National Defence committee  Thank you for the opportunity to appear today. The Union of National Defence Employees of the Public Service Alliance of Canada represents 20,000 civilian defence workers. Our members ensure that military operations are mission-ready at all times and that military members have

National Defence committee  Thank you for the question. Certainly I can. I can give an example from when the pandemic was first called in. I can tell you that the Department of National Defence worked really hard at making sure that all the employees and military members were safe. We worked really well to

National Defence committee  Certainly. That sent a very strong signal to the colleagues. When we're at National Defence, we do have a family feeling. We do feel that we have a tight-knit group as we work with each other. Whether we are contractor [Technical difficulty—Editor] or military members, we are a

National Defence committee  We have our salary wage envelopes at National Defence. That is money the department is given just to maintain their public servants. However, they also have money through the operations and maintenance budget, and they often have more money in there. It's easy for them, then, to

National Defence committee  That's a very interesting question that you raised, and it's a very complex situation, obviously. It's nearly impossible to train out a toxic work environment. You can't put people who have these behaviours and these ideas and give them training [Technical difficulty—Editor] see

National Defence committee  Again, that's a very difficult question. How does it impact the security of the work? There are a great deal of challenges. We are reliant on our contractors to be following the rules, but the contractors don't have the same goals as the National Defence employees. National Defe

Government Operations committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for the opportunity to appear today. The Union of National Defence Employees of the Public Service Alliance of Canada represents 20,000 civilian defence workers. Our members ensure that military operations are mission-ready at all times and that

Government Operations committee  Thank you for the letter about the firefighters' pension. That's a challenge we've been trying to address for 20 years, easily. The disparity among the firefighters, federal and elsewhere, is even greater than what you described. There's the firefighters' 44-hour workweek versu

Government Operations committee  Okay. It turns out the building wasn't balanced. It was impossible that it ever could be balanced. Both the contractor and subcontractor signed off that it was balanced, but there was literally metal in the air-handling units that would have prevented it from ever balancing.

Government Operations committee  That's not something I'd be made aware of in my role.

Government Operations committee  Again, that's not anything I would be brought into. It's outside my scope.

Government Operations committee  I would say that there's a difference between cleaning and benchmarking services. I think most people would agree with that; however, I would say that benchmarking services are something that the membership could provide. These are members who have worked at National Defence for

Government Operations committee  Certainly we would have a great deal of expertise in that, because we do collaborate with other militaries on a regular basis—not just the military members, but also the civilians. In my work, I would often collaborate with others within NATO. That's a common thing to do. I'm n

Government Operations committee  Certainly there are occasions for outsourcing when the work is going to require a specialized field that's not normally required and will not be required on an ongoing basis, definitely, but it's nearly impossible to figure out what that is, because the information that is shared

Government Operations committee  I don't have that information.