Sisters, Brothers, and Friends,
Yesterday, Treasury Board President Shafqat Ali said that the return of federal public service employees to the office is a “success.” He made this statement as he was leaving the Standing Committee on Government Operations after being asked about the matter. He added that “the intention is good, and I think it will be a success.”
The fact that the President of the Treasury Board would make such a statement shows that he is either extraordinarily out of touch with reality and living on another planet, or that he is acting in bad faith and simply trying to peddle his nonsense and “brainwash” the public.
Whatever the case may be, such remarks are completely unfounded and do not reflect in any way the reality faced by employees. It appears the minister and his government are living in a parallel reality! To put it bluntly, this is downright insulting to federal government employees.
I would like to ask the Minister to be transparent and disclose the information the Treasury Board has regarding the criteria and data on which it bases its claim that the forced return to the office for federal public service employees is a success. Did he conduct a survey of employees and their managers to ask for their opinions on the matter?
I have a better idea. Our union would like to discuss this matter directly with the Canada Revenue Agency. So, could the President of the Treasury Board “ask” the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) to cooperate with our union so that it can provide us with this information directly? In any case, the CRA should comply without any problem, even though it is a separate employer. That’s what it has been doing all along for many years, blindly following directives and policies from the Treasury Board even when they make no sense.
For the Minister’s benefit, things aren’t going all that well at the CRA regarding the rollout of mandatory in-office presence, whether it’s for 2, 3, or 4 days a week. Currently, not all of the Agency’s buildings have enough space to accommodate employees 3 days a week. And when we talk about increasing in-office attendance to 4 days a week, the situation becomes much more problematic. More than a third of the buildings currently occupied by the CRA do not have enough space. And many are at the limit of their capacity, including the brand-new building constructed at great expense and recently inaugurated in Shawinigan, Quebec. Speaking of limits, they are constantly being pushed. New office layouts have significantly reduced workspace, making them inadequate and ill-suited for the work our members do. These open-plan spaces offer no privacy and do nothing to ensure confidentiality during discussions with taxpayers. And it is very difficult, if not impossible for some people, to concentrate on their work. That is why many employees wear headphones while working so they can focus. It’s crazy! Is that what Minister Ali meant when he spoke of success?
When the federal government began mandating a return to the office, it claimed it was to foster collaboration among employees within their natural work teams. Well, we can tell them without a doubt that they got it completely wrong! For the minister’s information, I would like to inform him that things aren’t going very well at the CRA. Why is that? Quite simply because these “natural teams” are scattered all over the country. In fact, some employees on the same team work in Ottawa while others work in a different office, a different city, or even a different province—sometimes in different time zones! One more small detail: thanks to the CRA’s wonderful “E-concierge” desk reservation system, employees on a team working in the same office aren’t seated together most of the time. They’re scattered all over the place—even on different floors! This means employees are forced to go to the office to work alone, and when a team meeting is needed, they log into Microsoft Teams just as they would at home—but they’re stuck in traffic, must find a parking spot, or take public transit. And they must carry around their computer equipment and other personal belongings, find their workstation for the day, adjust their desk and chair, and so on.
But don’t worry, dear employees. Treasury Board Secretary Bill Matthews has come up with a solution. He told the parliamentary committee, “We’re going to assign seats, as much as possible, so that teams can work together—it’s much more efficient that way.” Wow! What a revelation!
Mr. Matthews added, “This will evolve. As we are able to add more designated spaces, we will do so, but it will take time and will vary by department, since the growth across the civil service has not been accompanied by an increase in office space.”
At this point, I must inform Mr. Matthews—if he is not already aware—that at the Canada Revenue Agency, this is going to take a very long time. Months, even years! There is a good reason for this: the federal government, through Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC), has not renewed several leases for office space occupied by the Agency for several years in order to save money and has forced the CRA to relocate the affected employees to another office, which is often overcrowded.
But the federal government’s flip-flopping and improvisation regarding remote work and the mandatory in-office presence of its employees are not only insulting to employees; they are also insulting to Canadian taxpayers. Indeed, all of this comes at a huge financial cost, certainly in the billions of dollars, when you factor in all the relocations, office reconfigurations, procurement of equipment and furniture, replacement of equipment and furniture, signing of new leases, and construction of new buildings. And the planned increase in mandatory office attendance to four days a week will result in even more enormous expenses for the government and taxpayers. The President of the Treasury Board is simply asking PSPC to “arrange the necessary spaces.” In any case, he says, “It’s their job to find space.”
Unfortunately, it’s not that simple in real life. It takes time—a lot of time. And it’s very expensive!
Instead, I would urge the federal government to finally use some common sense. Instead of arbitrarily forcing its employees to work more and more from the office, why not save billions in capital expenditures, preserve jobs in the federal public service, and continue to provide good service to the public?
The truth is that the federal government has no valid reason to justify the mandatory return of public service employees to the office—whether in terms of productivity, collaboration, or anything else. It has no concrete data to present and dodges all questions on the subject.
Can the federal government seriously claim that increasing public service employees' in-office presence from 3 to 4 days a week will boost productivity or collaboration among employees?
From the start, the government has been improvising. From the start, this decision has been politically motivated to please business lobbyists, Chambers of Commerce, and municipal and provincial politicians. From the very beginning, the government hasn’t given a damn about the well-being of its employees or their productivity levels. And, clearly, the government doesn’t give a damn either about the incredible mess it has created or the exorbitant cost of all these changes to Canadian taxpayers.
In closing, I would like to ask the President of the Treasury Board to give his authorization to allow the CRA bargaining team to discuss telework and better work-life balance with our PSAC-UTE bargaining team , as a meeting is currently taking place in Ottawa with a mediator appointed by the Federal Public Sector Labour Relations and Employment Board (FPSLREB) to move the negotiations forward.
That would be the right thing to do, and it would also be much more respectful toward our members than making pointless, insulting, and baseless statements.
In solidarity,
Marc Brière
National President
Union of Taxation Employees