Finance committee  I'm not so sure I can explain the reasons why they're cutting so many jobs. What I can say is that hardly a week goes by in which I'm not getting letters with names of people from different government departments who are going to be laid off. They tell me 48 hours before they tel

Finance committee  No, I don't think there has been a great deal of transparency to date about cuts. For example, I happened to meet with the President of the Treasury Board, and we talked about my asking which programs they are looking at right now. He said they really don't know. Well, we can

Finance committee  Thank you. Maybe I can give you one example from right here. Right here in Ottawa, Melissa Ferland is a young theatrical worker who works at the Museum of Civilization. Here's what she said to me when her job was cut and lost: “You need to understand that for every job you cut

Finance committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. This committee has been travelling across the country asking four questions: how to achieve sustained economic recovery in Canada, create sustainable jobs, ensure relatively low rates of taxation, and achieve a balanced budget. Well, I've been tr

Government Operations committee  In 2008 the public service survey was done. In that survey, 68% of people said that the quality of the work done suffered in the public service because of lack of resources--fewer people, fewer resources. We have a budget that's been brought down that will make reductions in depa

Government Operations committee  Absolutely.

Government Operations committee  As my colleague has said, the whole thing is that the pension plan is sound. The workers pay into the pension plan. It's deferred salary. I think the government already has enough of the money--the $30 billion they stole. That issue will be in court on Monday, and hopefully we'll

Government Operations committee  Okay. You're talking about the payroll issue, and that will help solve that. In Shediac, New Brunswick, the benefits people are consolidating all of the work there, so that's the only place you will have to go for information about your pension plan. So departments won't have to

Government Operations committee  My comments would be purely speculative as well. The thing is that, from what I understand, there would be a number of layers of people who would be involved in access to information. Some would be asked to go and get that information and retrieve it, and then someone else, I w

Government Operations committee  I suspect that a number of those folks are with the Public Service Alliance of Canada, because I'm assuming that while there may be some managers who oversee the program, it's most likely that in some programs the administrative assistants would actually go and get the informatio

Government Operations committee  Even in the budget, they didn't leave the pension benefit plan out completely. They actually made a reference that they weren't doing anything about the plan at this point in time but they were going to continue to look for efficiencies and savings in pension benefits. So that is

Government Operations committee  There's a lot being said about taking $6.8 billion out of the budgets of departments, but add to that the fact that they have to pay for the 1.5% wage increase that was negotiated with Treasury Board out of their own budget because Treasury Board is not going to give them the mon

Government Operations committee  I certainly would never advocate the furlough Fridays, or what is commonly known as Rae days. I don't know which party that member is with these days, but the whole thing is that this is not the way to go. We also have to remember the public service has to provide services to t

Government Operations committee  I have not had any direct discussions with deputy ministers, but in the structure of the Public Service Alliance of Canada we have presidents of components who meet on a regular, ongoing basis with the deputy ministers and their senior officials. I have asked them to set up those

Government Operations committee  I'm just getting to it now. The government will also continue to examine ways in which all compensation costs, including benefits, could be better managed The PSAC will participate in the process and will make constructive proposals to government. What we will not do is engage