Public Service Alliance of Canada BC

I want to extend a special congratulations to all of the union brothers and sisters who ran and were elected to parliament on January 23rd. We look forward to meeting all of you over the next few months.

While we may have our differences with the new Conservative government, we intend to see what we can get done for working people between now and the next election. While many Canadians clearly voted for a change, many also voted for candidates whose party offered working families the most. We look forward to the positive and productive parliament that was promised. Read the rest of Ken Georgetti’s message at the CLC website.

Read the text of letters sent to the Party Leaders by the CLC here: Letter to Jack Layton | Letter to Paul Martin | Letter to Gilles Duceppe | Letter to Stephen Harper (all ).

The third international “Workers Out” conference for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT) trade unionists and allies will be held in Montréal from July 26 to 29, 2006.

The CLC and PSAC will be sponsors of the event and a decision has been made by the AEC to allocate one fully subsidized delegate spot per PSAC region. This is your opportunity to express your interest to represent the PSAC BC at this international event. Please send to the REVP’s office at ducharp@psac.com a brief outline of what you could contribute to the PSAC and to the conference by your attendance. Here is some more information about the conference, or check out their web site at www.montreal2006.org.

Deadline for expressions of interest is the end of day on February 28, 2006.

Now that the election is over and PSAC members and all Canadians are waiting to see what the new Conservative minority government’s first actions will be, National President Nycole Turmel has written to the incoming Prime Minister and the leaders of the opposition parties to put some of our members’ concerns before them and to ask for an early meeting to discuss these concerns, read the letters here: Letter to Stephen Harper | Letter to Paul Martin | Letter to Jack Layton | Letter to Gilles Duceppe (all )

PSAC Minutes and Record of Decisions of The PSAC Equal Opportunities Committee November 28 to December 2, 2005

Meeting

The meeting was held in the Victoria Room at the Delta Ottawa Hotel, 361 Queen Street, Ottawa, Ontario.

The PSAC Harassment Statement was read to the group by co-chair, Robyn Benson at the start of the meeting.

Download the PSAC Equal Opportunities Committee Nov 28-Dec 2 2005 minutes here , or read below.

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Sisters, Brothers, Comrades

Yes! There will be a Workers Out! Conference in Montreal in July 2006!

The first World Outgames 2006 will be held in Montreal, Québec, Canada from July 29-August 5, 2006. An integral part of the Outgames is an International Conference on the theme «The Right to be Different».

The organizers of the Outgames plan to make the event “an important contribution to the advancement of the rights and freedoms of gay communities” worldwide and they are including an International Conference as a central part of the cultural, sporting and political events being planned.

Workers Out! Making The Difference will be held in conjunction with the International Conference and we are planning our time so that trade unionists can participate in both the International Conference and Workers Out Conference.

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Thanks to Nick Humphreys, BC Regional Council member for forwarding us an update on the Make Poverty History fund, and an update on one of the projects in BC funded by the Social Justice Fund.

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Livable Income For Everyone, one of the projects the PSAC Social Justice Fund is sponsoring in BC, is presenting two documentary films discussing homelessness in Victoria. There will be an introduction by Cindy L’Hirondelle about the Guaranteed Livable Income project.

• When: Monday January 30th starting at 6:30pm
• Where: Harry Hickman Building (HHB) 105
• Cost: FREE!

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Things aren’t all bad for former Liberal MP Reg Alcock, after being unseated in a surprise defeat Monday night.

After 12 years, two months, and 20 days in office, the outgoing Treasury Board president will collect an estimated $83,897 in an annual pension, or approximately $6,991 per month. Manitobans also needn’t mourn for losing Independent MP Bev Desjarlais, who’ll walk away from serving the Churchill riding since June 1997 with an estimated $40,072 pension per year.

According to the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, 66 MPs who were defeated in Monday’s election or left politics before the vote stand to collect $74.6 million in pensions and severance. Four of the 66 retiring MPs, all of them Liberals, could each collect more than $3 million before they turn 75, estimates calculated by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation suggest.

Alcock rounded out the top 10 list of pension-getting ex-MPs: he’s set to receive more than $1.9 million by the time he hits the age of 75.

Read more at the Brandon Sun.

VANCOUVER — The Conservative justice critic says the party will stand behind its promise to give guns to Canadian border guards.Vic Toews’ pledge comes a day after two murder suspects from California made a run for the border south of Vancouver before they were stopped in a shootout.

Toews says it’s just a matter of how soon the Canadian officers can be trained and the firearms issued.

His comments came as B-C Solicitor General John Les was calling on the new Tory government to arm border guards.

Toews says he was disturbed Canadian guards left their posts yesterday as the gunmen approached, but he understands because of the threat to their personal safety.

Read more at ctv.ca

After 12 years under the Liberals, government workers across the nation’s capital woke up to a new boss Tuesday morning.

“I feel a little bit like a virgin on her wedding night. It’s exciting, but there’s fear and trepidation to see what’s coming next,” said Ed Cashman, vice-president of the Public Service Alliance of Canada in the National Capital Region.

Despite some anxiety, Cashman believes public service employees are bound to benefit from the new marriage.

One immediate advantage of the new Conservative goverment, in Cashman’s view, is the end of Reg Alcock’s term.

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Family Services á la famille Ottawa is a non-profit agency that provides counselling, education and support to individuals, couples and families, serving the Ottawa region since 1914. In partnership with Pink Triangle Services, a community agency supporting the wellness of the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, Two Spirit, questioning and queer (GLBTTQ) community, we are undertaking a community development initiative focusing on the social inclusion of GLBTTQ parents and their children, ages 0-6. |inline

You are invited to celebrate the 11th annual Dances with Dragons, which was started ten years ago by students from Mount Currie (see background below). This is not a performance but a genuine celebration of another year of journey with the First People and one more step towards reconciliation. To that end, please share the following invitation with your friends: |inline

As you can see we’ve made some changes to the website!

We’ve updated the engine that runs the site and given psacbc.com a cleaner, more modern look. Other than the look of things, the biggest change you’ll notice is the use of categories (look on the right for Filed Under…) and a vastly improved archive section. Categories allow us to post, or file, articles in multiple virtual locations. There was a lot of information and content on the old website, but at times it was buried several layers deep in the site structure – we hope this new system will make things easier to find.

We’ve also added new features that make it more convenient to access the content of the website: there is an RSS feed (what is RSS?) and you can now subscribe and receive some or all of our updates via email.

Accessibility has also been improved: the new layout reduces our reliance on pdf documents, which some members found hard to access. The new website also validates as XHTML 1.0, which means a better experience for members using alternate web browsers. Have a look at “File > Print Preview” and you’ll see printing pages or articles produces better results, as well.

Last but not least, psacbc.com is easier for the staff to use. At the back-end the posting interface is simpler and produces better html, and the category system means we can concentrate on the content itself and not how it looks or where it should fit into the structure. Wordpress, the engine that runs the site, is extremely flexible – with it we can grow to meet future needs and provide more and better features.

We welcome your feedback … send us an email, or comment on this article and let us know what you think.

Click around and see whats new!

Canada’s 130,000 Registered Nurses today challenged Stephen Harper and the other political party leaders to explain clearly how they would protect our public medicare system from the private for-profit medical entrepreneurs who are poised to destroy it.They issued the challenge as a new Ipsos-Reid poll (pdf) showed that Canadians strongly support our not-for-profit medicare system and fear more private health care will draw health care professionals away from our public system and lead to a for-profit American health care system.

Read more at bcnu.org.

Congratulations to all of you who contacted your federal election candidates and encouraged them to endorse the Make Poverty History goals! Thanks to you, more than 75% of candidates from all parties have endorsed the Make Poverty History goals of more and better aid, trade justice, 100% debt cancellation and an end to child poverty in Canada. In all, 987 candidates responded by our deadline, and even now, more are contacting us.

To find out how the candidates and their parties responded, visit the Make Poverty History website. You can also find out about the different party platforms to see how the different parties plan to act.

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As labour activists we are often asked by our members to describe for them our bargaining demands at contract time. When we answer with the usual list of demands, such as “a raise” or “improved leave provisions,” our members are comforted that they will experience some improvements to their working conditions. However, when we mention the “Social Justice Fund” as a bargaining demand, the Union of Taxation Employees (UTE) members question why the union needs to negotiate the creation of such a fund.

No doubt we’ve all heard talk of the “Social Justice Fund” from the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC). However, few members have a complete understanding of what this bargaining demand really means. In fact, many members quietly wish it would be dropped in favour of more “meat and potato” demands directly related to our workplace. But what is the “Social Justice Fund” and what role does the UTE play with respect to “Global Social Justice?”

Read more at the PSAC Social Justice Fund website.

News Release: Concerns Regarding the National Aboriginal Achievement Awards Held at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre in Vancouver (Unceded Coast Salish Territories) On Friday, January 27, 2006

Attn: National Aboriginal Achievement Foundation

We the undersigned are deeply concerned with the high concentration of unethical corporations that sponsor the National Aboriginal Achievement Awards (NAAA). In particular, we disapprove of the NAAA sponsors that have a track record of destroying Indigenous people’s lives and land; namely the Encana Corporation, Shell Canada, and Weyerhauser. We haveresearched these corporations and found blatant and undeniable human rights violations in the territories that they operate in. In addition, many of these corporations have refused to recognize Aboriginal Rights and Title in Canada.

Although many of NAAA’s corporate sponsors claim to “balance out” their environmental and human rights injustices by giving funds or support to Indigenous groups, we see that the harm they produce far outweighs any aesthetic repairs they claim to make. We are also concerned with the NAAA’s failure to involve the grassroots Native community in the organization of the awards and we criticize this exclusive conduct throughout the years. With the observations that we outline below, we trust that you will listen to our concerns and make the necessary changes we request. |inline

I like paying taxes. Taxes allow us to pursue our aspirations collectively and thus they greatly enrich the quality of life for the average Canadian family. Taxes have brought us high quality public schools that remain our democratic treasure, low tuition at world-class universities, freedom from fear of crippling health bills and excellent medical services, public parks and libraries, safe streets and livable cities. None of these things comes cheaply.

Taxes are the price that we pay for goods and services produced in the public sector from which we all benefit. They are equivalent to amounts we pay as prices for goods and services produced in the private sector.

Read more at straightgoods.ca.

This is, of course, is a purely unscientific poll and it’s results should have no bearing on any future employee feedback sessions.

This ad will be running tomorrow in community newspapers across the province. The text reads “We inspect your food, help seniors and the unemployed, protect our national parks, operate search and rescue and provide hundreds of federal services everyday to Canadians across the country.This election, think about how these services affect you and what the candidates will do to protect and improve them.Then cast your vote.”