The Canada Food Inspection Agency will eliminate 1,300+ jobs by 2029 to meet a government streamlining target. They say that won’t render Canada’s food supply more vulnerable. But their reasoning raises more questions than it answers…
The Canada Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) supervises the safety of the
the country’s food chain from farm gate to supermarket…
Following ‘a comprehensive expenditure review’, the CFIA has identified 1,371 positions that can be cut – it says, without affecting services. But that implies there has been duplication, overlap and other wasteful situations in the system up to now…
Major system update
“To meet up to 15 per cent in savings targets over three years, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) will reduce overlap and duplication within the organization, such as by ensuring accountability for each business line, reducing non-core research activities to focus on high-priority diagnostic methods, and consolidating lab services to focus on essential testing and avoid the need for costly capital upgrades,” CFIA capsulized, in a statement.
“At the same time, investments in secure digital platforms and export certificate digitalization will be made to increase efficiencies and better support our exporters.”
Updates will focus on ‘targeted changes to program delivery, operational efficiencies, and reinvest-ments in front-line capacity’. The changes are expected to generate $235 million in savings over four years, along with $80.5 million in ongoing savings.
At last count, the CFIA had a total of 6,380 total employees. The proposed elimination of 1,371 of those positions represents a staff reduction of just over 25 percent.
Union ‘sounds an alarm’
The Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada (PIPSC), more than 500 of whose members stand to be made surplus to needs under the system update, warns: “Food safety, public health, and Canada’s agri-food economy are being put at serious risk in the name of ‘efficiency’. […] When you strip away food safety research, inspection capacity, and emergency coordination, you increase the risk that disease or contamination goes undetected until people are already sick.”
The cuts will translate to the loss of, “nearly one million hours of food safety and inspection expert-ise every year,” PIPSC warns.
Some 504 PIPSC members received notices last week that their jobs at CFIA may be among those to be eliminated.
My take
At last count, the CFIA had a total of 6,380 total employees. The proposed elimination of 1,371 of those positions represents a staff reduction of just over 25 percent.
I have to agree with PIPSC, that the elimination of all those jobs can’t help but result in at least some ‘increase [in] the risk that disease or contamination goes undetected’. And logic dictates that could, as the union points out, very well result in Canadians getting sick.
But then… The CFIA says it’s eliminating duplications, overlaps and other inefficiencies. And no serv-ice reductions will result.
I have to wonder… Have we been paying too much for the food safety services we’ve been getting all along?
~ Maggie J.