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News - October 2006

The headlines for news items published during this month are listed below.

Click on the headline of your choice to see the entire text of the article.

• CBC News points to big cost overruns

at Service Canada Galleria project

• Nova Scotia politician discovers toll on Sydney seniors

caused by Service Canada staff cuts

• Globe and Mail exposes more cracks in the Service Canada facade

CBC News points to big cost overruns at Service Canada Galleria project

Posted October 21, 2006

The cost of the federal government’s Regina Galleria project – showcase for Service Canada and its troubled training centre – has almost doubled, CBC News reports.

The promised cost was $28-million when the former Liberal government announced the project in 2002. Non-public documents obtained by CBC show the cost has almost doubled to some $50-million. And the tab keeps rising.

That cash could have gone a long way to improving, and not reducing, services to Income Security Program recipients. The news article’s reference to the disorganized passport situation will resonate with our ISP members who fear for the wellbeing of seniors, the disabled and other clients with more complex issues requiring assistance.

The CBC report also reinforced the NHWU’s consistent claim that there’s more politics than service improvements behind Service Canada. Back in 2002, former Finance Minister Ralph Goodale happened to be both the federal ‘political’ (a.k.a patronage) Minister for Saskatchewan and Minister of Public Works and Government Services.

You connect the dots…

The full text of the news item follows:

Renovated federal office soars $21M over budget

October 19, 2006
CBC News

          Regina – The cost of a new government office complex in Regina has been steadily escalating and is now more than $21 million over the original budget, CBC News has learned.
           The former Galleria shopping mall downtown is being transformed into office space for some 500 federal civil servants.
           When Ottawa bought the downtown building in 2002, it promised the project would cost $28 million.
           However, according to federal government documents obtained by the CBC, it's now expected the total cost will hit $49.4 million.
           The current total includes costs related to purchasing the building, renovations and moving the civil servants.
           Meanwhile, the final price tag could be higher. A call is out for bids to tear down and rebuild an attached parkade.  That will take several months and several million dollars to complete.
Saskatchewan Liberal MP Ralph Goodale was a champion of the project when he was in cabinet and said he still thinks it's worthwhile.
          “The nature of the project did get to be more ambitious than the original, more modest plan,” Goodale said. “It provides an open public service centre.”
           The plan was for the complex to provide “one-stop shopping” for government services.  However, not all federal agencies will be moved to the centre.
           Although forms for a passport can be picked up at the new building, completed applications must be dropped off at another office that's six blocks away.

Nova Scotia politician discovers toll on Sydney seniors caused by Service Canada staff cuts

Posted October 13, 2006

A provincial politician from Cape Breton has revealed the virtually-impossible task faced by Sydney seniors seeking help from Service Canada.

Gordie Gosse, a New Democratic Party MLA from Sydney, learned this firsthand, after what he described as an “influx” of frustrated seniors sought assistance from his constituency office.

Gosse told the province’s largest newspaper, the Halifax Chronicle Herald, that dramatic staff cutbacks by Service Canada had all but ending support for seniors’ CPP and OAS concerns.

The entire Chronicle Herald news article is reproduced immediately below:

MLA: Seniors can’t get help with forms

By Jocelyn Bethune, Chronicle Herald

          Sydney – A Sydney MLA says Cape Breton seniors who need help applying for income programs have been left out in the cold by the federal government.
           New Democrat Gordie Gosse says an influx of constituents have come into his Whitney Pier office looking for help filling out forms for their Canada pension and other government income programs.
          “They (the local federal office) got a memo from Halifax that no appointments are to be made for a month,” Mr. Gosse said in an interview with The Chronicle Herald.
           He contacted the office on Dorchester Street in Sydney last week and was told only two staff members are processing information where once there were 14.
          “They’ve had so many applications that they took the girls that regularly meet with the seniors and told them not to make any appointments, to sit here (instead) and process other applications,” he said, adding that nothing has been done to replace the 12 employees who have left.
           It is unfair to shunt seniors to the back of the line, especially at a time when they are seeking help, the Cape Breton Nova MLA said.
          “I just don’t think it’s right for a senior citizen to be told they can’t get an appointment because they are backed up,” he said.
          “This isn’t a time to be cutting seniors off — it’s time to help them.”

Globe and Mail exposes more cracks in the Service Canada facade

Posted October 11, 2006

The bad news about Service Canada is getting around.   And that’s good news for NHWU Income Security Program members!

A major article appearing across Canada in the October 10 edition of the Globe and Mail newspaper zeroed in on the much-unloved Service Canada School in Regina.  The article primarily dealt with the excessive costs of attending this managerial white elephant, and the toll this was taking on Service Canada employees.

While the entire Globe and Mail article of Service Canada is reproduced below, a few of the damning points it makes are particularly noteworthy:
       • There is no good reason that training could not take place in existing, regionally-based

            facilities.

       • Besides the exorbitant costs, the required two-week residency is placing a great strain on

            employees and their family members.

       • The new Director-General of Learning Program at Service Canada couldn’t even be

            bothered to read his own publicity materials.

The NHWU and our ISP members have consistently argued that the outrageous waste of taxpayer dollars poured into Service Canada could and should have been much better spent on improving accessible services to seniors and the disabled..

Our numerous attempts to meet with the new Deputy Head of Service Canada, Hélène Gosselin, have gotten us nowhere.  While we may have an opportunity to briefly discuss our concerns at the next National Labour-Management Consultation meeting, the format and time constraints are not conducive to a ‘full and frank exchange of views’.

Given that Mme Gosselin seems to have no time available for a meeting with her employees’ representative, the NHWU will continue to seek out those with a higher level of interest in Service Canada – the media and Members of Parliament.

As noted above, the October 10 Globe and Mail article is reproduced below in its entirety:

Ten days in Regina spark civil-service outcry

By Gloria Galloway, Globe and Mail Parliamentary Bureau

          Ottawa – The agency that is the interface between the Canadian government and its citizens, providing everything from job information to passports, is toning down the rules governing what some employees call a dictatorial and costly training course.

          The workers point to on-line information about the Service Canada Excellence Certification stipulating that their jobs are dependent on participation in a 10-day skill-and-attitude program in Regina. Workers say the course appears to allow little accommodation for family circumstances and ignores more economical options.

          That interpretation has shocked course organizers.

          “If that's what's coming out of the literature, then I've got a job to do because [the program] is truly meant to be supportive of people in their career,” said Richard Rochefort, the newly appointed director-general of learning programs at Service Canada.

          In the on-line description, Service Canada says all of its 3,500 front-line employees, from more than 300 offices across the country, must take part in the Regina course to “be better able to serve their clients and Canadians and be better equipped to pursue career opportunities.”

          The first of the sessions began this fall and 68 workers have already “graduated.”

          The anticipated cost of transportation, accommodation, meals and other incidentals is about $3,000 per person – a total of roughly $10.5-million.

          Workers in one of the branches contacted the Globe and Mail to say they objected to the amount Canadians will pay to fly thousands of people to Saskatchewan when there are plenty of well-equipped training facilities in the regional offices.

          The cost is grotesque, said one employee who asked not to be identified because she fears losing her job. “We have a training room [in a regional office] that has phones and we could have 12 people in there and do a two-week session, no problem, because we do it all the time,” she said. “This is the flavour of the month. They are just trying to reinvent the wheel at taxpayers' expense.”

          Even more irritating, the Service Canada employee said, is the directive that workers must spend nearly two weeks in Regina.

          The literature calls the program “a condition of employment” that will help give employees the knowledge and training to do their job.

          “There are easier ways to do these sorts of things, like flying a trainer out to the locations or having something central,” the employee said.

          “But it also is very disrespectful . . . no additional pay, leave our hobbies, leave our parents, leave our other jobs, leave our children, leave our pets.”

          The course description makes it clear that “single parents have to leave their families to go to Regina. . . . This program is mandatory.”

          There is no daycare provided, and although single-parent employees will be reimbursed for “reasonable dependent care expenses to a daily maximum of $35 per household,” workers with more than one child say that amount will not cover their expenses.

          After being told what was in the course description, Mr. Rochefort expressed some alarm.

          “I think I had better look at that very cold-sounding ‘This is a condition of employment’ message, and adjust it,” he said, “because if that's the message that it is sending out, that is not the tone of this thing.”

          His office confirmed later that changes would be made. And Mr. Rochefort said there is much more flexibility than the literature suggested.

          “We will deal with it on a case-by-case basis and if I get a critical mass, if I get 25 people in a region [who can't come to Regina], well then I will airlift the training and bring it to them,” he said.

          “And even if there is one or two, then I will figure something out. I will do one-on-one coaching with those people. This is not meant in any way to be punitive.”

          The Regina training school does have advantages, he said – it is housed in a brand-new building and offers facilities unavailable at the regional offices. “We can have consistent training, larger groups, less offerings,” he said.

          It's also cost-effective, he argued. He said adjustments will be made after assessments of the first courses, which may see the 10-day program reduced.