Evidence of meeting #12 for Finance in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was cra.
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON
And continue it is, Mr. Chair, because I thought Mr. Christopherson was starting to get to the issue here.
Let me start with some fundamental questions. How big an employee pool are we talking about, and how do they divide up between professional and other?
5:15 p.m.
President, Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada
We're talking about over 50,000 employees in total.
5:15 p.m.
President, Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada
There are 50,000 employees at the Canada Revenue Agency.
5:15 p.m.
National President, Union of Taxation Employees, Public Service Alliance of Canada
Forty-five thousand.
5:15 p.m.
President, Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada
Okay, it's 45,000. We represent 10,500; they represent the rest.
5:15 p.m.
National President, Union of Taxation Employees, Public Service Alliance of Canada
That would be 26,000.
5:15 p.m.
National President, Union of Taxation Employees, Public Service Alliance of Canada
But there's management.
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
5:15 p.m.
National President, Public Service Alliance of Canada
If we take them out, the problem would go away.
5:15 p.m.
Some hon. members
Oh, oh!
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON
In the private sector, is there any other comparable size entity to CRA?
5:15 p.m.
President, Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada
In the private sector?
5:15 p.m.
National President, Union of Taxation Employees, Public Service Alliance of Canada
Unionized?
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON
The theory is that CRA is trying to look like a private sector entity. It will never be, but it's trying to look like one. Is there anything that's comparable to it?
5:20 p.m.
Acting Executive Assistant to the National President, Union of Taxation Employees, Public Service Alliance of Canada
There are a number of private sector unions. For example, if you look at the Canadian Union of Public Employees, they spread across multiple employers. Actually, their numbers are larger than either PIPS or UTE. There are hundreds of unions out there in the private sector.
5:20 p.m.
Liberal
John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON
So effectively, there's no comparable relationship in the private sector between you folks and CRA; there's nothing in the private sector.
5:20 p.m.
National President, Public Service Alliance of Canada
Maybe in the auto industry.
5:20 p.m.
National President, Union of Taxation Employees, Public Service Alliance of Canada
The auto industry, or train industry, maybe.
5:20 p.m.
Liberal
John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON
Yes, the auto industry.... One employer, I think GM, has about 22,000.
June 14th, 2006 / 5:20 p.m.
National President, Public Service Alliance of Canada
Yes, but that's....
5:20 p.m.
Liberal
John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON
Anyway, I just wanted to see whether that existed.
Mr. Christopherson seemed to be narrowing down the point here. You effectively want subsection 54(2) eliminated so that any collective agreement would be able to deal with matters governed by the staffing program. There must have been some rationale for that being there in the first place. You say that Deloitte and Touche gave you short shrift, that your employer doesn't seem to be overly enthusiastic about this issue, and that anytime you've gone to court they haven't been overly sympathetic to your situation. I don't know enough about collective bargaining or labour agreements to know why that would be there. What's the rationale for it being there in the first place?
5:20 p.m.
National President, Public Service Alliance of Canada
As far as the rationale goes, I'm sure you would have to ask the CRA. But for our purposes, we think that they should be able to bargain it. When you bargain, you don't necessarily get what you want. But the fact of the matter is that once you do get the pieces in the collective agreement, you have the right to redress mechanisms that flow from the collective agreement. So right now you have the redress process, but there is no value to it because they can't impose it. And because of the lack of it being in a collective agreement, we have difficulty addressing it.
5:20 p.m.
Liberal
John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON
Why would Deloitte not pick up on that in their review?