Global Affairs Canada laying off highest-skilled diplomats, union says
Global News
The cuts come as Global Affairs Canada sets out its plans to meet budget belt tightening requirements laid out by Prime Minister Mark Carney last year.
The union representing staff at Global Affairs Canada says the foreign service is laying off dozens of its highest-skilled diplomats, while asking other envoys moving across continents to wait months for their personal items.
The cuts come as Global Affairs Canada sets out its plans to meet budget belt tightening requirements laid out by Prime Minister Mark Carney last year.
The department targets for layoffs are causing an uproar among former diplomats and international relations experts, who say the government’s cuts are odds with Ottawa trying to gain influence at a time of geopolitical calamity.
“The attrition rate that they’re looking at is going to hit missions abroad pretty hard,” said Pam Isfeld, a career diplomat and president of the Professional Association of Foreign Service Officers.
“I just don’t think that things have really been thought through,” she said.
The latest departmental plan for Global Affairs Canada, published on March 13, says GAC will cut 1,240 full-time equivalents by March 2029, a cut of 9.4 per cent of the 13,185 staff equivalent as of March 2025.
In January, the department issued notices to 3,095 staff warning they may lose their jobs, though some of those may switch to different roles or be spared if others quit or retire.
Global Affairs Canada previously said it must trim its workforce 12 to 13 per cent by 2030.
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