Gary Esslinger
The committee met the week of August 12 to prepare the next issue. Unfortunately, there was equipment problems at the printer and the issue wasn’t submitted to Canada Post until the week of September 9th.
The current issue might be considered relatively political in nature. There were two reasons for this the first being the single tax issue in the province of Québec and the second being the pending federal election scheduled for October 21, 2019.
An article from the National President outlined the potential impact of electing a conservative government relating to their policy position on a single tax return in the province of Québec. Not only would this affect 5,500 Members in Québec but potentially hundreds outside of the province. This is because of service renewal and the consolidation of various programs to one or two sites across the country. In the situations significant numbers of bilingual employees were hired to do this work. The transition to a single tax return in Québec would eliminate many of these jobs as well.
The National President’s message to our members was clear, if you vote conservative many of our members jobs could be on the line.
The second article basically outlined either the party’s platforms in this election or a brief history of the two major parties and how they have treated public servants. It was no direction given to the readers other than consider your options and make a well-informed choice.
The committee is next scheduled to meet the week of November 12-15, 2019. So, it’s never too early to remind everyone to please try to have any articles or submissions submitted the prior week.
Respectfully submitted,
Gary Esslinger
Chair of the Committee