Public service cuts aimed mostly outside Ottawa

OTTAWA — Cuts to the federal public service appear to be occurring mostly outside Ottawa — which is not how the federal government cast its job reductions when it first announced them earlier this year.

The Flaherty budget tabled last March forecast 19,200 jobs eliminated and it promised that a heavy burden would be shouldered by the national capital region.

“A large proportion of full-timeequivalent reductions will occur in the National Capital Region,” said the budget document.

The regional distribution has inflicted most of the pain outside Ottawa, based on notices sent to federal workers.

According to statistics compiled by the federal public-sector union, the Public Service Alliance of Canada, just 35 per cent of those notices have gone out in the national capital region.

Calls to the office of Finance Minister Jim Flaherty were referred to the Treasury Board which, hours later, emailed a statement to The Canadian Press.

“To clear the record, the representation of federal jobs across the country remains unchanged,” said the email from the office of Treasury Board President Tony Clement.”

The union of federal employees expressed frustration not only that the cuts will impact Canadians, but also that the government isn’t consulting much about how to proceed.

“We knew there was going to be widespread cuts ... (Federal) services are located across the country, from coast to coast to coast. And they set a very aggressive plan to reduce those services,” said Bob Jackson, PSAC regional vice-president for British Columbia.