Ottawa is home to the Government Operations Centre (GOC), the little-known federal nerve centre that coordinates Canada's response to wildfires, floods, and other national emergencies — and it's just been hit with deep staffing cuts, according to the union representing the workers who run it.
What's happening
The Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC), the country's largest public sector union, says roughly 50 of the approximately 100 positions at the GOC have been eliminated as part of the Carney government's "comprehensive expenditure review" — the federal cost-cutting exercise aimed at trimming billions from government spending.
The GOC operates out of Ottawa and functions as the federal government's around-the-clock situational awareness hub. When a wildfire threatens to overwhelm provincial resources, when a flood forces evacuations, or when any other large-scale emergency unfolds, it's the GOC that pulls together intelligence, coordinates resources across departments, and helps decide when the military or other federal assets need to get involved.
Why it matters for Ottawa
While the wildfires themselves tend to burn out west or up north, the decisions about how Canada responds to them are made right here in the capital. The GOC is staffed largely by federal employees living and working in the Ottawa region, meaning these cuts land directly on the local public service workforce that makes up such a large share of the city's job base. For a city where entire neighbourhoods — from Barrhaven to Kanata to the west end — are built around federal employment, another round of public service reductions is never just an abstract budget line. It's layoffs, empty desks in Ottawa office towers, and less certainty for the thousands of local families who depend on federal paycheques.
The union's warning
PSAC argues that gutting the GOC's staff by half couldn't come at a worse time, with wildfire seasons growing longer and more destructive across the country in recent years. The union says fewer people monitoring and coordinating the federal emergency response means slower reaction times and less capacity to support provinces when fires escalate quickly — exactly the kind of scenario the centre was built to handle.
Federal officials have framed the broader expenditure review as a necessary effort to rein in government spending, but critics, including PSAC, say front-line emergency coordination functions shouldn't be on the chopping block alongside back-office administrative roles.
What's next
The cuts raise pointed questions for Ottawa-area MPs and federal officials about how the government plans to maintain emergency preparedness with a skeleton crew at the GOC heading into future fire seasons. PSAC has indicated it will continue pushing back on the reductions and is calling for the positions to be restored before disaster strikes again.
For now, the centre that's supposed to help keep the rest of Canada safe from wildfires is operating with half the team it had before — right here in Ottawa.
Source: Ottawa Citizen
