OTTAWA—Deep cuts at Environment Canada could put public safety at risk from freak weather events and the impacts of climate change, critics warn.

News that scientists, meteorologists and engineers are among 776 jobs on the chopping block has department officials facing tough questions about how they plan to cope.

“It’s a real shock it’s so many,” Green Party Leader Elizabeth May said, calling the cuts “wrong-headed.”

“Show us where these 800 jobs are. Show us how you think the work can still be done. What I’m asking for is some transparency and some answers,” May said in an interview.

“These are deep cuts into programs and services that are indispensable. They need to look at these programs and realize these are public safety questions,” May said, citing water monitoring and changing weather patterns as two examples.

Her complaints were echoed by the Sierra Club, which called the cuts a “blatant attack” on the environment.

“What it will do is give polluters exactly what they want — a toothless, understaffed Environment Canada with weakened scientific capacity and no enforcement capability,” said John Bennett, the organization’s executive director.

But Treasury Board President Tony Clement — whose job is to find $4 billion in annual savings — defended the job cuts, suggesting that the reductions will not affect core services that Canadians count on.

“In terms of what Canadians expect out of Environment Canada — protecting air, protecting water, those kinds of issues — there’s been no diminution,” Clement said Thursday.

“And so Environment Canada is open for business, they’re doing their job and they want to do it more efficiently and (with) better results for Canadians.”

Department officials blamed budget constraints for the cutbacks and suggested more reductions could come as part of the Conservatives’ overall effort to rein in the deficit.

“There will be additional work to be done in terms of reviewing of processes,” spokesperson John Morris said.

“It’s part of our belt-cinching process . . . This is part of our overall mandate to balance the budget by 2014-2015. We’ve been very clear on that,” Morris said.

Still, Clement said Conservatives hope to keep job losses to a minimum during their cost-cutting exercise by relying largely on attrition to reduce the workforce, he said, noting that 11,000 people a year leave the federal government.

“Our intention is to deal with job reductions in the public service as much as humanly possible through attrition,” Clement said.

“I can’t give any guarantees. I’ve made that clear,” he said. “But certainly that’s what we would like to do in most or all of the cases.”

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Clement made the comments as he joined Public Works Minister Rona Ambrose to unveil a new initiative to centralize some of the government’s information technology activities under a new agency called Shared Services Canada.

Ambrose said the Harper government, after studying projected savings from computer centralization in Ontario, Australia and other jurisdictions, hopes to achieve “substantial” cost reductions. The government currently has too many separate information technology platforms, including more than 100 different email systems, 300 data centres and over 3,000 network services, she said.