Canadians are beginning to feel the effects of the austerity measures laid out in the federal budget last week, with Department of National Defence and CBC employees among the first to report job cuts.
The federal budget outlined a total of 19,200 job cuts to the public service, but said many of those would be achieved through attrition.
The budget also revealed DND would have to cut more than $1.1 billion in spending in the next three years -- the largest dollar figure for any of the departments.
Cuts were also announced at regional economic development agencies, the National Film Board and the CBC.
The Conservatives intend to cut public spending by about $5.2 billion over the next three years.
The Union of National Defence Employees on Wednesday said roughly 1,100 civilian positions will be eliminated at locations across the country.
Union president John MacLellan said the cuts range from research and development to food services. The government has committed to maintaining Canada's current regular and reserve fighting force as is, however.
MacLellan said that means soldiers will end up taking on jobs normally handled by civilians.
The cuts don't exactly mesh with a report by retired general Andrew Leslie, who recommended heavier cuts to management. Those jobs don't appear to be on the chopping block, however.
Defence Minister Peter MacKay said the cuts were the natural fallout from the winding down of the mission in Afghanistan.
"We are now looking at the reorientation of our staff and our other resources," he said in the Commons.
At the CBC, President Hubert Lacroix announced 650 layoffs and a halt of expansion plans in order to cut its budget by 10 per cent.
"Clearly, in light of this reduction, we won't be able to move as far or as fast on certain elements of our 2015 plan as we might have liked," Lacroix said in a statement.
CBC watchers can expect fewer new shows on TV and listeners can expect to start hearing ads on CBC Radio 2.
Marquee programs, such as hockey broadcasts, will not be touched, however.
"Parliament came down with a decision to take $115 million out of our budget. It's going to affect our services, it's going to affect the way we connect with Canadians," Lacroix said in a conference call.
"Our job now is to take this in, adjust and move on."
The public broadcaster will also sell off buildings and move broadcasts of Radio Canada International entirely to the Internet.
CBC received 64 per cent of its budget from the federal government, about $1.15 billion.
At the National Film Board, 73 positions are being cut in Toronto and Montreal.
The Public Service Alliance of Canada also reacted to the pending job cuts on Wednesday, calling for more information from the government and accusing the Conservatives of downplaying the losses.
"Without that information Canadians won't know what services they are losing until they are gone," said Patty Ducharme, PSAC national executive vice-president, in a news release.
Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said repeatedly in the lead-up to the budget that cuts would mostly be to "back office" jobs, and services to Canadians would not be affected.
Ducharme said that's not the reality.
"When you take the 'back office' out of services, you take services away from Canadians," he said.
"We've seen that with cuts to Service Canada, and thousands of people waiting weeks to receive their first Employment Insurance and Old Age Security cheques."
PSAC also disagreed with the government's job-loss count. The estimated 19,200 job losses do not include 6,300 jobs identified earlier as being on the chopping block by 2015, or another 9,700 positions that will be eliminated due to a 2010 personnel freeze.
"Has this government thought through the impact on small- and medium-sized businesses who count those 34,000 public service workers as clients?" said Larry Rousseau, regional executive vice-president for the National Capital Region, in a release.
"There seems to be no accounting for what this means to smaller economies or the Canadian economy as a whole."
