Parks Canada facing yet another round of layoffs

Thousands of Parks Canada employees, more than half of its workforce, will be told this week their job is at risk, as the federal agency enters yet another round of layoffs.

In an email to staff on Tuesday, Oct. 20, interim president and CEO Andrew Campbell said Parks Canada is starting its second phase of “workforce adjustment” and will be sending letters to 2,917 employees notifying them their jobs could be impacted by cuts.

When public servants receive an “affected” letter, it means their job may no longer be required but doesn’t necessarily mean they will be laid off.

Workforce adjustment is the process through which alternative employment opportunities are made available, where possible, for permanent public servants who lose their positions.

In notes from an all-staff meeting posted online Tuesday, Campbell said the agency chose to meet its budget reduction targets “with a meaningful transformation,” rather than by eliminating term positions or simply reducing all programs, as did many other departments.

“We have sought to proactively shape a more efficient, flexible and delivery-focused organization, while leveraging our collective creativity to find new ways of working together and with others to deliver our mandate,” Campbell said.

The agency, he added, chose to send affected letters to so many employees, more than 2,900, to allow for the highest number of voluntary departures possible. Campbell did not say how many jobs the agency was aiming to cut through the process.

The agency has also limited hiring, kept “organizational holes,” and approved all requests for early retirement, he said.

Parks Canada had 4,773 employees as of the end of March, down from 4,842 in 2025.

In June, Campbell sent a similar letter to employees notifying staff Parks Canada was entering an earlier round of workforce adjustment.

The cuts would be progressing in phases, the email said. The “first phase” of cuts, which the agency entered during the summer, responded to spending reductions identified in the government’s “Responsible Government Spending Initiative,” put in place under former prime minister Justin Trudeau.

The second phase of cuts is responding to spending reductions under the “comprehensive expenditure review” outlined last fall in Prime Minister Mark Carney’s first federal budget.

Under the spending review — a plan to find $60 billion in savings over five years from the operational budgets of most departments and agencies — Parks Canada is targeting cuts of $144.9 million over the next three years.

In a recent planning document, the agency said it would focus on cutting non-essential internal services and target “underperforming areas and sites with low visitation.”

In June, amid news of the first phase of workforce adjustment, observers and public service unions questioned whether the cuts would impact the agency’s ability to deliver on the promise of the Canada Strong Pass, a program offering, among other perks, free admission to national parks and discounts on museums and galleries.

Alex Silas, national executive vice-president with the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC), called the timing “odd.”

“While they’re trying to promote access to Parks Canada parks and historic sites, they’re also weakening our ability to preserve and maintain these historic sites and parks,” he said at the time.

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