Government Operations committee  Yes.

Government Operations committee  I'm sorry. I'll need you to repeat that. I'm not sure I got it all.

Government Operations committee  That is a practice that I am quite familiar with. It's hard to find out exactly how common it is, because these employees are very worried that they will not be picked up for the next contract.

Government Operations committee  What you're talking about is typically casual workers. They work up to 90 days on a particular contract in a calendar year. I can think of an instance in Gagetown. They had a whole group of maybe 30 of these casual workers who were having their names placed on boards. If anybod

Government Operations committee  These employees feel incredibly vulnerable and feel they have to agree to pretty much anything that is asked of them, regardless of the reasonableness of it.

Government Operations committee  There was no consultation in this regard, and certainly there should have been. We have union and management consultation committee meetings. We have terms of reference that are very clear. They define consultation and when it should take place. It's supposed to be the ability,

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.

Government Operations committee  This becomes a bit of a challenge. Certainly our members are invited to bring their observations up through the chain of command, up to management. They can also come through over to me. As I raise things with my counterparts at the Department of National Defence, I can raise my

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  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.