MPs startled by $6.6-million price tag on Parliament Hill wall
Several MPs were taken aback this week to learn that the cost to replace a crumbling 400-metre stone wall with a new masonry wall and wrought-iron fence along the Ottawa River escarpment behind Parliament Hill has added up to an eye-popping $6.6-million. It’s a drop in the bucket compared to the total of $2-billion the Public […]
Renovating the Government Conference Centre, in pictures
Ottawa’s old train station, known as the Government Conference Centre, located at 2 Rideau St., has been under construction since 2014 and is being renovated to serve as an interim home for the Senate. It will have a temporary Senate Chamber, Senate leadership offices, and administration offices. The Senate will move into the space in 2018 and […]
Phoenix, we have a problem: feds bring in pay experts to deal with ongoing public service pay fiasco
With Public Services and Procurement blowing past its deadline to resolve the disastrous Phoenix pay system backlog issues, sources say some departments have hired back or brought in department-specific compensation staff to internally deal with payroll problems. After pledging to clear up the backlog of public service employee pay issues by Oct. 31, about 22,000 cases are […]
MP Jenny Kwan ate nothing but two oranges and noodles every day last week
NDP MPs Jenny Kwan and Ruth Ellen Brosseau both spent last week eating on an $18 budget; no more, and no less. The pair took part in British Columbia’s annual Welfare Food Challenge, which gets participants to try and fill their tummies for a mere $18. That’s the amount of money Raise the Rates, a […]
End of honeymoon with labour could force Trudeau to step up game as PM: academic
At least one academic and former journalist says the wrath being directed at Prime Minister Justin Trudeau right now by Canada’s biggest public-service union could force him to improve his performance as Canada’s chief decision-maker. Last week, the Public Service Alliance of Canada launched a media campaign with a direct message for the prime minister: […]
How Mario Dion is leading the way on mental health
The chairperson of the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada wants other government bodies to learn from the one he has been heading since January 2015. Mario Dion is lauded as being “ahead of the curve” when it comes to creating a workplace that is aware and accepting of employees struggling with mental health. Since being appointed chairperson […]
Shared Services likely to become ‘money pit,’ says Canada’s former chief statistician who quit two weeks ago
Canada’s former chief statistician, who publicly quit his job two weeks ago on principle to the cheers of hundreds of Statistics Canada employees, says Shared Services Canada is doomed to fail. “There’s a really good chance Shared Services Canada will turn into a money pit,” Mr. Smith told The Hill Times after he resigned publicly as Canada’s […]
‘I’m incredibly disappointed,’ PSAC talks with government end on sour note
Talks between the federal public service’s biggest union and the Treasury Board last week—the first in many months—ended without progress and with a disillusioned union leader. “I am incredibly disappointed with the Liberal government,” Robyn Benson, president of the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC), said in an interview on Friday, Sept. 16. “Their agenda […]
House on Hill: a primer on multi-billion-dollar renovations of Parliament Buildings
The sights and sounds of construction have become a normal part of life on Parliament Hill after already more than a decade of ongoing work, which officially began in 2001 with the renovation of the Library of Parliament and will have cost an estimated $3-billion by the time Centre Block is emptied for renovations in […]
A closer look at the $863-million West Block renovations
Media got a chance to tour the West Block project’s construction site on Sept. 15, including a close-up look at the first phase of the new underground Visitors’ Welcome Centre and the building’s courtyard space that’ll be home to an interim House of Commons Chamber, in use by fall 2018 for at least a decade […]
