Remote Meeting with Minister of Digital Government Joyce Murray

As we continue our best to represent and advocate for our members despite the current situation with COVID-19, we wanted to share with you an important meeting we held by teleconference with Minister Joyce Murray. 

On March 12th, I had an already scheduled meeting with Minister Murray concerning her new Digital Government portfolio. We decided to do the call by teleconference and it went very well. Given that we had an established relationship with her from her time in the last Parliament as President of the Treasury Board, we were easily able to engage in some very interesting and fruitful dialogue. 

We discussed the need to keep the NextGen project, the replacement for Phoenix, moving along quickly and effectively. The Minister assured us that the project was her top priority and that PIPSC and our own government IT members would remain key partners. I also discussed the need with her to move forward on a feasibility study for the Canadian Revenue Agency to switch more quickly to the SAP solution.

I was very pleased to hear the Minister's focus on training and professional development of our IT government community. We know it is a priority for our members and key to successfully digitizing and modernizing the government’s IT systems. Minister Murray actually brought it up before I could, which I found very reassuring. She told me about her plans to push for more resources for digital training. I expressed our desire to work in partnership with her. Please stay tuned for more details on this!

In closing it was a successful first meeting and we are looking forward to continued work together to the mutual benefit of our members. Despite the current situation with COVID-19, my team and I here at PIPSC are doing our best to continue serving you, our members, during this difficult period. 

Debi Daviau,
President


6 October 2017
Radio-Canada and the CBC have reported this week that Phoenix was “doomed from the start.” The reason? The business case prepared in 2009 under the previous government “lacked proper risk analysis and was politically motivated.” In the words of former parliamentary budget officer Kevin Page, “You look at this business case, you can drive trucks through some of the holes under the risk analysis.”

3 October 2017
In light of the Phoenix fiasco and as part of a commitment made to bargaining agents to make it easier for their members to obtain information about their pay, Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSCPC) has just released its Pay Bulletin for September.

2 October 2017
The Institute has just filed two new policy grievances on Phoenix-related issues, accusing the Treasury Board of failing to implement the terms of the AV and SP Group collective agreements within the specified timeframe (120 and 90 days respectively).

29 September 2017
While much has been reported about the impact of the Phoenix pay system on current federal employees, comparatively little has been said about the harm done to retirees.

21 July 2017
Recently, I sent an opinion piece to the Globe and Mail about our members’ ongoing problems with the Phoenix pay system and what I consider to be one of the root causes of the debacle: outsourcing.

12 June 2017
The recent recommendations of yet another consultants’ report on Shared Services Canada (SSC) demonstrate that, when it comes to federal government outsourcing, there’s no shortage of private sector advice.