OTTAWA, February 13, 2026 — Against the backdrop of a Canadian dining table set with commonly recalled food products, food safety professionals warned today that federal cuts to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) are weakening Canada’s ability to prevent foodborne illness.
Scientists, veterinarians, and other specialists working in food safety and animal health are among the hardest hit by recent government cuts. The reductions represent nearly one million hours of inspection, laboratory, and surveillance work eliminated annually.
“CFIA experts inspect facilities, test products in laboratories, trace contamination across supply chains, and stop unsafe food before it reaches Canadian’s dining tables,” said PIPSC President Sean O’Reilly. “That work, though quiet, keeps Canadians safe and fed.”
These reductions come after years of chronic understaffing and mounting workload pressures at CFIA. Food safety professionals have been managing increasingly complex supply chains and disease threats with limited resources. PIPSC says the steady erosion of capacity makes the current cuts especially destabilizing.
Stéphanie Fréchette, a CFIA scientist with 30 years of experience, said prevention depends on experienced professionals who understand how food systems fail in practice.
“For 30 years, I’ve worked to prevent foodborne illness before it spreads,” said Fréchette. “We’ve seen what happens when surveillance fails or inspections are missed. Outbreaks grow, recalls widen, and the consequences are devastating. Weakening this system puts Canadians at real risk.”
Canada issues hundreds of food recalls every year. Most are detected early and contained quickly because trained inspectors and scientists identify risks before they spread widely. PIPSC says reducing that capacity shifts risk onto Canadians.
PIPSC is calling for:
- A halt to further workforce cuts
- Immediate public scrutiny of decisions hollowing out food safety capacity
- Prioritizing human expertise over algorithms
PIPSC represents over 85,000 public-sector professionals across the country, most of them employed by the federal government. Follow us on Facebook, on X (formerly known as Twitter) and on Instagram.
-30-
For more information: Johanne Fillion, 613-883-4900 (mobile), jfillion@pipsc.c