In labs, field stations, and policy units across the country, federal scientists and researchers are about to be handed pink slips. These job cuts won’t simply be reducing headcount; they will dismantle expertise that takes decades to build. The names of these workers may never make the headlines. But the impacts of their absences could.

Because these eliminated positions represent far more than a reduction in staffing levels, they amount to the dismantling of expertise that has taken decades to build and moments to lose. Remove these workers and you don’t just shrink the public service. You gut Canada’s ability to make informed decisions for years to come.

These are the professionals who form the invisible scaffolding of a functioning country: the ones who track air quality when wildfire smoke blankets our cities, who ensure the medication in your cabinet is safe to take, and who run the IT systems behind emergency benefits and weather alerts. Most people never see their work, and that’s because it works.

Now that scaffolding is being dismantled.

The departments being hit hardest – Health Canada, Shared Services Canada, Environment and Climate Change Canada, Statistics Canada, and more – aren’t peripheral. They are the heart of public safety, data integrity, and emergency response. The people being told their jobs no longer matter are the ones most equipped to prevent the next crisis.

But this is not just about layoffs. It is about deliberately weakening our shared capacity. When governments outsource core responsibilities to the lowest bidder, they don’t just lose control; they also risk undermining public safety by losing context, continuity, and the public interest as a guiding force. These eliminated positions go far beyond routine staffing changes. Taken together, these cuts represent a growing risk to the government’s ability to govern effectively and respond to complex future challenges.

I started my own career as an IT specialist in the federal public service. I’ve seen what happens when institutional knowledge walks out the door. Sometimes, the failure shows up as a broken payroll system. Sometimes, it’s a $54 million app, like ArriveCAN, that never should have left the drawing board. And sometimes, the failure is slower and quieter, creeping in behind the scenes until it’s too late to fix.

These cuts don’t just undermine public servants. They weaken the systems Canadians rely on every day. If we allow that to happen, we’re not just failing the people who do the work. We’re failing everyone who depends on it.

A strong public service is like a country’s immune system. You don’t notice it when it’s working. You only notice when it fails. And by the time that happens, the damage is already done.

The good news is this: we still have a choice.

This government can step back from the brink. It can choose long-term capacity over short-term cuts. It can stop pouring public dollars into costly outsourcing and invest instead in the people who have dedicated their careers to serving the public. The warning signs are here. The consequences are known. The question is whether we’re willing to act before the damage becomes irreversible.

Because make no mistake, these cuts are not temporary. You cannot rebuild expertise overnight. When we lose it, we lose not just knowledge, but memory, mentorship, and mission.

If we stay silent, the damage will not be evenly felt, but it will be widely shared. Canadians who care about evidence-based decision-making should do the same. Now is the time to speak up.

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