It was the news Gerald Roussell had been afraid of.

“I knew it was coming,” the 58-year-old said. “First time in my life I got laid off from any job I ever had.”

The man who once earned a medal for saving lives as a navy firefighter now stands outside the gates of the HMC dockyard where he is losing his job. As of next month, the veteran will become one of nine fire watch commissionaires to be laid off as a result of the Conservative government’s cuts to the Department of National Defence.

Now all that’s left for Roussell is to apply for unemployment.  

“Here at my age, 58-years-old, who’s going to hire you on?” the Dartmouth resident says. “I want to work, I’m able to work,  but can’t work ‘cause of layoffs.”

With 15 jobs slashed in the past two years, it’s been a reality that has loomed over the dockyard for some time, said 54-year-old Allen Dejan. The military veteran who served 20 years can barely talk about losing his job without choking up.

“It’s tough”, he says. “All I can say is it’s tough.”

Fire watch commissionaires work with tradespeople who perform welding, burning or other “hot” jobs aboard ships at the naval base. They have specialized training as fire sentries and are responsible to protect the safety of workers.

Because military and police veterans come with years of experience and have undergone basic firefighter training,  they are commonly hired as commissionaires once they leave the service, explains NDP Veterans Affair critic Peter Stoffer.

“They provide an invaluable service to Canada,” he said.

Stoffer along with Member of Parliament Robert Chisholm gathered with fire watch commissionaires at a press conference Friday to shed light on the ongoing job cuts.

They say dozens of people are losing their jobs as a result of a private sector contract with Commissionaires Nova Scotia being eliminated.

“It just doesn’t make any sense at all,” Stoffer said. He sees these cuts as undermining the Harper government’s earlier promise to hire more veterans for federal public service jobs.

In the 2014 budget, the Conservative government proposed changes to the Public Service Employment Act in order to give preference to veterans and former Canadian Forces members  who are applying for government jobs.

The budget estimates that every year approximately 7,600 members of the Canadian Forces leave, including 1,000 due to medical reasons.

“Finding meaningful employment is a key factor in making a successful transition to civilian life,” reads the report.

The budget’s proposals fall in line with Bill C-II or The Priority for Hiring Injured Veterans Act, which parliament amended last fall in order to create more job opportunities for veterans.

“It’s extremely hypocritical,” Stoffer said. “The government on one hand cannot say, ‘we’re going to hire veterans,’ and on the other hand lay a whole bunch of them off.”

He not only worries what message this sends to veterans but fears what these job cuts mean for the safety of tradespeople at the dockyard.  

"We’re the frontline,” Dejan explains. “You’re talking about fire that will take a second and could burn down a ship. It happens so quick that it we’re not there (in) the first second,then it’s too late.”

Commissionaires say another two rounds of cuts are expected in the fall, which would leave only nine on the job.

“It’s a family we’ve got down here,” Rousell says. “If we’re all going to be gone we should be gone as a group.”

The plan is to replace the commissionaires with navy personnel, Stoffer said. Besides the safety risk in bringing in less experienced workers, he thinks the decision is financially absurd and will end up costing taxpayers more money in the end.  

“Why would you retrain a whole bunch of people to do a job that folks that at a very affordable rate are already doing?” Stoffer said.

He points out how jobs cuts have already caused a delay in work.  A project that was supposed to be completed on Friday was postponed until Tuesday due to a shortage of staff. Stoffer is concerned about what future cuts will mean once next year’s shipbuilding contact gets underway and there are fewer people to do an increased amount of work.

He does not believe Minister of Veterans’ Affairs Julien Fantino knows what’s going on and will ask for the cuts to stop when he meets with federal officials in June.

In the meantime, Roussell predicts something bad will have to happen first before anything changes.

“What’s more important: saving a few dollars or a human life?” he said.