Category Archives: Canadian Federal Workers

Federal programs and research facilities that have been shut down or had their funding reduced

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THE FIFTH ESTATE Friday January 10, 2014 in Science and Technology

Hundreds of federal programs and world renowned research facilities have been shut down or had their funding reduced by the federal government. This list was compiled by the Canadian Association of University Teachers and the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada. If you are a federal government scientist or researcher and your program, project, or research facility has been affected by the cuts we would like to hear from you, please comment below or send us an email at fifth@cbc.ca

  • Environmental Emergency Response Program
  • Urban Wastewater Program
  • Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences
  • Smokestacks Emissions Monitoring Team
  • Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission
  • National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy
  • Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency, Winnipeg Office
  • Municipal Water and Wastewater Survey
  • Environmental Protection Operations
  • Compliance Promotion Program
  • Action Plan on Clean Water
  • Polar Environment Atmospheric Research Laboratory (PEARL) (PEARL lost its $1.5 million annual budget when the government stopped funding the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Science (CFCAS) . In May 2013, the federal government announced the facility would get a $ 1 million a year grant for the next five years. But according to Professor Tom Duck, of Dalhousie University, with the loss of CFCAS, atmospheric and climate research will be funded at less than 70 per cent of the level it was funded at in 2006.)
  • Sustainable Water Management Division
  • Environmental Effects Monitoring Program
  • Federal Contaminated Sites Action Plan
  • Chemicals Management Plan
  • Canadian Centre for Inland Waters
  • Clean Air Agenda
  • Air Quality Health Index
  • Species at Risk Program
  • Weather and Environmental Services
  • Substance and Waste Management
  • Ocean Contaminants & Marine Toxicology Program
  • Experimental Lakes Area (Under the Bill-38 the ELA was shut down. As of January 2014, the International Institute for Sustainable Development and the Ontario government are working out an agreement with the federal government to take over the facility.)
  • DFO Marine Science Libraries
  • Centre for Offshore Oil & Gas Energy Research
  • Kitsilano Coast Guard Station
  • St. Johns Marine Traffic Centre
  • St. Anthony’s Marine Traffic Centre
  • Conservation and Protection Office
  • Conservation and Protection Office (L’anse au Loup, NL)
  • Conservation and Protection Office (Trepassey, NL)
  • Conservation and Protection Office (Rigolet, NL)
  • Conservation and Protection Office (Burgeo, NL)
  • Conservation and Protection Office (Arnold’s Cove, NL)
  • Conservation and Protection Office (Baddeck, NS)
  • Conservation and Protection Office (Canso, NS)
  • Conservation and Protection Office (Sheet Harbour, NS)
  • Conservation and Protection Office (Woodstock, NB)
  • Conservation and Protection Office (Port Hood, NS)
  • Conservation and Protection Office (Wallace, NS)
  • Conservation and Protection Office (Kedgwick, NB)
  • Conservation and Protection Office (Montague, PEI)
  • Conservation and Protection Office (Inuvik, NT)
  • Conservation and Protection Office (Rankin Inlet, NU)
  • Conservation and Protection Office (Clearwater, BC)
  • Conservation and Protection Office (Comox, BC)
  • Conservation and Protection Office (Hazelton, BC)
  • Conservation and Protection Office (Quesnel, BC)
  • Conservation and Protection Office (Pender Harbour, BC)
  • Atlantic Lobster Sustainability Measures Program
  • Species-at-Risk Program
  • Habitat Management Program
  • DFO Institute of Ocean Sciences (Sidney, BC)
  • Freshwater Institute – Winnipeg
  • Oil Spill Counter-Measures Team
  • Maurice-Lamontagne Institute’s French language library
  • Canadian Coast Guard Management
  • Water Pollution Research Lab (Sidney, BC)
  • Water Pollution Research Lab (Winnipeg, MB)
  • Water Pollution Research Lab (Burlington, ON)
  • Water Pollution Research Lab (Mont-Joli, QC)
  • Water Pollution Research Lab (Moncton, NB)
  • Water Pollution Research Lab (Dartmouth, NS)
  • St. Andrew Biological Station
  • Canadian Scientific Submersible Facility
  • Ice Information Partnership
  • Motor Vehicle Fleet
  • Inshore Rescue Boat Program
  • Species at Risk Atlantic Salmon Production Facilities
  • Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization
  • At-Sean Observer Programs
  • Financial Management Services
  • Pacific Forestry Centre, Satellite Office (Prince George, BC)
  • Canadian Centre for Remote Sensing
  • Pulp and Paper Green Transformation Program
  • Isotopes Supply Initiative
  • Clean Energy Fund
  • Sustainable Development Technology Canada – Next Generation Biofuels Fund
  • Program of Energy Research and Development
  • Pacific Forestry Centre
  • Astronomy Interpretation Centre – Centre of the Universe
  • MRI research, Institute Biodiagnostics
  • Polar Continental Shelf Progam
  • Canadian Neutron Beam Centre
  • Aquatic Ecotoxicology, Aquatic and Crop Resource Development
  • Molecular Biochemistry Laboratory, Aquatic and Crop Resource Development
  • Plant Metabolism Research, Aquatic and Crop Resource Development
  • Human Health Therapeutics research program
  • Automotive and Surface Transportation program
  • Magnetic Resonance Imaging Research
  • Environmental Risks to Health program
  • Substance Use and Abuse program
  • First Nations and Inuit Primary Health Care program
  • Health Infrastructure Support for First Nations and Inuit program
  • Interim Federal Health Program
  • Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration
  • Environmental Knowledge, Technology, Information, and Measurement program
  • Science, Innovation and Adoption program
  • Rural and Co-operatives Development program
  • Farm Debt Mediation Service
  • Centre for Plant Health (Sidney, BC)
  • National Aboriginal Health Organization
  • First Nations Statistical Institute
  • Cultural Connections for Aboriginal Youth
  • First Nations and Inuit Health
  • Fertilizer Pre-Market Efficacy Assessment program
  • Enforcement of Product of Canada label
  • RADARSAT Constellation Mission
  • Whapmagoostui-Kuujjuarapik Research station
  • Kluane Lake Research Station
  • Bamfield Marine Science Centre
  • Microfungal Collection and Herborium
  • Biogeoscience Institute
  • Coriolis II research Vessel
  • OIE Laboratory for Infectious Salmon Anaemia
  • Canadian Phycological Culture Centre
  • Brockhouse Institute
  • Polaris Portable Observatories for Lithospheric Analysis and Research
  • Mount Megantic Observatory
  • Smoke Stacks Emissions Monitoring Team
  • National Roundtable on the Environment and Economy
  • Environmental Protections Operations Compliant Promotion Program,
  • Sustainable Water Management Division,
  • Environmental Effects Monitoring program,
  • Fresh Water Institute
  • Canadian Centre for Inlands Waters (Burlington)
  • World Ozone and Ultraviolet Radiation Data Centre
  • Environmental Emergencies Program
  • Parks Canada
  • Montreal Biosphere
  • Statistics Canada
  • Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences
  • Laboratory for the Analysis of Natural and Synthetic Environmental Toxicants
  • National Ultrahigh-field NMR Facility for Solids
  • IsoTrace AMS Facility
  • Canadian Phycological Culture Centre
  • Canadian Resource Centre for Zebrafish Genetics
  • Neuroendocrinology Assay Laboratory at the University of Western Ontario
  • Canadian Centre for DNA Barcoding
  • Portable Observatories for Lithospheric Analysis and Research Investigating (POLARIS) (Ontario)
  • Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics
  • Brockhouse Institute for Materials Research
  • St. John’s Centrifuge Modelling Facility
  • Quebec/Eastern Canada high field NMR facility
  • Félix d’Hérelle Reference Center for Bacterial Viruses
  • Canadian Neutron Beam Laboratory
  • The Compute/Calcul Canada
  • Center for Innovative Geochronology
  • Biogeoscience Institute
  • Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences
  • Pacific Northwest Consortium Synchrotron Radiation Facility
  • Centre for Molecular and Materials Science at TRIUMF
  • Pacific Centre for Isotopic and Geochemical Research
  • Canadian Cosmogenic Nuclide Exposure Dating Facility
  • Atlantic Regional Facilities for Materials Characterization
  • The Canadian SuperDARN/PolarDARN facility

Postal workers: pensions, privatization and the public good

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By:  Pam Johnson   January 4, 2014 http://www.socialist.ca

Scrooge-like Canada Post CEO, Deepak Chopra, announced the phase out of door-to-door mail delivery by 2015 just before the Christmas holidays. Then, attempting to quell the outrage this sparked, said it is a good idea because seniors will get more exercise going to the community mailbox. Facepalm.

The announcement of 8,000 job cuts and the end of home delivery is not a surprise given the Harper government’s ideological attacks on public services and public sector workers. But, there is a great deal of confusing information that is spinning the message.

First, the main message is that home delivery is obsolete in the age of the internet. Yet, Canada Post has recently massively invested in a modernization project, including vans for letter carriers so that they can deliver parcels to meet the rising online shopping demand. Second, the government has raised postal rates and is claiming Canada Post is a burden on taxpayers and we can’t afford it. But the reality is that Canada Post is self-sustaining and in sixteen out of the last seventeen years it has made millions in profits. That money has gone back into government coffers–representing a net gain to taxpayers.

Pension Shortfall

The issue that is sparking the current cutback is a pension shortfall that would require the government to kick in to the pension fund to maintain its viability.

The 2008 economic crisis put the squeeze on investments and the fund did not perform as predicted. Although the Harper government extended billions of dollars to Canadian banks to head off the kind of meltdowns that happened in the US and it continues to give generous tax breaks to corporations, they are not willing to bail out workers.

Similar to the deal offered to Air Canada this year, the Harper government is willing to allow Canada Post to spread out pension contribution over an extended period. But there are conditions. Just as Air Canada has hammered away at its workers to keep costs down, Canada Post must do the same. The job and service cuts are the result.

Privatization Boondoggle

The other puzzling question is why is Canada Post investing so heavily in modernizing an “obsolete” service? The answer is privatization. A brief look at what has been happening in the UK since the Royal Mail was privatized in the fall 2013 is enlightening.

Although the Royal Mail was valued at 10 billion pounds it was sold at the fire sale price of 3.3 billion pounds. The banks that advised the government on the sale were allotted thirteen million shares as the stock price was going through the roof. The share price went up 67 per cent in the two weeks following the sale. This was on top of seventeen million pounds in fees the banks got for advising on the sale.

The modernization of Canada Post at the same moment as it is being called obsolete opens the door to the opportunity to sell it to corporate interests at a bargain price.

Outrage, resistance and a militant history

In the polls, 58 per cent were outraged by the cuts announcement. Postal workers rallied at MP’s office across Canada and handed a 10,000 signature petition to Labour Minister Lisa Raitt’s constituency office in Milton, Ontario. An apt cartoon, showing the politicians congratulating themselves while seniors crawled to a mailbox summed up the sentiment of many.

It was postal workers who led a strike, initiated by francophone and anglophone workers in Montreal and Vancouver, that led to the unionization of all public sector workers in Canada. They unionized and established the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) to end decades of poverty wages and poor working conditions.  

In an historic 1981 strike, postal workers walked out for maternity leave and won. This victory led to maternity leave for all public sector employees.

Postal workers are organizing in response to this latest attack and with public sentiment on their side is the opportunity to once again, fight for good jobs and services.

Show your support for postal workers by putting a sign in your window and talking to your postie if you have home delivery. Sign and circulate the petition in your workplace, campus and neighbourhood. Pass resolutions in your union locals and join or start a support campaign in your area.

Georgetti: The Tories Attack on the Middle Class Should Worry You

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Ken GeorgettiKen Georgetti    President, Canadian Labour Congress

12/04/2013   http://www.huffingtonpost.ca

The Conservative government is engaged in a campaign to distract their supporters from a series of Senate scandals and cover ups. The Conservative fundraising machine believes that if it feeds its base a constant diet of someone to dislike, the donation cheques will keep rolling in. Workers and their unions are their current targets with a long list of legislation designed to keep their base happy.

The Conservative government’s recent volleys against workers and their unions will only serve to undercut the well-being and security of middle-class families in Canada if they succeed in pushing through their anti-union legislation. The Globe and Mail said as much in a recent series of articles on growing inequality in Canada — “declining unionization has contributed to wage inequality.”

Canada’s labour movement is not just about decent jobs, it’s about a better life for everyone. Unions have worked to protect good jobs, make workplaces safer, fought for paid vacation time, public health insurance and the Canada Pension Plan. When union members stand up for fairness everyone benefits — whether you belong to a union or not.

Canadians will see through the government’s attempts to divide people against one another. At one end of the legislative spectrum, the government uses giant omnibus bills to throw everything but the kitchen sink into one piece of legislation. The current budget bill runs to 308 pages and in the fine print it makes sudden and dramatic changes to the Canada Labour Code. One of those changes would place workers’ lives at risk by eroding their right to refuse dangerous work.

Other amendments to federal labour laws would erode workers’ constitutional right to bargain collectively by letting the government unilaterally, without negotiation, change the rules for bargaining with their employees. To add insult to injury, witnesses to the parliamentary committee studying the bill who would speak out against the changes were deliberately scheduled to testify after the deadline for the committee to make amendments passed.

What is the government really trying to fix here? We know that well over 99 per cent of all collectively bargained contracts in Canada result in an agreement rather than a strike or lockout. There was no consultation with any of the parties affected by this proposed legislation, and changing the rules without consultation and negotiation is simply heavy-handed and unfair. Given the Supreme Court of Canada will soon rule on very similar legislation introduced by the Saskatchewan government, the ideological cousins of this government, it’s also premature.

At the other end of the legislative spectrum, the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) is offending parliamentary tradition by using its influence to introduce Private Member’s Bills and to force their passage. That is what happened with Bill C-377, an unconstitutional piece of legislation that will force labour organizations (but no one else) to undertake costly and time consuming reporting of even the most minute of financial transactions.

Bill C-377 was supposedly the initiative of backbench Conservative MP Russ Hiebert but we know that special interest groups met frequently with the PMO, including the Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff Nigel Wright, and the PMO exerted pressure in order for the bill to pass.

The senate found Bill C-377 to be so offensive that it was sent back to the House of Commons in June with numerous amendments. But then the Prime Minister shut down Parliament and Bill C-377 is now going to be sent to the senate all over again. Bill C-377 is ideologically-motivated and aimed at wasting union members’ money and it is not needed. Our members already have access to financial information about the unions to which they belong.

Bill C-525, another Private Member’s Bill put forward by a Conservative MP, would make it nearly impossible for workers in the federally-regulated sector to join a union. The bill would consider workers who don’t bother to vote in a certification vote as casting “no” ballots on having a union. That’s not democratic — giving those who don’t vote control over those who do. If those rules applied to electing MPs, Parliament would be empty. One set of rules for Conservatives and a different set for workers — that’s unfair.

Finally, the recent Conservative Party convention in Calgary passed a number of aggressively anti-worker resolutions. One of them would allow some workers to stop paying union dues but still receive all the benefits that the union negotiates – all at the expense of their coworkers who do pay their dues. Leave it to ethically-challenged Conservatives, counselling people that it’s okay to dine and dash at a restaurant while leaving others at your table to pay the bill. That’s unfair and it’s a recipe for conflict and disruption in the workplace.

This government puts its extreme ideology ahead of all other considerations, but Canadians see these bullying tactics for what they are. The CLC and its affiliates ran a television advertising campaign during October and November 2013. We talked directly to Canadians about the positive role that the labour movement plays in our society. The response to our campaign has been overwhelmingly positive from both union members and the public at large. That response and our polling shows that we are on the side of the vast majority of Canadians. They will support a labour movement that works in the interest of fairness for everyone.

Ken Georgetti is president of the 3.3 million member Canadian Labour Congress.

Should the public service have the right to strike? YES

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By Jim Stanford, Ottawa Citizen November 26, 2013

Should the public service have the right to strike? YES   Photograph by: Chris Mikula , The Ottawa Citizen

It might seem like ancient history, but it wasn’t long ago that Canadian governments knew how to balance their books — and then some. The collective operating surplus of Canadian governments in 2007 equalled almost $40 billion. Teachers, nurses, and other public servants did their jobs. Tax revenues were more than sufficient to pay for their valuable work (in fact, average tax rates were falling, not rising).

Then along came a global financial meltdown. (No one argues, by the way, that it was caused by teachers, nurses and civil servants.) Surpluses dissolved into deficits: not huge, by historic or international standards, but significant. And some political leaders made tackling the deficit their defining crusade. Showing they could manage their own finances helped them pretend they were in control of the worrisome events around them. In that effort, public sector workers and their unions presented a politically convenient target.

It’s not that public sector compensation costs caused the deficit (which didn’t exist, remember, until 2008). Nor would squeezing public employees be central to the deficit reduction exercise. At the federal level, direct compensation accounts for only 8.5 cents of each dollar in total government spending, and that ratio has been stable. Achieving, say, a wage freeze instead of paying a normal two-per-cent annual increase, on that small share of spending, could make no noticeable difference to the fiscal trajectory.

Nor was strike activity crippling the economy and service delivery. In fact, the incidence of work stoppage (measured by days lost per worker to strikes and lockouts) fell in 2012 to the lowest since statistics began in 1946: down over 95 per cent compared to the strike-happy 1970s. Public sector workers are less likely to go on strike, not more: they’ve accounted for one-third of all work stoppage days in the last decade, even though they now make up over half of all union members.

No, tilting at public sector unions is all about politics, not economics. Governments want to change the channel from persistent economic stagnation and embarrassing scandals. Workers in the private sector suffered during the recession, politicians argue (not that they act to support private sector workers, either). So it’s about time public sector workers suffer, too. The logic of this ideology of “shared misery” may be bizarre, but it’s politically potent.

Thus began the latest chapter in a long-standing Canadian tradition: when times are tough, blame the unions. And then take away their right to strike. It’s happened over 200 times in Canada in the last 30 years.

The latest example is Bill C-4. It would give the federal government unilateral power to define who can strike and who can’t (contrary to past practice and international convention). The government won’t detail how this will happen until after the law is passed. In a true Catch-22, the bill would also neuter the arbitration process for workers who can’t strike. And the whole process is buried within a 321-page omnibus bill, debate on which was curtailed two days after it was introduced. Bill C-4 is an affront to democracy — both in Parliament, and in the workplace.

The attack on public sector labour rights is usually justified by the claim that unions have soaked taxpayers through their irresistible demands. This claim is not supported. In practice, public sector bargaining tends to follow economy-wide trends, but with a lag. Public sector wages were much lower before public sector unionization took off in the 1970s. Wages caught up in the 1980s, then fell behind again during the austere 1990s. The public sector did better in the mid-2000s. But more recently, bargaining has clearly responded to tough times: for four years running, public sector settlements have lagged well behind private sector deals, and behind the general growth of earnings in the overall economy.

Average earnings in the public sector are five to 10 per cent higher than economy averages (depending on how they are measured) — but education and credentials are significantly higher, too. Comparing similar occupations and credentials, it’s largely a wash. Women make more in the public sector than in the private sector, but men make less. The whole wage scale is compressed (with a higher bottom and a lower top). But overall public sector compensation is not out of whack — and powerful economic and political pressures tend to keep it that way.

Governments are the only employer with the power to “solve” their labour relations problems by simply dictating a settlement. The potential for misuse of this confluence of fiscal interest and political power is enormous. Most private sector employers would love to outlaw strikes and dictate wage outcomes, but they can’t — and for good reason. Where public employees provide a genuinely essential service (like fire, police, and some health services), there’s no debate: in place of strikes or lockouts, a neutral arbitration system should replicate collective bargaining outcomes without work stoppage. But other public sector workers must have the same rights as anyone else in our society to organize themselves and promote their interests, up to and including withdrawing their labour if that’s necessary to get a deal.

Jim Stanford is an economist with the trade union Unifor. Tuesday night at the Canadian War Museum, in a debate hosted by the Macdonald-Laurier Institute and moderated by former House speaker Peter Milliken, economist Jim Stanford and professor Tom Flanagan debated the resolution “The right to strike has no place in the public sector.”

© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

Public sector employee protections watered down under bill C-4

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Monday, 11 November 2013 08:00 | Written By Barry Goldman and Matthew Scott

On Oct. 22, the government of Canada introduced bill C-4, a massive piece of omnibus budget legislation containing reforms and amendments to many existing laws.

The amendments affect a number of laws, including the Public Service Labour Relations Act.

The bill C-4 amendments to the act would remove many labour rights public service employees are entitled to under current legislation. Sweeping reforms to the definition of essential services, the mandate of the Public Service Labour Relations Board, the right to strike by public servants, and the financial nature of the arbitral and conciliation awards the board may grant would, among other things, effectively neuter the bargaining rights of the affected members of the public sector.

The opening volley on bargaining rights is a subtle change to the mandate of the board under s. 13 of the act. Previously, the board had a mandate to provide “adjudication services, mediation services, and compensation analysis and research services” in accordance with the act. But the amendments in s. 295 of bill C-4 dispense with the compensation analysis and research services powers of the board. That means the board could now only provide adjudication and mediation services. The change foreshadows amendments that will dramatically modify the board’s powers with respect to arbitral and conciliation awards.

The amendments to the act redefine essential services as being “a service, facility or activity of the government of Canada that has been determined under subsection 119(1) to be essential.” Under the old language of Division 8 of the act, the employer had only the exclusive right to determine the level at which an essential service could be provided. The employer and employees had to co-operate to determine which employees were affected and then enter into an essential services agreement. Failure to agree would result in intervention by the board.

The new language under s. 305 of bill C-4 would give employers the exclusive right to determine if a service, facility, or activity is essential “because it is or will be necessary for the safety or security of the public.” It would also give employers “the exclusive right to designate the positions in a bargaining unit that include duties that, in whole or in part, are or will be necessary for the employer to provide essential services, and the employer may exercise that right at any time.”

These changes would most certainly reduce the ability of federal public servants to strike. Bill C-4 also amends the process for dispute resolution under the act. It says bargaining units in which 80 per cent or more of the employees are designated as essential may not strike and must resolve their disputes through arbitration. Furthermore, bill C-4 would bolster s. 194(2) of the act that prohibits an employee organization such as a union from declaring or authorizing a strike, the effect of which would be to involve the participation of employees designated as essential by the employer.

Also, under bill C-4, no officer or representative of an employee organization would be able to counsel or procure the declaration or authorization of a strike with respect to an essential bargaining unit or counsel or procure the participation of those employees in a strike. Given that an employer would be able to designate employees as essential at any time, the change could very well make it significantly more difficult for employee organizations to secure strike votes in the future.

After having restricted the ability of employee organizations to engage in concerted labour action, the amendments would also rewrite the rules involving arbitrations and conciliations before the board. Before, under s. 148 of the act, the board had a broad spectrum of factors to consider in making an arbitral award as well as the ability to look at any other factors it deemed relevant. The new amendments strip the board of these broad powers.

Now the considerations take the form of preponderant and other factors. The term preponderant factors contains new elements, including consideration of whether the compensation levels are a “prudent use of public funds” and “Canada’s fiscal circumstances relative to its stated budgetary policies.” Likewise, the term “other factors” is a category to which many of the former considerations under the current act have been relegated. There have also been similar amendments to the conciliation provisions set out in the new s. 175 of the act.

And bill C-4 goes even further. If passed, it would allow the chairperson, either by fiat or on the application of either of the parties, to direct the board to review the matter if, in the chairperson’s opinion, the decision does not represent a reasonable application of the s. 148 factors highlighted above. This new mechanism can force the board to reconsider decisions it could have made, without internal review, under the current act where it has considered the s. 148 factors but failed to do so in a “reasonable” manner.

There’s no doubt bill C-4 will have an impact on federal public servants. Although the act was not a perfect piece of legislation regarding the collective bargaining rights of federal public servants, it did afford reasonable protections. The amendments incorporated within bill C-4 have definitely watered down employee powers and protections and, in the process, effectively removed many of those rights.

Barry Goldman is a partner at Shibley Righton LLP and a member of its labour and employment law group. Matthew Scott is a litigation associate in the firm’s Toronto office and is also a member of its labour and employment law group.