Baird says 4,800 jobs to be cut in Ottawa-Gatineau

Ottawa MP John Baird said the National Capital Region can expect to lose about 4,800 public service jobs, but union leaders say they expect the job losses to be much higher.

Baird, the foreign affairs minister and representative for the federal riding of Ottawa West-Nepean, spoke to business and union groups at a post-budget breakfast in Ottawa Friday morning.

He said the expected 19,200 cuts across the country, including the 4,800 in Ottawa-Gatineau, would be done fairly and respectfully over a two-to-three-year period.

Business leaders in the city have said they were relieved to see that the cuts to the federal public service were not as severe as some had anticipated.

About 130,000 federal civil servants work in the Ottawa-Gatineau region, with thousands more working term or contract positions.

But union officials who attended Baird's breakfast said the number of layoffs quoted underestimate the full impact.

John Gordon, the president of the Public Service Alliance of Canadathe biggest public service unionsaid when term and contract workers are considered, he expects the overall job losses to be tens of thousands more than the government is suggesting.

"When we do the number crunch, if you take the jobs going to go from here, the term workers who are going to finish up today, the services that's going to impact, it's going to be huge right across this country," said Gordon.

Many term workers and those who already got pink slips from previous program review cuts were expected to finish Friday, the last day of the fiscal year.

That made thetimingof the speechodd, said Gary Corbett, the president of the Professional Institute of the Public Service.

"He was mentioning at one point jobs... and my BlackBerry goes off and departments are already naming people who are out of work," said Corbett.

The announced cuts in the 2012 budget come as part of a government review of its departments and agencies that will see departments reduce spending by $5.2 billion, or 6.9 per cent, of a total of $75.3 billion up for review.

The planned reductions in spending will be between five and 12 per cent for most departments and agencies.

The Department of Finance is cutting the deepest, with a planned cut of 16.8 per cent, while Veterans Affairs and Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development have relatively modest cuts of 1.1 per cent and 2.7 per cent respectively.

In dollar terms, the biggest cuts are to the Department of National Defence, at $1.1 billion over three years, and Public Safety,which is totrim $688 million over three years.