Finance Committee on Nov. 26th, 2013

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

I call this meeting to order. This is meeting number 11 of the Standing Committee on Finance. I want to welcome all of our guests here this morning. We have two panels.

Orders of the day are pursuant to the order of reference of Tuesday, October 29, 2013, the study of Bill C-4, a second act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 21, 2013, and other measures.

We have six presenters at our first panel. We have Professor Ian Lee from Carleton University; from the Canadian Labour Congress, the secretary-treasurer, Mr. Hassan Yussuff; from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, Mr. Gregory Thomas; from the C.D. Howe Institute, Mr. Benjamin Dachis, senior policy analyst; from the Public Service Alliance of Canada, the national president, Ms. Robyn Benson; and from Unifor, the president, Mr. Chad Stroud. Thank you all for being with us here this morning.

You will have a maximum of five minutes for an opening statement, and we'll begin with Mr. Lee, please.

[Dr. Ian Lee, Assistant Professor, Carleton University, As an Individual]

Good morning. My name is Ian Lee, and I'm a professor at Carleton University's Sprott School of Business.

I thank the finance committee for the opportunity to appear beside these very distinguished witnesses today, presidents and vice-presidents and directors general. However, in sharp contrast, I must plead your indulgence, for I'm merely a dues-paying, rank-and-file union member, who, as a public servant in a public university, toils in the vineyards of the academy educating the next generation. In short, I'm just a simple worker on the shop floor of the factory, metaphorically speaking, so my views may be at sharp variance with those who operate at vastly more elevated levels than mere people such as myself.

I want to provide the following important disclosures very quickly. One, I do not consult to any organization, government, corporation, union, NGO, or person, directly or indirectly, anywhere. Two, I do not belong to, nor do I donate moneys to, any political party. Three, I have no investments of any kind anywhere, save my house and my share of the Carleton University pension plan. Four, I'm neither a registered lobbyist nor an unregistered lobbyist. Five, I was employed on three separate occasions in the Government of Canada at StatsCan in the early seventies when I was a dues-paying member of the Public Service Alliance; at Canada Post in the early eighties; and then at PCO.

Now to the issues.

I want to echo Treasury Board President Clement in his June 13 op-ed in the National Post. Based on my extensive and frequent teaching trips around the world to many countries, it is crystal clear to me that Canada has one of the most competent and educated and ethical public services in the world. Moreover, I think it's a very serious mistake to blame public servants for the generous compensation and benefits they have relative to the private sector, for these unsustainable benefits were approved by former governments and former presidents of the Treasury Board. Restated, it was failures of political leadership by former governments, not public servants, that approved benefits such as retirement at 55, severance benefits for voluntary departures, or the present sick leave system.

This is not to suggest the public service has not reformed during the past 50 years. Indeed, public service reforms started with the 1957 Heeney report, following on the Glassco commission policy and expenditure management system, coming down to the present, with the 2005 Public Service Modernization Act, the Federal Accountability Act, and the recent performance management reforms of the present Treasury Board president.

However, these reforms, while important and necessary, did not address the equity problem: the growing gap in compensation and benefits between the federal public sector and the private sector.

As an aside, I must debunk the seriously misleading denial of a wage gap between the public and private sector by simply noting the minimum wage today in Canada is $10.50 per hour, while the minimum starting salary in the federal public service as a CR4 is about $42,000 per annum, which, with pension, sick leave, and holidays, is well north of $50,000. This is about two and a half times to three times the annualized minimum wage. We must mind the gap, not deny the gap, of increasing inequality between the public and private sector.

Now to the critical reform of the public service in this bill and designation of essential services by the elected government.

Eight hundred years ago, the English-speaking people undertook an experiment at Runnymede when we demanded that the king sign the Magna Carta to become accountable to the people. Slowly, sovereignty was ceded from the monarchy to the people, through the agency of elections of members of Parliament, who are the trustees of our sovereignty in Parliament. We came to fully understand the brilliant German economist and philosopher Max Weber's profound insight that because MPs and governments exercise our sovereignty, government necessarily possesses, in his famous words, “the legitimate monopoly of coercion”. Indeed, Canada's elected government, and not unelected interest groups, no matter how honourable their cause or claim, is exclusively responsible for the peace, order, and good government of Canada and Canadians. Nothing can trump or derogate from the sovereignty of the people.

Collective bargaining rights are very important. But let us be clear: we did not struggle for 800 years to replace the divine right of kings with the divine right of unions.

Now I'll conclude with the reforms proposed for the Canada Labour Code.

I am completely mystified by criticisms of this reform. Any careful reading shows that the proposed reforms do not narrow the definition of “danger”. The famous three r's—the right of the employee to know, the right to participate, the right to refuse—are not abrogated by this legislation. Indeed, the reforms increase the influence and leverage of workers and unions by enhancing the internal responsibility system through an interest-based system of workplace safety. It compels for the first time ever mandatory written records of the enhanced health and safety committee required in every organization with over 20 employees. In plain English, the unions and workers will have more skin in the game in the revised, enhanced safety regime. All recourse by workers and unions remains, and indeed is enhanced, by the proposed mandatory paper trail, because Labour Canada health and safety officers, who must complete a rigorous two-year training program, will now have full access to a comprehensive written record to replace the faulty, contradictory, inaccurate, unreliable, verbal memories months after the fact.

These reforms decentralize the second level of response to any allegations of danger to a committee on the ground that is composed of workers, unions, and management.

As a dues-paying union member and a worker in the public sector, I support these reforms.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you very much, Mr. Lee.

We'll go to Mr. Yussuff now, please, for your presentation.

[Hassan Yussuff, Secretary-Treasurer, Canadian Labour Congress]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

On October 22, the Conservative government introduced the second budget implementation act from the 2013 budget speech, Bill C-4.

Among several other provisions in the act that have nothing to do with the budget, we find comprehensive changes to the labour relations regime for the federal public service workers, under division 17 of part 3 of the bill.

When these changes were introduced, without notice or consultation, even the current President of Treasury Board admitted he could not explain the consequences of these changes. He said that details on how the government's omnibus budget bill will affect federal public sector workers won't be known until some time after the legislation becomes law.

I want to thank you on behalf of the 3.3 million members of the Canadian Labour Congress for giving us the opportunity to explain to members of this committee the consequences of the proposed changes. As you know, the CLC brings together workers from virtually every sector of the Canadian economy, in all occupations in all parts of Canada, including those under the federal jurisdiction.

To summarize our position, the proposed changes to the Public Service Labour Relations Act in division 17 of part 3 of Bill C-4 is a direct attack on the freedom of association and collective bargaining rights protected by our charter. If passed, this bill will cripple the collective bargaining process and significantly alter the balance of power in our labour relations regime in favour of the employer. There are three key changes that will undermine the collective bargaining process: how changes were introduced, how essential services will be determined, and how the arbitration process will work.

For the labour relations regime to be effective, development and changes have to be done in consultation with all parties involved. That is not what happened here. The government decided to slip fundamental changes to the labour relations regime into a budget implementation bill, with no meaningful consultation with the public, unions representing their employees, and certainly there was no study prepared by a committee of neutral experts to quantify the consequences of these changes.

I must remind members of the committee that changes to the PSLRA of the Canada Labour Code have been made in the past only after significant consultation and analysis from all stakeholders involved: John Fryer, in 1999; modernizing HRM, in 2001; and Peter Annis, in 2009.

If passed, the proposed changes to the essential services regime in Bill C-4 will allow employers to force whomever it chooses to work during a strike on the pretext that they are essential, without providing any clear definition of what constitutes an essential service. The government could unilaterally, if it felt like it, declare that every public service is essential and ban strikes completely. It is more likely that the government will designate just enough employees as essential to disarm the union's capacity to freely bargain in a collective agreement. In other words, they can change the rules to give the employer an advantage throughout the game.

The members of the committee should know that these changes are very similar to those imposed by the Saskatchewan government several years ago, which gave the employer certain unilateral powers under essential services. The constitutionality of that legislation has been challenged by several public sector unions in Saskatchewan, and after, the ILO found them to be unacceptable. The case is currently before the Supreme Court of Canada and is likely to be heard some time in October of 2014.

With regard to how the arbitration process will work, the collective bargaining process will also be undermined by the revised arbitration process. We don't understand why a government that is so keen on freedom of choice is trying to remove the right to choose arbitration from its federal government employees. It is difficult to understand why a government that called for a study five years ago—chaired by a respected jurist, Peter Annis—on reducing labour disputes, is trying to remove a provision that had a direct impact on the reduction of work stoppages in the federal public sector.

Furthermore, for those who will end up in forced arbitration, Bill C-4 gives complete control over the outcome of the arbitration process to the employer. The bill specifies that out of all factors that must be taken into account, the arbitrators must give preponderance to Canada's fiscal circumstances relative to its stated budgetary policies. This means that arbitrators are no longer independent. Instead, they have to follow directions issued by the Minister of Finance in speeches or economic updates instead of determining the result of a case on its merits.

Even worse, if passed, the bill will allow a party who is unhappy with the arbitration panel's decision seven days to ask the chairperson of the PSLRB to review the decision. If the chairperson thinks the decision is unreasonable, he or she can direct the arbitration panel to reconsider the decision.

The committee should delete the provision introduced in division 17 of part 3 of the bill, and the government should sit down with workers' representatives to discuss how the federal public service labour relations regime can be improved.

Thank you, on behalf of the CLC.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you very much for your presentation.

We'll now go to Mr. Thomas, please.

[Gregory Thomas, Federal Director, Canadian Taxpayers Federation]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

On behalf of the 84,000 supporters of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, we welcome the opportunity to speak about the changes in Bill C-4, and we thank you for inviting us.

There's no question that something has to be done about the work environment in the Government of Canada. It's a toxic environment. Workers can't work. Leaders can't lead: 193,000 full-time equivalent workers and fewer than 100 dismissals.

When leaders lead and managers manage, they get human rights complaints. They get grievances. They get group complaints, individual complaints, policy complaints, and very often these things end up in the Federal Court of Canada. It's a toxic, terrible environment.

Whether these solutions will be effective, who knows? Government is a highly complicated organ. But what we do know is that people don't like going to work in the Government of Canada.

This report, produced by a management committee, PSMAC Subcommittee on People Resourcing, reported this: 50 million days worked in the Government of Canada; 7.6 million paid leave days taken; 2.1 million paid holidays.

Taking out paid holidays, 15% of the days that Canadians paid for were not worked in the Government of Canada.

But we know that in the departments of government where people have strong commitments to their mission—the Attorney General, the environment department—absenteeism is much lower and people have a commitment to the job. Their commitment to the mission surpasses the horrors of spending a day working in government employment.

So we're happy that the government is taking seriously its obligations to do something. When this government took office, the average compensation for a federal government employee was $86,000 a year, all in the cost to Canadians of having one worker work for the government all year. Five years later, from 2006 to 2011, that had gone up to $111,000. The Parliamentary Budget Officer projects that it will be $129,000 per employee by fiscal 2015 if nothing is done. So there's an urgent problem.

I'll just close with one case summary. There's a foreign service worker with a six-figure job description who was proven, beyond a shadow of a doubt, to have spent more than half of his time...or 75% of his time, for seven months, surfing the net, reading news and sports, and downloading questionable material. This was proven. He was dismissed, and he was reinstated by a Public Service Labour Relations Board adjudicator. You know, there isn't anybody working out of government who could get a deal like that.

We urge leaders of all parties to create a work environment where Canadians can go to work for the Government of Canada, do an honest day's work for an honest day's pay, be treated fairly, and have an avenue of appeal, if they feel they haven't been treated fairly, that's effective, efficient, quick, and just.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you, Mr. Thomas.

We'll go to Mr. Dachis, please.

[Benjamin Dachis, Senior Policy Analyst, C.D. Howe Institute]

Hello and good morning.

Thank you very much for inviting me here today to speak to you. My name is Benjamin Dachis. I'm a senior policy analyst at the C.D. Howe Institute. For those who are not aware of us, the C.D. Howe Institute is an independent, not-for-profit organization that aims to raise Canadians' living standards by fostering economically sound public policies.

I'm the co-author of a paper related to the matters under discussion here today, specifically those in division 17 of Bill C-4. The paper is “The Laws of Unintended Consequence: The Effect of Labour Legislation on Wages and Strikes”, published in 2010. It is available on the C.D. Howe Institute website. It's a little long for translation, so I brought some copies along with me as well if people are interested.

I am working with co-authors on an expanded academic version of the paper as well, which I can speak to during questions if you are interested.

We can summarize our results, which I'll get into in some detail later. First, we find that relative to the workers with the full right to strike, workers who are subject to an essential services designation have lower wages otherwise. Second, workers who are subject to compulsory arbitration have higher wages than workers with the full right to strike. Third, placing workers under compulsory arbitration reduces the likelihood of bargained contracts in the future and creates a greater reliance on arbitration.

Between 1978 and 2008, about 4% of public sector contracts that we observed were settled with a strike, whereas about 8% were settled with arbitration, 11% were settled through legislation, and over 60% were freely bargained. Over the last 30 years, governments have generally taken two approaches: limiting the ability of workers to strike, or the consequences of a strike. This is apart from back-to-work legislation, which I can discuss later if you like, and the results of that legislation.

The first approach is the essential services designation. In these cases, workers are allowed to strike, but some portion of the workers are legally obligated to continue providing services. The proposed language in the bill that we're discussing today will enable the government to place more workers and positions under this designation.

The second approach is to forbid strikes and to require remaining disputes to be decided through arbitration. The bill as written will require that when more than 80% of a bargaining unit is designated as essential, disputes will be decided through arbitration without the option of a work stoppage. Our work looks at the consequences on wages of workers and their strike behaviour when governments apply such rules to their workers.

We answer this by comparing the nearly 6,000 major public sector labour contracts that were settled between 1978 and 2008 with what happened when workers were subject to the regulations. Controlling for other factors—and I can get into details of that if you like—we find that when a workforce is subject to an essential services designation, compared with workers with the full right to strike, their real wages are about 2% lower than otherwise.

On the other hand, we find that when workers are subject to compulsory arbitration, that increases their real wages by about 1% relative to workers with the right to strike. We also find that using arbitration in the previous contract reduces the likelihood of a freely bargained next contract and more than doubles the likelihood of using arbitration again to settle the next contract. This suggests that a move to arbitration will beget a cycle in which parties return again and again to third-party intervention to settle their disputes.

Others have found that mandatory arbitration led to an increase in other types of disputes, such as work to rule or other work slowdowns. In sum, a move to increase the number of bargaining units that have some workers—that is, less than 80% share—who cannot go on strike will likely reduce wages, but placing more workers under compulsory arbitration will likely increase wages and lead to a great future reliance on arbitration and potentially other disputes.

Thank you for your attention. I look forward to taking any questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you very much, Mr. Dachis.

We'll go to Ms. Benson, please.

[Robyn Benson, National President, Public Service Alliance of Canada]

Thank you.

At the outset, I want to make it clear that the changes in Bill C-4 to the Public Service Labour Relations Act were introduced without any consultation whatsoever with labour, and this, quite frankly, is unprecedented.

The government ignored the broad consultation that normally takes place when changes to labour law are being considered. For example, the 2003 Public Service Modernization Act was only introduced after almost three years of discussion and studies involving stakeholders, the Public Service Staff Relations Board, and the academics.

This time the government developed its plans in secret, behind closed doors. Right after the throne speech I contacted the Treasury Board president's office. They said it was premature to bring in changes. Then without another word, the government deliberately included the changes in a budget bill so that they could be fast-tracked without the discussion and open debate they deserve.

Minister Clement and his colleagues may be pleased with what they see as another blow to the labour movement, but these changes will have a very direct impact on their employees. The changes send a strong message to public service workers that their employer doesn't respect their work and the services they provide to this country.

Bill C-4 essentially ignores the fundamental principles of freedom and association and the right to strike. It rewrites the rules that affect bargaining, the choice of dispute resolution, essential services designation, and arbitration. The entire framework of the current Public Service Labour Relations Act is based on, “a commitment from the employer and the bargaining agents to mutual respect in harmonious relations”. It also recognizes that collaboration and consultation are “a cornerstone of good human resources management”.

Bill C-4 makes it plain that this government isn't interested in mutual respect or harmonious relations.

Our written submission contains details of many of our concerns. Today I'll talk about just a few of the key concerns.

First, concerning the designation of essential services, our union believes that during a strike, services should be maintained at a level that ensures there is no possible danger to the safety and security of the Canadian public. As an example, PSAC members were on strike the morning of September 11, 2001. We brought our picket lines down immediately and our members returned to work quickly and without question.

PSAC has worked with the employer to ensure that the safety and security of the public would never be compromised should a strike take place. In fact, we've agreed to thousands of positions being deemed essential. We take balancing the interests of the public, our members, and the employer very seriously. But apparently that's not good enough.

Bill C-4 gives the government the power to unilaterally decide who is essential and what services are essential. Employees declared essential can be asked to perform all of their duties, not just those that are essential, and to be available 24/7 to perform them should a strike take place. The right of the employees' union to challenge the government's opinion about what is essential before an independent labour board has been removed. It has been removed even though the current law and jurisprudence require the labour board to err on the side of the safety and security of the public. Balance and fairness are gone. The government can behave unreasonably and it can't be held accountable because there is no avenue for appeal.

Legal experts have said that a union's right to choose arbitration creates a level playing field because it balances Parliament's ability to legislate an end to a strike and order arbitration. Bill C-4 takes away the right to choose arbitration. Now it will only be available if the employer agrees, or where the employer has designated 80% of the bargaining unit as essential.

It's not hard to imagine a government using its new powers to designate just under 80% of a unit. This leaves the remaining workers with a limited ability to strike, and then they can't choose arbitration.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

You have one minute.

[Robyn Benson]

If that's not bad enough, Bill C-4 expands the current limits on what the public interest commission and arbitration boards can consider when making their awards.

I just want to mention what the worst of it is. Policy grievances were introduced when the Public Service Labour Relations Act came into effect. They were used to streamline the grievance process. It made the process more efficient and it was cost-effective to the employer. Now they've taken that right away and they want only individual grievances to be filed.

Bill C-4 will make widespread fundamental changes to the labour relations laws covering all federal government workers.

I ask that you remove divisions 17 and 18. I also ask you to engage in real consultation with the bargaining agents, employer groups, and labour relations experts.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you, Ms. Benson.

We'll now hear from Mr. Stroud, please.

[Chad Stroud, President, Local 2182, Unifor]

Good morning, Mr. Chair.

I'm Chad Stroud, the president of Unifor Local 2182. I represent the marine communication and traffic service operators of the coast guard. We are an essential service at this time.

Unifor is Canada's largest private sector union with more than 300,000 members. It also represents public service employees such as my group, the printing services group, non-supervisory employees, Transport Canada air traffic control employees, and the House of Commons technical group.

Unifor brings a modern approach to unionism: adopting new tools, involving and engaging our members, and always looking for new ways to develop the role and approach of our union to meet the demands of the 21st century.

Unifor objects to the amendment of important labour relations legislation, without full consultation with stakeholders, by way of an omnibus budget bill. We feel it is important to register our concerns regarding the process through which federal budget legislation has been implemented in recent years.

We are especially concerned with measures that affect collective bargaining legislation and changes in very important health and safety regulations and practices defined under multiple pieces of legislation.

In our view, it is entirely inappropriate to implement important policy changes on matters such as these through a composite budget implementation bill without full research, consideration, or fine tuning, and with debate frequently ended through invoking closure.

The Public Service Labour Relations Act, in its enactment in 2003 as part of the Public Service Modernization Act, followed extensive consideration and consultation beginning in 2000. The PSLRA then featured a mandatory five-year review. That five-year review resulted in the “Report of the Review of the Public Service Modernization Act, 2003”, which was released in 2011. That report followed appropriate consultation by the review team.

Notably, the amendments to the PSLRA now set out in Bill C-4 are not amendments that were recommended by the review team after consultations with all stakeholders and careful review of the PSLRA. The amendments now set out in Bill C-4 are not the product of any consultative process.

Clause 294 of Bill C-4 would amend the PSLRA by deleting the existing definition of essential service as

a service, facility or activity of the Government of Canada that is or will be, at any time, necessary for the safety or security of the public or a segment of the public.

It would replace that definition with one that describes an essential service as anything that the government in its exclusive right determines will be necessary for the safety or security of the public or a segment of the public.

Clause 305 of Bill C-4 would amend sections 119 to 134 of the PSLRA to provide that the employer will unilaterally determine what is an essential service and what level of essential services will be supplied during a labour dispute.

Unifor and other bargaining agents can have no confidence that the unilateral power that Bill C-4 would grant the government to determine what is an essential service will not be abused in the absence of a cooperative effort to identify real essential services that ought to continue during a labour dispute, assisted where necessary by the PSLRB.

The proposed amendments to section 103 of the PSLRA will eliminate interest arbitration as one of the two methods a bargaining agent may, as a right, select as the process for the resolution of collective bargaining disputes. Instead, all disputes will by default proceed by the conciliation and strike/lockout process, absent an agreement between the bargaining agent and the employer to use arbitration as the process.

Unifor is troubled by these amendments that will erode the independence of interest boards of arbitration. Clause 310 of Bill C-4 proposes to add new section 158.1, which directs the chair of the Public Service Labour Relations Board to review arbitration awards to determine their compliance with the listed criteria in section 148 and permits the chair to direct the board of arbitration to review its decision and to provide further justification on a new decision. Vesting such a power of review in the chair of the Public Service Labour Relations Board would raise real concerns about the independence of the arbitration process as a legitimate process for the resolution of collective bargaining disputes and real concerns about the fairness of proceedings in which parties may be deprived of an opportunity to be heard before an award is reviewed and amended.

Unifor does not support the elimination of the compensation analysis and research services. Such services are within the board's current mandate and would be eliminated by clauses 295 and 296 of Bill C-4.

Unifor opposes the restriction on union policy grievances that could be the subject of an individual grievance. This appears to be a measure that could force bargaining agents to file—

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Okay—

[Chad Stroud]

—multiple individual grievances—

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Could you wrap up, please?

[Chad Stroud]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you very much, Mr. Stroud, for your presentation.

We'll begin members' questions with Ms. Nash for five minutes.

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Thank you.

Welcome to all the witnesses this morning.

Mr. Yussuff, I'd like to start with you. Certainly, we have had a lot of discussion at this committee about omnibus budget bills and how they defy democratic discussion, debate, and fair consideration of the provisions within them.

I see you nodding your head, Mr. Thomas. I know you've spoken on that as well.

It seems to me that what you and others have raised, in addition to this, is the lack of consultation in developing this legislation. You've all made that point.

I want to ask you, do you think these changes are coming forward because Canada is facing a record number of strikes? Are labour relations completely out of control in this country? Can you describe very briefly the current state of labour relations?

[Hassan Yussuff]

I think labour disputes have been at an all-time low across the country, no matter what jurisdiction you're measuring across the country, so these changes are.... From our perspective, it's bizarre in the least to understand what the government is trying to fix regarding these proposed changes.

I think we've had a very stable climate in the federal jurisdiction for quite some time. The government recently negotiated an agreement with the public sector unions in negotiations, and I think collective bargaining is supposed to be a rigorous process. I have yet to understand why the government would make a unilateral change with a labour regime system that seems to have confidence and support from both sides of the table.

We have never been against changes, but obviously they need to be done in a process where it's informed and the parties are actually sitting down talking about what the implications might be. The government's long-term interest should be in stable labour relations, both with its unions and with its employees.

And this, from my understanding, is bizarre. It's like the government wants to be the player on a soccer field at the same time that they want to be the umpire. You can't be both. You have to make a decision about what role you want to play and figure out how you can enhance that role by building the relationship. This, I think, is fundamentally altering that balance that currently exists in the federal jurisdiction.

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

And it seems to have worked fairly well. Thank you.

I look at some of the economies around the world that are now among the most productive and whose economies are doing the best: some of the advanced European countries, and Germany, Brazil, and Korea, which have high rates of unionization.

I was struck, Ms. Benson, when you said that the Public Service Staff Relations Act says that this should be based on “mutual respect and harmonious relations”. Yet Mr. Thomas said that it seems that the public service is filled with people who “don't like going to work” and talked about “the horrors of...working in government employment”.

Which is it? Is it a horror show? Or is it harmonious relations and a decent place to work? Can you describe what's actually happening today?

[Robyn Benson]

You know, there are some difficulties. We've had 20,000 positions that have been cut. There were many more than that in terms of affected letters, so I think it's a bit precarious right now. There are services that have been cut from Canadians, such as the Veterans Affairs offices being closed, search and rescue being downsized, etc.

I believe—and I've spoken to many, many members over the last two years since I was elected—that they're very proud to serve Canadians. You know, those who are still in the workplace, where their colleagues have been cut and their colleagues are on employment insurance, are trying to do double and triple the work so they can continue to serve Canadians.

I don't agree that they're surfing the net. I don't agree that they're taking more sick leave. They're certainly going in to work, day in and day out, trying to serve Canadians the best that they can...based on a government that has cut programs and cut bodies from the workplaces.

I think it can be very difficult, but all members who I talk to are proud of the work that they've done. I'm 33 years a public service worker, and I'm very proud of that.

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Thank you.

Just very briefly, Mr. Stroud, you're in marine search and rescue? Is that what your members do?

If so, could you briefly describe the work that your members do? And do they know the difference between an essential service and a non-essential service? Is that already covered by the law?

[Chad Stroud]

We're marine communications and traffic services officers. We work for the coast guard. We've been essential for quite some time.

We've been in the news quite a bit throughout the last couple of years because we've been cut pretty hard by the department. By the end of 2015, we're going from 22 marine communications and traffic services across the country to 11.