Politics This Morning: Another look at Bill C-4
The Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities will meet to study Bill C-4 again today. The meeting is from 3:30-5:30 p.m. in room 228 of the Valour Building. The bill is formally called An Act to amend the Canada Labour Code, the Parliamentary Employment and Staff Relations […]
Commons Speaker urges Tories to ‘act like adults’ in Anti-Bullying Day clash
House of Commons Speaker Geoff Regan once again admonished Conservative Members of Parliament Wednesday, calling a dozen of them out for “mocking” Liberal MP Francois-Philippe Champagne and urging them to “act like adults.” Mr. Regan (Halifax West, N.S.) accused another crew of Conservatives of bullying Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould (Vancouver Granville, B.C.) while pursuing her over […]
Federal public service unions not satisfied with Trudeau government’s first budget
The unions representing federal public servants say there were some welcome investments and gestures in the Trudeau government’s first budget released two weeks ago laying out how it will spend $290-billion this year, yet they also found it fell short on several fronts. The Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC), which represents about 140,000 federal employees, […]
Canada’s innovation challenge: keeping next billion-dollar club at home
OTTAWA—From the moment the Liberal government took office last fall, it left no doubt that innovation was going to be a top priority. Gone was Industry Canada, replaced by the Ministry of Innovation, Science, and Economic Development, with Navdeep Bains, a close confidant of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, installed as the responsible minister. Last week’s budget […]
Labour Minister claims Conservatives buried ‘significant’ union report in last Parliament, releases it
Employment, Workforce Development and Labour Minister MaryAnn Mihychuk is alleging the previous Conservative government buried its own government report in the last Parliament about union certification regimes because it went against the anti-union private member’s bill it pushed through into law. The report found that mandatory voting systems had a negative effect on union certification rates, which was […]
Power shift among federal lobbyists biggest since Chrétien won power in 1993: lobbyists
[email_link] Much has changed as a result of last year’s election that brought in a majority Liberal government and marked the first change in government in almost 10 years, and the federal lobbying sector is one of those things, as seen with this year’s Top 100 Lobbyists list. Robin Sears, a principal at Earnscliffe Strategy […]
Copyright disagreement between educational sector and writers ongoing
Last month, I was asked to testify at the Copyright Board of Canada. Naturally, I went. When Ottawa requests my presence on matters of concern to my industry, I respectfully honour the request. At issue was an ongoing disagreement between Canada’s post-secondary educational sector—our colleges and universities—and our domestic writing and publishing industry. Boiled down, […]
Figures from Privy Council Clerk’s 2015 report on public service
Number of federal employees in 2014: 257,138, down from 262,817 in 2013 Proportion of federal workers in permanent positions in 2014: 86.6%, down from 87.6% in 2013 Proportion of federal workers in term positions in 2014: 8.3%, up from 8.1% in 2013 Proportion of federal workers in casual positions in 2014: 3.1%, […]
Short-term work assignments stymie federal public service renewal: union leaders
Union leaders are calling on the federal government to provide younger employees with clearer paths to long-term careers as a way of making the public service a more attractive place to work for millennials. As government officials, such as Treasury Board President Scott Brison (Kings-Hants, N.S.), wrestle with the problem of large cohorts of public […]
The cause for fairer science, because it’s 2016
OTTAWA—When Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made his famous remark—”because it’s 2015″—about gender parity in his newly-appointed Cabinet last year, it attracted a lot of attention at home and abroad. He followed it up with a high-level panel on gender parity at Davos where he promoted women’s rights across the spectrum of society, including science and […]
