In labs, field stations, and policy units across the country, federal scientists and researchers are about to be handed pink slips. These job cuts won’t simply be reducing headcount; they will dismantle expertise that takes decades to build. The names of these workers may never make the headlines. But the impacts of their absences could.

Because these eliminated positions represent far more than a reduction in staffing levels, they amount to the dismantling of expertise that has taken decades to build and moments to lose. Remove these workers and you don’t just shrink the public service. You gut Canada’s ability to make informed decisions for years to come.

These are the professionals who form the invisible scaffolding of a functioning country: the ones who track air quality when wildfire smoke blankets our cities, who ensure the medication in your cabinet is safe to take, and who run the IT systems behind emergency benefits and weather........

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