Ottawa/CMEDIA: As part of Canada’s plan to cut 28,000 positions by 2029, The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) will reportedly cut 348 positions that report to or are in the national headquarters in Ottawa.
Workforce adjustment notices will be received by 708 employees to implement a two per cent budget cut.
“This reduction cannot be achieved without impacts. We will be reducing our workforce by 348 employees, both executives and non‑executives…will affect 708 employees. These reductions are exclusively for positions reporting to or in a national headquarters branch,”the CBSA said in a statement Thursday evening.
Also read: Latest information on federal public service, including notices, job cuts, return to office rules and more
Union warns ‘no one is safe’ from cuts
Over 400 members of the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) at the CBSA received notices last week that they could lose their jobs.
Job cuts at the CBSA and a reduction in staff at the Bureau of Pension Advocates, says the federal union, show “no one is safe” from the federal government’s “sweeping cuts to public service.”
“Prime Minister (Mark) Carney is using the same old playbook that (Jean) Chrétien and (Stephen) Harper did, and we’re going to get the same bad results…needs to stop recycling failed austerity measures and start investing in the public services people in Canada rely on every day.” said Sharon DeSousa, PSAC national president.
The workforce adjustment notices are being distributed, the union added, at a “time of increasing pressure on border operations.”
“Cutting frontline capacity and expertise will weaken Canada’s ability to respond to emerging risks and ensure the smooth movement of people and goods,” the union said.
The CBSA was called by the federal budget, released in November, to reduce its budget by $52 million a year over four years.
The CBSA will find the savings, the budget said, by reducing the cost of using and maintaining its equipment and IT assets, delaying replacing vehicles and reviewing the “structure of its national headquarters to standardize organizational structures.”
The Canada Border Services Agency said Budget 2025 and the $1.3-billion Border Plan announced in December 2024 provide funding to support the hiring of 1,000 new CBSA officers to “support growth in our operational needs.”
“Whether it is countering the new ways in which organized crime groups seeks to smuggle contraband into and out of the country, or supporting the Canadian economy through revenue collection and trade measures, we will be expanding many of our frontline and operational teams,” the CBSA said in a statement.
“At the same time, we recognize the need to operate more efficiently in our policy, program, and internal services functions.”
According to the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat, the CBSA had 17,234 employees as of March 31, 2025, up from 14,113 employees in March 2015.
More than 24,000 employees and executives have received workforce adjustment letters, said the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat, since the start of Dec with over 9,000 positions from departments in the core public administration are being planned to be cut by the government including the RCMP and the CBSA.
