The following op-ed by PIPSC President Sean O’Reilly was published in the Hill Times on March 5, 2026.
The assumption appears to be that fewer experts can somehow do more with less—an impossibility in a system already stretched past its limits.
Canada is entering a defining trade moment.
With relations with the United States increasingly volatile, Prime Minister Mark Carney has been clear about the path forward: reduce Canada’s dependence on the U.S., and grow non-American exports by 50 per cent over the next decade.
That goal is ambitious and necessary. But it rests on a critical assumption: that Canada has the public infrastructure needed to earn and maintain the trust of global markets. Right now, that foundation is being weakened.
Cuts to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) threaten one of this country’s most valuable trade assets: confidence in our food safety, and animal and plant health systems. At the precise moment when credibility and speed matter most, Canada is stripping capacity from the system that underpins access to hundreds of international markets.
Canada’s food and agriculture economy is worth $100-billion annually. CFIA’s $839-million budget protects that entire ecosystem of trade—an extraordinary return on investment. Yet, these cuts put it at risk by eliminating over a million hours of inspection, surveillance, and scientific expertise each year. This is not trimming bureaucracy; it is removing the experts who stop disease before it shuts borders down.
Trading partners do not take a country’s word that its animals, plants, or food are safe. Veterinary epidemiologists, disease and insect vector surveillance, and risk analysis are core trade requirements. Cutting this expertise increases the risk of undetected diseases entering Canada, and jeopardizes access to export markets by laying off the very experts who help keep them open.
Imagine an outbreak of a disease such as bluetongue, African swine fever, or even a single case of foot-and-mouth disease without adequate domestic surveillance in place. Canada would lose its export status overnight, devastating entire sectors. Without veterinarians to investigate, contain, and certify disease status, outbreaks spread faster, markets stay closed longer, and losses compound. The risk of zoonotic disease spilling into the human population also grows.
There is no plan for managing these risks under the proposed cuts.
The assumption appears to be that fewer experts can somehow do more with less—an impossibility in a system already stretched past its limits. Workload has surged in the last decade, but staffing hasn’t kept up. Already, this country lacks sufficient veterinary capacity to inspect export trucks before they leave the country. The system is operating without redundancy; further cuts risk removing the safety margin entirely.
The expertise required is neither abundant, nor replaceable. There are only a handful of veterinary epidemiologists in Canada, and only dozens globally. We cannot afford to lose them. Universities and the private sector do not maintain national surveillance systems, nor should they. If CFIA were to lose capacity, the work does not get “streamlined.” It stops.
Diversifying trade to non-U.S. markets will only increase the pressure CFIA faces. Canada’s trade negotiators cannot secure new market access without the surveillance, data, and controls provided by CFIA. Every trading partner imposes commodity-specific requirements that CFIA regulates for export.
To trade, Canada must be able to demonstrate compliance. If a large partner requires expanded monitoring—for example, for insects that may carry bluetongue—and this country lacks the capacity to deliver it, market access is lost and industry suffers the loss. Expanding market access is not achievable if importing countries do not maintain confidence in CFIA’s inspection systems. This makes the Canadian economy more reliant on the U.S., not less.
Strong surveillance is not a luxury; it is the lowest-cost alternative to export bans and preventable public-health emergencies. At a time when Canada is trying to build resilience, economic sovereignty, and independence from a single hegemonic market, weakening the CFIA is reckless and entirely unnecessary, putting billions of dollars in trade at risk.
Sean O’Reilly is the president of the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada.