PARRY SOUND - One Parry Sound job is among more than 1,000 on the chopping block with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.
Late Friday morning the Public Service Alliance of Canada confirmed that 763 Canadian Coast Guard workers (460 of whom are PSAC members) could lose their job.
It isn’t known yet how many workers will be laid off or how many positions will be cut.
“On the one hand we have a government putting on a show to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Canadian Coast Guard, and on the other we see it closing offices and shutting down search and rescue,” said PSAC national executive vice president Chris Aylward.
The Canadian Coast Guard’s regional offices are being reduced from five to three, meaning a large number of notices went to administrative workers in Sarnia, Dartmouth, the National Capital Region, St. John’s, Quebec City and Vancouver.
About 25 ships’ crew workers are among those affected in Vancouver and Quebec City not including another 100 or so ships’ crew team workers who will also lose their jobs.
“It takes five to six years for ships’ crew workers to earn enough hours to get indeterminate status and now we see so many of these workers who have been waiting for years for job security, finding out they won’t have a job,” said Union of Canadian Transportation Employees national president Christine Collins. “This is an insult to those workers, especially while the government claims to be celebrating the Coast Guard.”
The government has told union officials it is shutting down the Experimental Lakes Area field station in northwestern Ontario, which, since 1968, has offered scientists and biologists a unique way of studying freshwater ecosystems.
The job cuts are part of the government’s plan to cut DFO’s operational budget by $79.3 million over three years, or 5.8 per cent of its $1.36 billion budget.