11 October 2017, Ottawa — Public service workers will be holding a rally in front of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s office on October 12 to tell the Liberal government that: Enough is enough! Fix Phoenix now and pay damages to workers!

When: 12 October 2017 at 12:30pm

Where: Corner of Wellington and Elgin

What:

• Rally to protest Phoenix pay system.
• Photo ops:
  • crowds with placards.
• Interview ops:
  • Greg McGillis, Regional Executive Vice President for the National Capital Region, Public Service Alliance of Canada
  • Debi Daviau, President, The Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada
  • Sean McKenny, President, Ottawa & District Labour Council

Media Contacts:

Alroy Fonseca
Regional Political Communications Officer
PSAC National Capital Region
613-262-3658 | fonseca@psac-afpc.com

Johanne Fillion
Press Officer
PIPSC
613-883-4900 | jfillion@pipsc.ca

October 10, 2017 is World Mental Health Day. The Institute is pleased to announce that the Mental Health Resource Guide is now available! The Guide is a comprehensive tool-kit that will help you recognize the signs of mental illness, provides advice on starting these difficult conversations and includes information on where to access resources for support.

PIPSC is committed to supporting mentally healthy workplaces for all, and we pride ourselves in providing our leaders and members alike with tools they need to succeed.

With an estimated one in five Canadians experiencing a mental health issue every year, odds are you or someone you know is affected. In the workplace, this becomes especially problematic because while you might recognize the signs of a mental health issue, these types of conversations can be difficult and sensitive when it involves a colleague.

We recognize that education is an essential component in raising awareness and ensuring that those experiencing these types of issues are given the help they need.

We all have an important role to play in ensuring that our workplaces are mentally healthy and with this guide you will be better equipped to deal with what is quickly becoming the mental health epidemic.

Together we can break the stigma!

For more information: education@pipsc.ca

Radio-Canada and the CBC have reported this week that Phoenix was “doomed from the start.” The reason? The business case prepared in 2009 under the previous government “lacked proper risk analysis and was politically motivated.” In the words of former parliamentary budget officer Kevin Page, “You look at this business case, you can drive trucks through some of the holes under the risk analysis.”

In a follow-up story the next day, our public broadcaster revealed the apparent conflicts of interest at the heart of the same business case, based as it was on research conducted by IBM and PricewaterhouseCoopers, who subsequently received a combined $200 million in contracts related to Phoenix.

None of this will come as a surprise to many of our members. The previous government’s eager addiction to costly outsourcing contracts – often undertaken, they claimed, to save money, and always at the expense of our members – is well known. The real surprise is that of the 17 “lessons learned” contained in an “independent” analysis of the pay transformation initiative, and also reported this week, none addresses outsourcing.

In fact, the study concludes that "there is a need to assess how much can be taken on internal to government (given current capacity and capabilities) and to creatively engage the private sector to bring global expertise and to fill the gap in capacity and capabilities." In effect, the report promotes more not less contracting out. Is anyone surprised anymore that private-sector consultants would recommend more of what has been demonstrably bad for the public service?

The current government continues to rely far too heavily on outsourcing to provide IT services that ought to be handled by the public service – whether email consolidation, website amalgamation, the construction of new IT cloud-based services, or Phoenix. In fact, the surprise is not that the outsourcing of pay modernization (i.e., Phoenix) was so poorly handled, but that it was allowed to go ahead at all and against the warnings of so many, including, prior to its roll-out, unions like our own.

In response to Radio-Canada’s and CBC’s revelations this week, Parliamentary Secretary Steven MacKinnon was quoted saying, “We will fix this problem to everyone’s satisfaction and we will fix it using public employees.”

Words to live by. Words to live by.

Debi Daviau
President