76th Atlantic Regional Council - Bylaws and Policies Committee

BY-LAWS AND POLICIES COMMITTEE 2018 ANNUAL REPORT TO THE ATLANTIC REGIONAL COUNCIL (ARC)

Submitted By: Barry Gerus

This is my Bylaws and Policy Committee (BLPC) report to the 2019 ARC with a focus on Atlantic issues.

The BLPC met 5 times from Jan 2018 to November 2018.

The 2018 Work Plan included a continuation of the review of all the subgroup and branch constitutions within Atlantic to ensure that they are in agreement with the group constitutions. Several subgroup/branch bylaws have been found to no longer conform to newly approved and changed bylaws. This work has started and will continue throughout 2018-2019.

Many Group, and Subgroup/Branch bylaws in Atlantic were reviewed, amended and/or approved last year including;

SP Group,

SH Group,

NR Group,

CFIA Group,

AFS Group,

CS Group

AV St. John’s Sub-Group,

SP Fredericton Sub-Group,

and Retired Members Guild Nova Scotia.

The BLPC discussed a request from Groups to Combine Meetings. In the January 2018 BOD meeting, the BLPC was tasked to work with the Finance Committee and the Finance Section to examine the practice of Group and Regional Executives holding one planning meeting in conjunction with a regular meeting of the Executive. The BLPC felt that there would be no issue combine meetings. The BLPC felt this would need to be done within the approved budget. It would however take away one executive meeting or it would count as two meetings. We made a recommendation to the Board as to how to reflect this practice in the Policy without increasing the cost or the number of maximum meetings allowed in one year. The BLPC also felt that the current policy/practice works and that if this is an issue for Groups, Group Executives could bring forward a resolution to the Board or to the AGM to make a change in policy

The BLPC reviewed a draft of the new policy suite. This is a result of the work of the Policy Review Committee. We are also performing the triennial review of Institute Bylaws in preparation for the 2019 AGM.

We discussed and made recommendations on the 2017 AGM Resolution - P-3 (NCR Region Boundaries). Branches are determined by work addresses, i.e., where the member physically reports for work. Regular members have the choice to choose their Region and once that determination is made, the Institute assigns the Branch and Sub-Group accordingly. This has not been an issue when regular members have asked to choose their Region.

We had a discussion re: Rights of Members. Some groups needed to have their constitutions reworded to reflect that all members are allowed to attend their AGM.

The BLPC reviewed a question over the frequency of EC meetings and agreed that they should be held only if and when required. The Bylaw language should allow for the flexibility to have as many or as few meetings as necessary, depending on the requirement. The BLPC sought clarification around the authority of the EC in terms of decisions made at the EC level versus the Board level.

The BLPC discussed hospitality expenses and the wording below, as requested by the Finance Committee.

All claims for expenses should be submitted for reimbursement within one hundred and eighty (180) days after the date on which the expenses were incurred. If a claim is not received within the aforementioned time frame, ten percent (10%) of the adjusted and approved amount claimed will be deducted each month thereafter.

The BLPC supported the Finance Committee’s recommendation. There were no issues raised with the proposed wording; however, the difference between expense claims and expenses incurred from allowances will require further discussion in the future.

The BLPC assisted in the review of the AC Director’s election process to determine if changes should be made following the 2018 elections.

An amended policy to deal with matters of conflict of interest was prepared by General Counsel and provided to the BLPC for consideration. We discussed Board members signing an affirmation of understanding of conflict of interest.

The BLPC reviewed the gender language policy. The ‘Team Leader’ of translation and a senior translator joined the BLPC for this discussion and to present their recommendations on wording for gender neutral language used in PIPSC Bylaws, model constitutions and Group constitutions, as per the 2017 AGM resolution. The implementation of inclusive language will impact many Institute communications. Extensive research was made on various sites (government, press, etc) to see how this could done in the most effective manner. The work can be done more easily in English but will be more complicated in French due to the lack of consensus on some wording. The work has been completed for Institute Bylaws, the 6 ‘core‘ Groups constitutions, and for ‘model’ constitutions. As Institute policies are being reviewed, the work will be deferred until the new policy suite is in place.

A discussion was held regarding the gender neutral language and the AGM presentation. Many of the larger documents and the larger group’s bylaws have been amended to adhere to the new gender neutral language. Other documents will be updated as they are submitted.

The BLPC supported the following recommendation of the finance committee:

If a Board member wishes to recognize the departure or retirement of a Board member or PIPSC staff member, the maximum amount of that gift shall be $250 and would come out of that Board member’s hospitality expense.

We also felt that any decision around an appropriate dollar amount for gifts should be left to the Board.

The BLPC recommended that the 2018 election for the Advisory Council Director be done with the oversight of the national Elections Committee and that any Bylaw amendment(s) be submitted to the 2019 AGM.

This completes my 2018 BLPC annual report to the ARC.

Barry Gerus