Remote Meeting with Minister of Digital Government Joyce Murray

As we continue our best to represent and advocate for our members despite the current situation with COVID-19, we wanted to share with you an important meeting we held by teleconference with Minister Joyce Murray. 

On March 12th, I had an already scheduled meeting with Minister Murray concerning her new Digital Government portfolio. We decided to do the call by teleconference and it went very well. Given that we had an established relationship with her from her time in the last Parliament as President of the Treasury Board, we were easily able to engage in some very interesting and fruitful dialogue. 

We discussed the need to keep the NextGen project, the replacement for Phoenix, moving along quickly and effectively. The Minister assured us that the project was her top priority and that PIPSC and our own government IT members would remain key partners. I also discussed the need with her to move forward on a feasibility study for the Canadian Revenue Agency to switch more quickly to the SAP solution.

I was very pleased to hear the Minister's focus on training and professional development of our IT government community. We know it is a priority for our members and key to successfully digitizing and modernizing the government’s IT systems. Minister Murray actually brought it up before I could, which I found very reassuring. She told me about her plans to push for more resources for digital training. I expressed our desire to work in partnership with her. Please stay tuned for more details on this!

In closing it was a successful first meeting and we are looking forward to continued work together to the mutual benefit of our members. Despite the current situation with COVID-19, my team and I here at PIPSC are doing our best to continue serving you, our members, during this difficult period. 

Debi Daviau,
President


5 March 2019
Protecting our members’ pensions remains a top priority for PIPSC. On February 26, 2019 CRPEG President Jonathan Fitzpatrick was joined by Canadian Alliance of Nuclear Workers (CANW) representatives Steven Schumann and Matt Wayland  in a meeting with three members of the Opposition on Parliament Hill. The issue: the return of Canadian Nuclear Laboratories workers into a public service pension plan.

28 February 2019
The news this week that it will take a further three to five years to clean up the Phoenix backlog, and 10 or more years to stabilize the system, makes it obvious that on the third anniversary of the launch of the Phoenix pay system we should be laser-focused on implementing its replacement as soon as possible.

21 February 2019
On Tuesday February 5th PIPSC members were on Parliament Hill to discuss the importance of the critical public services we deliver to Canadians. A delegation of close to 30 members, representing a range of Groups and Regions, met with over 30 Parliamentarians. It was a unique opportunity to bring key priorities directly to the decision makers.

20 February 2019
PIPSC recently submitted comments to Finance Canada’s public consultation into draft legislative proposals related to salary overpayments.

11 February 2019
On February 6, 2019, PIPSC President Debi Daviau and Steward Éric Massey, Nurse at the Archambault Institution in Sainte-Anne-des-Plaines, Quebec appeared before the Senate Standing Committee on Human Rights to discuss the issues faced by our members at correctional institutions across Canada, in particular those of our health care services members (SH Group).

16 January 2019
The federal government has just announced that it is proposing new measures to help correct the wide-ranging issue of employees having to repay the gross instead of the net amount of a salary overpayment caused by system, administrative or clerical errors. This is particularly significant for PIPSC members: tens of thousands of you have experienced this problem first-hand thanks to the calamitous Phoenix system.