at six different organizations were told last week their jobs could soon be gone, a high water mark so far this year.
Other departments also announced cuts last week, including National Defence, which told 132 workers their jobs could be cut May 8. Transport Canada told 86 people their jobs were affected. Foreign Affairs and International Trade declared 68 members affected, Citizenship and Immigration told seven people last week their jobs are affected, and one person at the Courts Administration Service is also now affected, according to PSAC.
Some of the cuts at Transport Canada are due to the changes to the Navigable Waters Protection Act in the 2012 budget. The amendments to the act severely restricted the number of water bodies subject to regulation.
Twenty-two navigable waters protection officers and four navigable waters protection coordinators were affected last week, according to PSAC.
“We’d like to know more about what all of these cuts mean for Canadians and the economy,” said PSAC National President Robyn Benson in a release.
“For example, is this government leaving navigable waters unprotected? Is transport safety being further compromised by these cuts? What do the cuts to Defence mean for the Canadian Forces?” she said.
Union leaders said they are unsure of how many further rounds of cuts will take place at government departments this spring, given how little notice they were given about last week’s decisions.
“I expect there will be more cuts but I’m not sure it’s going to be the same intensity, but one never knows. The process is very secretive, there’s no consultation, it just happens, said Mr. Corbett.
“We were given no heads up whatsoever, in fact we were asking left, right and centre, because we kept hearing rumours, and they kept denying them,” said Mr. Kingston.
The cuts last week affected workers across the country, but the most jobs that could be eliminated are in Ottawa-Gatineau, with 490 positions. In Quebec, 366 positions were affected, in Saskatchewan, 87 positions were affected, in Nova Scotia, that number was 68, in Manitoba it was 67, in B.C. it was 48, in Alberta, 43, in Ontario, 38, in New Brunswick, 12, in Newfoundland, eight, in P.E.I., three, and one affected individual in the Northwest Territories.
At Human Resources Skills Development Canada on April 9, 19 people working at the department’s Gatineau, Que. headquarters were told their jobs could disappear in the coming months, according to CAPE.
One individual working for the Canadian Transportation Agency in Gatineau, Que. was declared surplus, meaning his or her job was eliminated, on April 22, CAPE statistics indicate.
“It’s hard to image any more cuts coming in Agriculture without them just saying, ‘Okay, we’re throwing in the towel, we’re canceling this department. I just can’t comprehend where they could come from, but I probably couldn’t have comprehended what they’ve already done, so I’m just keeping my fingers crossed,” said Mr. Kingston.
Original Article
Source: hilltimes.com
Author: JESSICA BRUNO
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