October 10, 2017 is World Mental Health Day. The Institute is pleased to announce that the Mental Health Resource Guide is now available! The Guide is a comprehensive tool-kit that will help you recognize the signs of mental illness, provides advice on starting these difficult conversations and includes information on where to access resources for support.

PIPSC is committed to supporting mentally healthy workplaces for all, and we pride ourselves in providing our leaders and members alike with tools they need to succeed.

With an estimated one in five Canadians experiencing a mental health issue every year, odds are you or someone you know is affected. In the workplace, this becomes especially problematic because while you might recognize the signs of a mental health issue, these types of conversations can be difficult and sensitive when it involves a colleague.

We recognize that education is an essential component in raising awareness and ensuring that those experiencing these types of issues are given the help they need.

We all have an important role to play in ensuring that our workplaces are mentally healthy and with this guide you will be better equipped to deal with what is quickly becoming the mental health epidemic.

Together we can break the stigma!

For more information: education@pipsc.ca

Radio-Canada and the CBC have reported this week that Phoenix was “doomed from the start.” The reason? The business case prepared in 2009 under the previous government “lacked proper risk analysis and was politically motivated.” In the words of former parliamentary budget officer Kevin Page, “You look at this business case, you can drive trucks through some of the holes under the risk analysis.”

In a follow-up story the next day, our public broadcaster revealed the apparent conflicts of interest at the heart of the same business case, based as it was on research conducted by IBM and PricewaterhouseCoopers, who subsequently received a combined $200 million in contracts related to Phoenix.

None of this will come as a surprise to many of our members. The previous government’s eager addiction to costly outsourcing contracts – often undertaken, they claimed, to save money, and always at the expense of our members – is well known. The real surprise is that of the 17 “lessons learned” contained in an “independent” analysis of the pay transformation initiative, and also reported this week, none addresses outsourcing.

In fact, the study concludes that "there is a need to assess how much can be taken on internal to government (given current capacity and capabilities) and to creatively engage the private sector to bring global expertise and to fill the gap in capacity and capabilities." In effect, the report promotes more not less contracting out. Is anyone surprised anymore that private-sector consultants would recommend more of what has been demonstrably bad for the public service?

The current government continues to rely far too heavily on outsourcing to provide IT services that ought to be handled by the public service – whether email consolidation, website amalgamation, the construction of new IT cloud-based services, or Phoenix. In fact, the surprise is not that the outsourcing of pay modernization (i.e., Phoenix) was so poorly handled, but that it was allowed to go ahead at all and against the warnings of so many, including, prior to its roll-out, unions like our own.

In response to Radio-Canada’s and CBC’s revelations this week, Parliamentary Secretary Steven MacKinnon was quoted saying, “We will fix this problem to everyone’s satisfaction and we will fix it using public employees.”

Words to live by. Words to live by.

Debi Daviau
President

The Institute joins its fellow National Joint Council (NJC) bargaining agents in calling for more and better consultation on the Treasury Board Policy Suite Reset, an initiative introduced in 2014 “to streamline and clarify Treasury Board policy instruments while shifting public service culture towards a focus on better service and results.” (*)

PIPSC believes that the Reset has grown beyond the scope of its mandate, particularly when it comes to Treasury Board policies on people management. On these policies, the initiative is moving towards the elimination of clear accountability at the highest levels and fails to provide clear guidelines on such important workplace issues as daycare, employment equity, duty to accommodate, harassment, terms and conditions of employment, and many more.

The significance and scope of the proposed changes is such that the consultation process must be extended and re-oriented to include the participation of relevant NJC committees and subject matter experts. This will result in much more meaningful consultation and collaboration between the parties.

NJC bargaining agents raised these issues with the Treasury Board Secretariat’s Chief Human Resources Officer in a letter earlier this month. We look forward to her response to our concerns.

(*) As defined on the Canada School of Public Service web site