SoVote

Jun/6/24 11:24:41 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, what that member just uttered is patently false. I have supported meetings on SDTC at committee, and our government has studied it at multiple committees. We have also taken action from day one to, as I said, do numerous fact-finding missions and independent reviews, all of which have provided the evidence and support for the actions we are now taking. We have taken those to heart and we have acted on the recommendations that independent third parties have given us, including all the witness testimony that has been provided at numerous committees.

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

Jun/6/24 11:25:21 a.m.
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Order, please. The hon. member for South Shore—St. Margarets has a habit of doing this, and I asked him to please be respectful and to allow members to have their say. If he has anything else to say, then he should wait until the appropriate time. Questions and comments, the hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands.

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Mr. Rick Perkins

Jun/6/24 11:25:21 a.m.
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You voted against all the summonses.

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Ms. Elizabeth May (Saanich—Gulf Islands, GP)

Jun/6/24 11:25:38 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I just want to stand first to say that I have tracked the work of Sustainable Development Technology Canada over a 22-year history, in which there were leading entrepreneurs from my own riding, people like Juergen Puetter from the wind energy sector, who was active as a member of the board. In those days, we would look at a track record of extremely effective, targeted support that led to multiplier factors of benefits to our economy in moving to innovative technology. I cannot believe it is the same organization that is found so lacking in rigour by our current Auditor General. There has been a shocking decline in management, and I certainly support the Conservative motion today that we get to the bottom of it. Does the hon. parliamentary secretary see a day when Sustainable Development Technology Canada, or the work it was doing, will be properly restored through the National Research Council?

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Mr. Ryan Turnbull

Jun/6/24 11:26:54 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I think the hon. member's question is a good-faith question. It is exactly what we hope to see. This organization has a legacy of really great strategic work in helping finance, seed and scale up financing for some of our most promising clean-tech entrepreneurs. To see that work continue is really where our commitment is. Obviously, we need to address the governance issues that have surfaced and the practices that have been lacking. I agree with her that the hope is that we can do that, under the National Research Council, in a way that gives a lot more oversight to the federal government. I think that is what is really needed in this case. I share her concern and her commitment to ensuring that we restore SDTC to its previous and most effective model.

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Ms. Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné (Terrebonne, BQ)

Jun/6/24 11:27:58 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will begin by saying that I will be sharing my time with my hon. colleague from Saint-Jean. Sustainable Development Technology Canada or how to take a great idea and a noble cause and screw the whole thing up. This organization was founded as a non-profit in 2001 with the noble aim of stimulating innovation in clean energy and green technologies during a crucial stage for many entrepreneurs and creators, that being the pre-commercial stage. This is the point where businesses are not yet profitable and need financing to be able to develop their technologies and commercialize them. In Quebec, home to a strong entrepreneurial fabric, many businesses depend on this type of financing, which can be obtained in very few places. Since its inception, Sustainable Development Technology Canada, or SDTC, has been sitting on about $2.1 billion in funding. Of this amount, it has spent $856 million on some 420 projects, which is no trifling sum. Again, this was for a noble cause, with the laudable aim of stimulating innovation in clean technologies. This funding is necessary. On Tuesday the Auditor General's devastating report landed with a thud. In fact, this is one of three devastating reports we received Tuesday, proof that this government has completely lost control of the federal machinery of government. This is appalling. First, we see that since the eligibility criteria were simply not defined, there is no way of knowing which projects could qualify. There was no follow-up on the fact that certain projects had, for example, proved less beneficial for the environment than what had been previously described. The eligibility criteria were not even sent to the outside experts who had been asked whether these projects should be funded or not. That takes the cake: Outside experts are hired to tell us whether this is a good or a bad project, but they are not sent the eligibility criteria. The number of problems outlined in this report is outrageous. What is more, the Auditor General noted that one out of 10 projects were ineligible. It is as if, every time someone buys a bag of 10 apples at the grocery store, one of them is rotten. There comes a point when enough is enough. That is what happened at SDTC. One out of 10 projects were not even eligible. That is a huge ratio. Then we get to what might explain why some ineligible projects were still funded: conflict of interest. The Auditor General identified 90 breaches of conflict of interest policies. In some cases, there were personal business relations between directors and the companies. In many cases, although the person disclosed their conflict of interest, they were still present when the decision was made whether or not to fund the project. Put the conflicts of interest and the ineligibility of projects together, and there is wrongdoing amounting to many tens of millions of dollars. That is what we learned from the Auditor General's report. It is passing strange, moreover, that we learned that Sustainable Development Technology Canada had been abolished the very morning the report was submitted. What is going to happen with these recommendations? The recommendations made to SDTC will not be followed up on, since SDTC no longer exists. That raises a lot of questions. The government has disavowed an entity that receives public funds, that has a responsibility to taxpayers, that has a dual responsibility: properly managing the public funds it receives and stimulating a part of the economy essential to our future. The government says that the organization, the foundation, is not even worth cleaning up, and that it must be abolished. What we have also learned is that SDTC employees will all have access to positions at the National Research Council of Canada, and that the funds will also be transferred there. However, we are not being told how that will work. We are completely in the dark. What is going to happen with the funding? I would remind the House that this funding is essential. What will happen? Will the criteria at last be clear? Will projects continue to be funded? Will all the projects funded to date really be audited? Are we going to resume funding those that truly need it and whose survival depends on it? There are tons of questions. This elimination comes at a crucial time. Now that many questions are being raised, it seems quite wise to scrap Sustainable Development Technology Canada or SDTC. Will the documents follow? Will the government destroy all the documents that prove conflicts of interest or those that show that there may have been questionable ties or that the department may have been aware of certain facts well before the report was tabled and the first alarm sounded? This leads me to today's opposition motion, moved by the Conservatives. If the aim is to shed light on what is happening at SDTC and to protect information that will support an investigation, especially by the RCMP, we fully agree on that. The wording now has to be made acceptable and realistic. For example, the 14-day deadline is inadequate, given the volume of documentation requested. It is a huge number of documents. It includes all emails and briefing notes about SDTC exchanged between the directors for the past decade. That is huge. If these documents have to be translated, and we would like them to be, because we want them in both official languages, 14 days is not enough. Obviously, this sort of thing is very important to us. We also want to tighten the language. Asking for financial information on every company that received funding from the SDTC may be going a bit too far. We should tread more lightly. However, we definitely agree that we should focus on projects where the Auditor General found a breach of conflict of interest policies. We must get to the bottom of this. These documents must be preserved so the RCMP can investigate, if necessary. I would also point out that we must be very careful with how we word the request to the RCMP. In fact, we have no request to make to the RCMP. The RCMP decides whether, yes or no, it wants to launch an investigation or open a file on the matter. Yes, it can rely on the Auditor General's report. However, the documents used by the Auditor General must still exist, and the RCMP has to be able to go to the SDTC, which no longer exists, and request the documents. That is one of the things we would like to improve in the Conservatives' current motion. However, let us not forget one thing. All the bad elements mentioned in this report and all the money that came out of the SDTC are preferable to the billions of dollars we are sending to the western oil companies. Moreover, we should we forgot the SDTC's important role and commendable objective in contributing to a cleaner future, with less climate change, more mitigation of and adaptation to climate change, with more of our clean technologies and so on. We should not forget the fund. This type of investment, because it comes from our taxes, must continue to exist. Let us not wage a vendetta against all the projects that need this funding. We have to be clear, and the wording has to be written more accurately so we can do our work as parliamentarians more seriously. Once again, the Liberals have proved to us that they are unable to manage anything, and it is really too bad, but do not worry: The Bloc Québécois will be here to help shed light on the issue.

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Mr. Brad Vis (Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, CPC)

Jun/6/24 11:37:20 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate the member's remarks on the corruption we are seeing in the Liberal government, which is displayed in the Auditor General's report. I will note, as seen on page 14 of the Auditor General's report, that there were 90 cases where, according to the foundation's own records, conflict of interest policies were not followed. How do we get rid of corruption in Parliament and in our institutions? How do we do it?

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Ms. Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné

Jun/6/24 11:38:03 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, to begin, if we could get rid of corruption here there would be no more Liberal Party. Furthermore, we would really like Quebec to be independent so we could leave this Parliament. Nevertheless, if there has been misconduct, I would like it to be dealt with. However, the Conservative Party must not forget that there is a commendable objective in this type of investment and it should not start a vendetta against everything that is clean. That is what I want to see.

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.)

Jun/6/24 11:38:38 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, there is no doubt that the idea of sustainable development and funding green projects is something that is worthwhile. I would like to think that all political parties in the House support it, with the possible exception of the Conservative-Reform party. Looking at it, yes, obviously everyone in the chamber recognizes that something is wrong here. The minister took immediate action, and the National Research Council is going to, in essence, ensure that we can continue to have funding ongoing while we address the concerns that have come out. Would the member not agree that to have a government agency, such as NRC, take responsibility for this important file is a positive step forward?

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Ms. Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné

Jun/6/24 11:39:38 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would say that it is too little, too late. In paragraph 6.52 of the report, the Auditor General says, “We found that the department knew of 96 cases when directors declared conflicts of interest because it had access to the meeting minutes and materials of the board of directors.” The department had access to all kinds of documents. It never asked questions about ineligible projects or about recovering funds from those projects. The department simply did not deal with what was happening at Sustainable Development Technology Canada, or SDTC. What a crying shame that it is now getting rid of SDTC altogether without a plan B.

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Ms. Lori Idlout (Nunavut, NDP)

Jun/6/24 11:40:18 a.m.
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Uqaqtittiji, the NDP supports this motion because Canadians expect that their tax dollars will be managed responsibly and will not be used to appoint political appointees and other corporate friends. We absolutely support getting answers about the financial mismanagement, conflict of interests and toxic workplace at Sustainable Development Technology Canada. I wonder if the member would agree that, while the Liberals are saying that they have done what they can, they have not done enough, which has led to the important motion we are debating today.

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Ms. Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné

Jun/6/24 11:41:07 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, first of all, the Liberal government did not do enough in recent years to monitor what was going on. It sent money, but it did nothing to monitor what was being used and what was being done with that money. Second, suggesting that getting rid of SDTC will fix everything is absolutely ridiculous. It is absolutely ridiculous to suggest that eliminating a fund and transferring the money and the employees to the National Research Council will fix everything. These are the same employees. What is more, the eligibility criteria for projects to get funding remain unclear. What is going to happen? We do not know.

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Ms. Christine Normandin (Saint-Jean, BQ)

Jun/6/24 11:41:43 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is always difficult to follow my colleague from Terrebonne, but I will do my best to address the day's topic, the production of documents following the three rather explosive reports just made public by the Auditor General of Canada. I will quickly address the Conservatives' motion because I may have a few proposals to make at the end of my speech. The Conservatives' motion essentially asks that the House order the government and Sustainable Development Technology Canada, or SDTC, to produce several documents within 14 days following the potential adoption of the motion. They want all files, documents, briefing notes, memoranda, emails or any other correspondence exchanged among government officials regarding SDTC; contribution and funding agreements to which SDTC is a party; records detailing financial information of SDTC; SDTC conflict of interest declarations, which we will be talking about in detail; briefing notes and so on. They also want these documents to be provided to the RCMP for its independent determination of whether to investigate potential offences under the Criminal Code. I will circle back to that later as well. In short, this motion relates to the performance audit of SDTC submitted by the Auditor General of Canada two days ago, on June 4. The Auditor General looked into the organization's activities between April 1, 2017, and December 31, 2023, and her findings were as numerous as they were damning. Let me name a few. She revealed that SDTC “did not always manage public funds in accordance with the terms and conditions of the contribution agreements for the Sustainable Development Technology Fund”. That was the basis for her findings. She also revealed that “the foundation had not established targets or clear guidance for assessing eligibility criteria” of the projects it was going to fund. Despite the eligibility criteria, when it finally arrived at the conclusion that a project was ineligible, in some cases, the foundation gave the projects funding even if they did not support the development or demonstration of a new technology, or if “their projected environmental benefits” had been exaggerated. The foundation did not inform Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada of funding that needed to be recovered. The foundation poorly managed its conflicts of interest in several respects. Its records show that “the conflict-of-interest policies were not followed in 90 cases”. The foundation's conflict-of-interest policies simply did not comply with its enabling legislation. It did not even have an “effective system to maintain records over disclosures of conflicts of interest and related mitigating actions.” SDTC's conflicts of interest were linked to approval decisions representing nearly $76 million in funding awarded to projects. This is no small matter. The foundation did not declare its conflicts of interest to the department. The board of directors failed “to oversee the foundation's compliance with key legal requirements.” Right from the start, the board was not set up correctly, since the number of directors did not comply with the enabling legislation. There were only two, rather than the 15 who were supposed to sit on the board. Nevertheless, SDTC should not take all the blame. The minister did not provide sufficient oversight of the foundation's use of public funds. That, my friends, is another problem. Despite whistle-blowers having sounded the alarm a long time ago, nothing was done. As one of my colleagues, the member for Mirabel, mentioned in his question to a Conservative member, former minister Navdeep Bains could have requested audits but did not. As the saying goes, the longer we wait the worse things get. In this case, the wait was long indeed, and things went from bad to worse. In short, what the Auditor General of Canada did two days ago was to finally confirm what we have suspected for months. She tabled three reports the same day and with the same ultimate finding, which is especially striking: The Liberals have completely lost control of the machinery of government. If we needed another blatant example of this, we got one today. As my colleague from Terrebonne mentioned yesterday during a question, Ottawa should get its own house in order instead of trying to manage the provinces. It should begin by doing its own job before trying to do everyone else's. This shows there are systemic problems within the machinery of government. The widespread trend to contract out and create increasing distance between the government and the projects it manages leads to an absence of accountability and transparency. This doubles and even triples the number of intermediaries, causing us to lose the thread concerning who does what. We are unable to follow the money, and we lose track of everything. This is probably something the government can at last understand. It truly tends to be incapable of following up on programs because they have been outsourced to third parties. If the government were asked to do an eight-piece puzzle, it would probably not be above making sure the puzzle was manufactured by a Liberal and creating a non-government agency specializing in solving puzzles. It might even hire a consulting firm to get engineering advice about puzzles, but it would certainly not be able to determine how much it ended up costing them to finish the stupid puzzle. It might not even be able to finish it because one of the pieces was lost in the sofa cushions. That is how the current government is running things, and here we have a clear example of that. Essentially, the problem is that we need to support the development of sustainable technologies. At a time when climate change is likely to cause not only health problems, but economic problems as well, we need to deal with it and develop technologies that can help mitigate it. The problem is that, by suspending funding activities for SDTC because it was so rotten, they also suspended the funding needed to develop these technologies. In the meantime, we are continuing to fund oil companies and engage in greenwashing by asking the same oil companies to develop their own sustainable technologies. Ultimately, it probably suits the Conservatives to be able to blame the government for its poor management inasmuch as we know they are climate change deniers, but we still need to tackle the underlying problem and fund the development of green technologies. That being said, there are interesting things in the Conservatives' motion. My colleague alluded to them. Asking for the rapid production of numerous documents may help us prevent a few of them from getting lost in the sofa cushions. They are sending the message that members of Parliament intend to look into the matter, which is not bad in itself. We need to shed light on this issue to make the government stop constantly delegating its authority and its project management to other entities. Let us not forget the importance of transparency in the government's management of different projects and the subsidies it grants. However, there are two things in this motion that bother us, and we need to point them out. They are asking that the documents be produced within 14 days of the adoption of the motion. The Conservatives appear to have forgotten that there are two official languages and that the Bloc Québécois works in French. Fourteen days will not be sufficient to have all of the requested documents translated. It might be a good idea to show a little flexibility in this respect without going overboard. Furthermore, regarding involving the RCMP, as worded, the motion seems to be giving the RCMP instructions rather than simply allowing it to access documents, which it would be more than capable of obtaining through warrants, anyway. In short, we are open to talking with the Conservatives about minor amendments to their proposal. We invite them to come talk to us. We will be in the House fairly late this evening anyway. Properly managing the Liberals' legislative agenda means we will be working for quite a while. The Conservatives should not hesitate to come see us to discuss proposals and amendments. We are always open to discussion.

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Mr. Jeremy Patzer (Cypress Hills—Grasslands, CPC)

Jun/6/24 11:51:30 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, earlier today, we had a Liberal member stand up and say that the government has done what it set out to do. When one looks at 186 breaches of conflict of interest in SDTC alone, the government definitely set out to do what it wanted to do, which was to reward Liberal friends with hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars. Does my colleague see that particular issue as well with the current government?

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Ms. Christine Normandin

Jun/6/24 11:52:02 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, as I said already, when we create parallel entities and delegate, including to firms or boards, the important principle of government accountability tends to get lost. This is the crux of the issue, of which Sustainable Development Technology Canada, SDTC, is just one example. The way the government manages its affairs and its propensity to constantly delegate need to be examined. It is systemic. Decisions are being made further and further away from the government, which can then distance itself from them. Furthermore, the traceability of many decisions is lost. This is what we have to fix. SDTC is a symptom. It is the disease that causes the symptom. That is what we must tackle. We have another blatant example of that here.

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.)

Jun/6/24 11:53:01 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is important to recognize that SDTC was an arm's-length organization from the government. When it was brought to the attention of the government, immediate actions were in fact taken. Ultimately, today, it has now been given over to NRC to ensure that we can continue to deal with things that are affecting our water, energy and agricultural communities, and to make sure that the good work being done is allowed to continue while we continue to address what the auditor referenced this week. Would the member not agree that having NRC take over is the responsible thing to do? Through NRC, it would be more direct, in terms of the government because it is a Crown corporation.

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Ms. Christine Normandin

Jun/6/24 11:53:56 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, the problem is that we never should have reached this point. It was said earlier. Minister Navdeep Bains was informed, and he did nothing. He did not request an audit. Shutting down SDTC is the nuclear option. It might have been better to do things differently. We know this type of program is the product of the government's obvious desire to create a fiscal imbalance, stop funding the provinces and keep their money in an effort to prove that the federal government is the one that gets things done. The federal government is the one that creates agencies, gives funding and grants subsidies. Quebec, however, had Transition énergétique Québec, which, incidentally, operated in partnership with SDTC. It could manage such a fund. Since Quebec is a leader in developing sustainable technologies, I put the suggestion out there.

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Mr. Brian Masse (Windsor West, NDP)

Jun/6/24 11:54:46 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is hard to take the Liberals seriously when they talk about climate change. This is a perfect example right here. They have $37 billion-plus for a pipeline, and at the same time, they actually bought the pipeline, managed the pipeline and continue to put all the resources into the pipeline. Meanwhile, the Liberals created an agency independent from the government, they claim, with all hands-off, so they have no responsibility, no accountability, and they let the workforce down by making them the scapegoats for sustainable investment and projects. Could the member tell us how we can even take the Liberals seriously when the numbers for the investments and the strategy do not actually coincide with the rhetoric?

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Ms. Christine Normandin

Jun/6/24 11:55:35 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I think that the question clearly shows where the government's priorities are in terms of climate. If we had applied the same criteria to Trans Mountain as those used for the SDTC in abandoning the whole project, we would have pulled out of Trans Mountain a long time ago. Finally, funding was secured, which went far beyond what was originally estimated, to end the damned project because it is oil and that is one of the priorities of a government that, despite everything, tries to make us believe it is green.

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Mr. Brian Masse (Windsor West, NDP)

Jun/6/24 11:56:10 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Edmonton Griesbach. This issue is serious. New Democrats will support this motion. We have supported shedding more light on this because we believe in the support of sustainable technology, but it has to be done with accountability and it has to be done with a process that builds public confidence. This motion would provide a clearer path of where we need to go because the Liberals continue to be in some type of spin cycle that they cannot get out of and will continue to be in until there is actually justice on this file. SDTC was created under Jean Chrétien's government. It has survived all the way through successive Liberal and Conservative governments over this period of time and, most recently, it has poked its head out again because the workers brought forth the erosion of a good program and some good investments that were costing Canadians. What is important to recognize, too, is that all the other competition that was going on for money in SDTC, which is 100% publicly funded, was lost because corrupt and poor decision-making processes, political interference and intimidation sent money to projects that should not have been supported. By the organization's own internal investigations, which are now shedding more light, it probably had political favouritism involved at the very least. That is unfortunate because all those other companies, investment strategies, programs and services are now cast in doubt. To this day, we have not recovered a single cent from all that money that went out there. The practices got so bad that during the pandemic the government just decided it was going to give everybody a 5% raise because it could not bother to go through the files. The government gave up and decided to just give everybody 5% more across the board in funding. On top of that, there was also 10% more for some select companies and, surprise, surprise, familiar names have popped up and political connections have popped up. There still has not been a word from the government about what it is going to do about that. During that process, some managers were getting bonuses. They should have declared a conflict of interest. Some managers would get their packages, would go into the boardroom and would know it was all on the table there. They would leave for a moment and then they would come right back into the same room. They would do that over and over. What was awful was that there was a direct connection to the minister's office because we had a public servant staffer in there. During all that decision-making process, all that camaraderie and all that time at the board table, there was no information apparently brought back to the minister; nor recognition at a time when we had not one, not two, but now three reports about how poorly it operated, about how poor the decision-making process was and about the culture of racism and sexism. An attack on French workers as well was noted in terms of the whistle-blowers. Some people lost their jobs and they had to sign non-disclosure agreements just to get out of there so they and their families could be protected. I had an amendment that I wanted to propose today that would call on the government to apologize. Neither the government nor the minister nor anybody has apologized to these workers and their families for the stress that they went through every day having to go into a toxic workplace, being pressed to hand out government money to people it should not have gone to, and being maligned in the public as SDTC spokespeople defended the organization and the culture there at the expense of the whistle-blowers. I had a motion that was ruled out of order because of the document requirement. Part of this motion is different from what I was proposing, so we will look for another way to have the government to at least say sorry. How sad is it that I had to come here today to get the government to say sorry to the whistle-blowers? I want to go back for a second. Let us recognize what has happened here. The government created SDTC at so-called arm's length because then the workers were not unionized and it had fewer supports and structures for workers and their families. I asked the government if it would at least, in all these months of investigations and circuses, allow those employees to get out of this toxic environment and have another public service job, but no, the government could not even do that. It could not even do that for the remaining people who have held the line and done the right things. We still do not know who is going to be migrated over to the other agency. They do have an association, so there will be better rights there. I do not know the full story right now, and we do not even know if that is what they wanted. Perhaps some of them still wanted to go somewhere else and start a new chapter, doing the right thing. We should have at least provided the choice for them. The government has not done that, and part of that is because of its insincerity in protecting workers. The government's recent decision on anti-scab legislation does not mean it has changed its culture against workers. I asked that there be an independent evaluation to determine whether managers and people in authority, including board members, should keep their positions and be migrated. That is a fair thing, because there are probably some good people in there who do not need to be blanketed as part of the problem of workplace bullying. We had the Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton report, the confidential report of the special committee and the Osler report. The Privy Council Office got a report, and now we have the Auditor General's report, all because a number of people raised issues about people like Annette Verschuren and others who were in conflict of interest in deciding where money should go and where it should not go. This is the biggest part of this that we want to fix, if we are going to have the confidence of the public for doing work for sustainable technology. I asked my colleague where the Liberals are on this, so let us get an idea here. The Liberals continue to leave all these people on their own. They cannot say sorry, but they had enough energy to buy a pipeline and manage the politics of a pipeline, at 37 times the cost and with less accountability. They are putting that on the shoulders of the workers to whom they still cannot even say they are sorry. An interesting thing has come about in this culture that still exists under Liberals. I recently got a document. As we are looking at a potential strike and border closure, here is what the departments under the governance of the President of the Treasury Board and Minister of Public Safety should know about. Their management plan right now to deal with our customs officers on the front line is an email that went out to their staff and to the unionized workers saying: As stress and anxiety rise with the pending strike deadline of Friday, June 7th, 2024 16:00EST, we wanted to send out some clarifying information to our team. Some officers across the county have received letters deeming their positions “essential”. In essence, this means that they are to report to work for duty (our team) despite being in a legal strike position. These determinations were made with PSAC and TB collaboration. For those officers who did not receive notification and therefore were not deemed “essential”, you have the choice to either participate in the legal strike actions or continue to report to your current work (our team). Whatever decision each team member makes will be respected and kept private. We will not be disclosing who was deemed essential and who was not. We will continue to support each other and continue to ensure our team is a healthy, supportive team, free of any harassment. Should any team members who were not deemed “essential” decide to continue to report to work, please PRIVATELY email me...as such reporting will be recorded to ensure those who reported are continued to be paid. This attempts to bring in scabs and break the union. Right now, our border could be closed for the economy and is being compromised for safety. The President of the Treasury Board has a recommendation to treat these workers like every other border officer and every other public safety officer by giving them the “25 years and out” and also ensuring the workplace is safe for all of us. Shame on the Liberals for the continuing practices of their management and for not caring about the workers who actually fight for Canadians every single day.

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