Abolition of 250 full -time equivalent positions at the CNESST

While complaint files accumulate the committee of standards, equity, health and occupational safety (CNESST), in particular since the recruitment freezing imposed on the public service last fall, the organization has just learned that it will have to slash in its staff to comply with the budgetary restrictions imposed by Quebec.

For financial financial year 2025-2026, the Treasury Board Secretariat (STC) awarded the Cness A target of reduction of its workforce of 250 full time equivalents (etc.).

We are currently finalizing our analyzes relating to the achievement of this target. Several means are envisaged as the non-compliance of vacant positions, the non-replacement of retirements and the end or the non-renewal of certain occasional employee contractsindicates the Cness In an email at Radio-Canada.

As of December 31, 2024, the staff of the public organization amounted to around 5050 ETC. This means that the budgetary effort requested by Quebec will force it to depart from 5 % of its staff.

According to the Union of the Public Service and Parapublique du Québec (SFPQ), these cuts will inevitably repercussions on the provision of the services offered to the population.

Less surveillance

By cutting 250 people, automatically, it’s less services, it’s less work that will be done for people who need the Cness. And currently, we see the level that increases, the work that increases and the deadlines that increase everywhere Cnessin all servicesdenounces in an interview on Radio-Canada the President of the SFPQChristian Daigle.

His union expects the reduction in staff to result in a significant decrease in the surveillance activities carried out by the employees of the Cness (Expanded survey, prevention monitoring, surveillance following a denunciation, etc.).

This is without counting the impacts apprehended on the processing deadlines for compensation files.

Data that Radio-Canada has obtained from the Cness Show that between December 31, 2024 and June 30, 2025, complaints for occupational diseases awaiting eligibility increased from 14,956 files to 16,309 files. This corresponds to an increase of 9 %.

Overflow at theIVAC

The accumulation of files is even more impressive on the side of requests presented within the framework of the compensation program for victims of criminal acts (IVAC), whose general management is the responsibility of the Cness.

In the first six months of 2025, requests awaiting eligibility increased by 25.21 %, from 13,609 to 17,041 files. These figures include both criminal acts and those of civic acts.

The increase in processing times is not without consequences for people awaiting a decision, underlines Christian Daigle.

These people, sometimes, wait to receive amounts of money and they have to wait longer due to deadlines. So they find themselves in precariousness at this leveldeplores the general president of SFPQ.

He struggles to understand why the Legault government persists in wanting to reduce the staff of the public service at a time when the population of Quebec is increasing each year by several tens of thousands residents.

With information from Flavie Villeneuve