Employees at RCMP national headquarters in Ottawa receive workforce adjustment notices

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More than 250 employees at the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) national headquarters in Ottawa have been notified their jobs may be affected by possible job cuts in the federal public service.

As part of Budget 2025, the RCMP was directed to find $6 billion in savings over four years and $713 million in ongoing savings as part of the federal government’s comprehensive expenditure review. The budget outlines the plan to cut another 28,000 positions from the federal public service by 2029.

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The RCMP confirms to CTV News Ottawa a total of 285 employees at the national headquarters in Ottawa received affected letters, “signaling their area of work is being impacted.” The RCMP did not say how many positions will be cut.

“This is not the number of employees who will be declared surplus,” the RCMP said.

“The final number is pending the outcome of the Career Transition and (workforce adjustment) processes, voluntary departure, attrition and early retirement.”

The RCMP said it explored “all reasonable options to avoid career transition and (workforce adjustment), including cost containment measures, staffing freezes, attrition, and vacancy management.”

“RCMP’s reductions aim to strike a balance between finding efficiencies and increasing support to operations,” the RCMP said.

“The reductions are exclusively in branches at our National Headquarters in Ottawa. There will be no impacts on operational front-line services.”

Budget 2025 said the RCMP would reduce expenditures at its national headquarters, “by centralizing, restructuring and right-sizing key national and administrative functions.”

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The federal budget said the budget will still make “significant investments in the RCMP to expand its capacity by hiring 1,000 personnel to increase federal policy capacity across Canada.”

According to the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat, the RCMP employed 11,220 people as of March 31, 2025, up from 6,437 employees in March 2015.

The Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat says more than 24,000 employees and executives have received workforce adjustment letters since the start of December. The government plans to cut more than 9,000 positions from departments in the core public administration, which includes the RCMP.

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