October 22, 2019

The Right Honourable Justin Trudeau, P.C., M.P.
Prime Minister of Canada
House of Commons
Ottawa, ON K1A 0A6
Justin.Trudeau@parl.gc.ca

Prime Minister Trudeau,

On behalf of the 60,000 members of the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada (PIPSC), I would like to offer you my sincere congratulations for your re-appointment as our nation’s Prime Minister.

A collaborative relationship will be key to our ongoing success. Our work together to replace Phoenix has been productive and we will be pleased to see this back on the top of the government’s agenda.

Over the past four years, your government has replenished the ranks of public scientists and we look forward to the continued investment needed to tackle the climate crisis. We're also looking to make strides on tax fairness and the reduction of government outsourcing.

The high voter turnout in the National Capital Region reflects the engaged electorate, and many of our members cast their vote for a government that will invest in public services. PIPSC and our members are confident that we can continue to collaborate effectively to ensure that the federal public service meets the growing needs and aspirations of all Canadians.

To achieve this objective, the government must:

1. Ensure that public servants are paid correctly and on time, by introducing a fully funded, functional pay system developed in cooperation with its own information technology specialists, our CS Group members, to replace the disastrous Phoenix system.
2. Ensure that Canada’s public scientists have the resources they need to help our country face difficult health and environmental challenges.
3. Reduce costly and wasteful outsourcing on government consultants to 2005-06 levels, as you had committed to in the 2015 election.
4. Give the Canada Revenue Agency and our members the resources they need to collect the billions of dollars lost every year because of tax loopholes. We need to properly fund the infrastructure and public services Canadians depend on every day.

Once again, please accept our congratulations on your electoral success and our best wishes for your efforts in fulfilling the commitments you have made to Canadians. You have our assurance that we are ready to work with you and your government.

Sincerely,

Debi Daviau
PIPSC President

We represent thousands of professionals at the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA). They collect the taxes needed to fund the public services Canadians depend on every day.

We need to elect a government that will close tax loopholes and ensure that wealthy individuals and corporations pay their fair share.

With insufficient resources and outdated technology, Canada’s tax professionals are at a significant disadvantage when they try to go after tax cheats who use off-shore tax havens, or business owners who hide their assets and use “profit shifting” tools to minimize their tax bills. In addition, global e-commerce giants enjoy a very real tax advantage compared to their Canadian counterparts. Overall, the federal government loses billions of dollars in tax revenue every year. This money could be invested in public infrastructure and programs that would benefit ALL Canadians.

In this election, we are calling on federal political parties to commit to:

• Tax e-commerce companies fairly
• End “profit-shifting”
• Create a publicly-accessible “beneficial ownership” registry
• Invest in CRA training, new technologies and regional offices

Learn more about our position on tax fairness. 

We surveyed the four federal parties running candidates across the country to find out where they stand on tax fairness:

• The Green Party of Canada: will close tax loopholes, provide adequate funding to the CRA and tax e-commerce giants.
• The Liberal Party of Canada: will continue investing in the CRA and implement a consistent national approach to beneficial ownership. No comment on e-commerce or profit shifting.
• The New Democratic Party of Canada: will implement the measures recommended by PIPSC.
• The Conservative Party of Canada did not answer the survey.

With one click, you can email your local candidates to find out where they stand on tax fairness.  

Email your local candidates

On October 21, use your vote to support Tax Fairness.

Want to know where these federal parties stand on other issues of importance to PIPSC members?

What about a single tax return administered by the government of Québec?

Québec’s National Assembly has recently begun promoting the idea of a single tax return to be administered by its provincial government tax professionals. Our AFS members are justifiably concerned by the impact this would have on their positions and careers.

While current estimates point to the added costs of having to file two separate tax returns in Québec, leading tax experts believe that the single return proposal is impracticable, and that reducing overlaps and increasing efficiencies would be best achieved by a single return administered by the CRA. As well, international agreements such as those aimed at fighting tax evasion are signed between central governments, and Québec would not be in a position to perform the federal government’s work in this area.  

Because of the importance of this issue to so many of our members, we would like share the views, as we understand them, of the four federal parties running candidates across Canada, as well as those of the Bloc Québecois and the People’s Party of Canada.

Is your party in favour of a single tax return for Québec residents?

• Liberal Party of Canada: opposed to the proposal
• Conservative Party of Canada: favours the proposal
• Bloc Québecois: favours the proposal
• New Democratic Party of Canada: first supported, now opposes the proposal
• Green Party of Canada: currently no official position on this issue, but candidates in Quebec have indicated support for the proposal
• People’s Party: currently no position on this issue

Canada’s public service has some of the world’s best scientists. And they can give us the solutions to the challenges that we face on critical issues such as climate change, food safety, water quality and disease prevention. But they need the resources to do the job.

We need to elect a government that will base its decisions on scientific evidence.  Canada needs more, not less, federal government science.

We can’t depend on the private sector for solutions. Only Canada’s own public service scientists can deliver the innovations needed to tackle these problems. While the past four years have seen some replenishing of the ranks of federal researchers, much more needs to be done. We expect the government to spend $122 million less on government science and technology in 2018-19 than it did in 2012-13. Research and development spending is projected to decline by $455 million over the same period. That’s not acceptable.

In this election, we are calling on federal political parties to commit to:

• Invest $78 million immediately into research and development at Environment and Climate Change Canada and review internal science funding in other departments
• Task the Chief Science Advisor with developing detailed metrics to better monitor federal science capacity in the future
• Protect and promote scientific integrity – we cannot go back to the days of muzzling our federal public scientists

Learn more about our priorities for public science.

We surveyed the four federal parties running candidates across the country to find out where they stand on public science:

• The Green Party of Canada did not respond to this question.
• The Liberal Party of Canada: Supports the work of the Chief Science Advisor but makes no specific future funding commitment.
• The New Democratic Party of Canada: Sees an expanded role for the Chief Science Advisor and will create the new position of Parliamentary Science Officer. They will invest in federal science but makes no specific future funding commitment.
• The Conservative Party of Canada did not answer the survey.

With one click, you can email your local candidates to find out where they stand on public science.  

Email your local candidates

On October 21, use your vote to support public science.

Want to know where these federal parties stand on other issues of importance to PIPSC members?

PIPSC is celebrating its 100th Annual General Meeting.

This year’s AGM theme is Leading Progress. The meeting will take place on November 8-9, 2019 at the Hilton Lac Leamy in Gatineau, QC. 

For those of you who aren’t delegates, you can join us for key moments of the AGM online.

Tune in to Facebook Live on November 8, to watch all our keynote speakers including:

• PIPSC President, Debi Daviau, will speak to this year’s accomplishments and Institute goals for the coming year. 

• President of the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC), Hassan Yussuff, will address the work of unions in Canada this year as a whole, and the Institute’s part in progressing policy for the Canadian labour movement. 

• Founding Partner and CEO of Abacus Data, David Coletto, will discuss our recent membership survey, the importance of data and how we work to represent our membership in our work. 

Interested in what else will be happening during AGM weekend? 

There will also be a special presentation of the 2019 Gold Medal Award streamed live.

Since 1937, PIPSC has presented a Gold Medal Award to recognize professional public service employees whose outstanding work has led to the enhancement of public well-being and has promoted greater awareness of the role and value of public service employees in Canada and globally.

In addition to celebrating our members’ hard work and 100 years of progress in the public service, members will be debating resolutions and by-law revisions. 

Changes will be made to Institute by-laws for committees of the board on Environmental Action, Training and Education, Official Languages and Member Rights.  

Resolutions will be reviewed on proposed amendments to Institute by-laws, non-budgetary policy and budgetary resolutions. 

The Professionals Canada Preliminary Report will be proposed. It's supported by the CLC as a great opportunity for Canadian workers. 

We encourage all members to review the report, the proposed by-law amendments and to watch our keynote speeches to be a part of leading progress for Canada’s world-class public service.

Last week, the Conservative party platform revealed cuts to government operations which will dramatically reduce public services Canadians need.

"This is Harper’s cuts on steroids. It’s going to hurt Canadians and the public services they rely on," said Debi Daviau, PIPSC President. "Once again, Conservatives are trying to eliminate the evidence that’s required to create sound policy for all of Canada."

If elected, a Scheer government would cut government operations by $14.4 billion over five years. Measures for cost-cutting could include freezing government staffing levels and reducing the size of workspaces for public servants.

Hiring freezes and layoffs in the public service will have repercussions on all Canadians who rely on public servants to protect the environment, their food and their health and safety.

According to an analysis done by the Institute of Fiscal Studies and Democracy, these cuts are bigger than the cuts made by the Harper government.

Canadians cannot afford to go backwards. Vote for public services.

Learn more and get engaged by visiting pipsc.ca/vote2019.

Every $1 invested in public service tax professionals will generate $4 in public revenue, an analysis by the Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) has confirmed.

“Regular people are paying their fair share of taxes. But large corporations and wealthy individuals can hire teams of high-priced specialists to aggressively game the tax code,” said PIPSC president Debi Daviau. PIPSC represents nearly 12,000 Canadian Revenue Agency (CRA) tax professionals focused predominantly on corporate audits.

The PBO analysis was released as part of an election platform costing exercise and is a credible, non-partisan report. The analysis clearly shows that investing in the CRA will generate public funds for the services Canadians rely on.

Harper’s 2012 federal budget significantly undermined the CRA’s capacity to stop the richest corporations and individuals from ducking their fair share of taxes. Despite much-needed reinvestment in the CRA since 2015, funding levels are still $500 million below the 2012 cuts.

When Canadians were asked in a 2018 Environics survey whether it’s easier for corporations and wealthy individuals to evade or avoid tax than it is for average people, almost 80% of respondents agreed. When PIPSC put the same question to the auditors, economists, actuaries and other professionals at the CRA, the level of agreement was even higher: 90% said it’s easier for the rich to get around taxes compared to others.

“It is unfair that everyone else has to suffer while the richest individuals and corporations in this country are gaming the system to avoid paying their fair share,” said Daviau. “It’s time to invest in CRA auditors so they can bring fairness back to our tax system.”

We represent 13,000 IT workers in the federal government. We’re leading the fight against overpriced consultants.

We need to elect a government that will invest in a permanent, not contract, public service.

The federal government currently spends $12 billion a year on outsourced services – more than the budgets of 8 departments and agencies combined.

Outsourcing means higher costs to Canadians. Outsourcing means lower quality services for Canadians – less transparency, less accountability with fewer checks and balances. Outsourcing means a loss of institutional knowledge.

In this election, we are calling on political parties to commit to:

• Reduce spending on consultants to 2005-06 levels that were promised by the current government in the last election campaign
• Establish a taskforce with unions to resolve the problem of outsourcing

Learn more about our call to end outsourcing and contracting out.

We surveyed the four federal parties running candidates across the country to find out where they stand on outsourcing:

• The Green Party of Canada: Commits to ensuring our public service has the capacity to operate itself. They believe contractors can enhance service but should not deliver the core mandate or be depended on to deliver services.
• The Liberal Party of Canada: Commits to collaborating with public sector unions like PIPSC and believes progress on this issue is possible.
• The New Democratic Party of Canada: Believes a dedicated, permanent public service is a strong public service. They will work with unions to reduce outsourcing and to foster internal expertise.
• The Conservative Party of Canada did not answer the survey.

With one click, you can email your local candidates to find out where they stand on outsourcing.  

Email your local candidates

On October 21, use your vote to end outsourcing and contracting out.

On August 29, PIPSC sent questions on our top priorities to the leaders of the four federal parties running candidates across the country. We have summarized their responses to help you vote for public services.

Use our chart to quickly compare each party’s response, or read the full response from each party:

Green Party of Canada (GPC)
Liberal Party of Canada (LPC)
New Democratic Party of Canada (NDP) 
Despite repeated requests, we did not receive responses from the Conservative Party of Canada (CPC).

With the federal election underway, the government is now in “caretaker mode” which has impacted the roll-out of our Phoenix Compensation Agreement. 

Current employees will have already received up to five days of paid leave in compensation. You can learn more about that process here. 

The claims process for former employees (and representatives of former employees and estates of deceased former employees) to receive compensation has been finalized. You will receive the salary equivalent of the leave days. However, this process could not be rolled out before the federal election was called and must wait until a new federal cabinet is established.

Work continues on the remaining phases of the compensation agreement and we are actively involved. The employer is creating a claims process for losses, interest and damages. It is anticipated that the process for these claims will be rolled out in two phases starting in 2020.

This new claims process will provide compensation for issues covered by many filed grievances. PIPSC has agreed to review and withdraw those grievances within 150 days of signing the compensation agreement. Because the federal election is impacting the employer’s ability to implement a large part of the agreement, PIPSC will be seeking an extension to the 150-day time frame to delay withdrawing existing grievances until the claims process is complete. The details of the compensation agreement can be found here.

We will continue to use the grievance process until the leave process has been completely rolled out.

Please read our FAQs for more information on the Phoenix Compensation Agreement.