Correspondence

August 3, 1999

The Honourable Lucienne Robillard
President of the Treasury Board
House of Commons
Ottawa, Ontario
KlA 0A6

Dear Ms. Robillard:

On behalf of the 150,000 members of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, I should like to take this opportunity to congratulate you on your appointment to the presidency of the Treasury Board.

As the President of the Treasury Board, you have inherited a number of difficult files and challenges. These include the government’s on-going court action against the July 29, 1998 Human Rights Tribunal Decision awarding equal pay for work of equal value to Alliance members employed directly by the Government of Canada; the introduction of the Universal Classification Standard; the urgent need for reform of the management, benefits and financing of the Public Service Health Care Plan, the 1999 round of collective bargaining; Alternative Service Delivery; and, Public Service Pension Reform.

While you will be aware of the history behind many of these issues you have an opportunity, as Treasury Board President, to influence a change in government policy and direction—to move long overdue issues such as equal pay for work of equal value towards a more speedy and effective resolution, to ensure that UCS and the changes to the Public Service Health Care Plan are implemented fairly and to the benefit of your workforce, and to reassess the government’s stated position with regard to pension reform and the contentious surplus issue.

While discussions on many of these issues are ongoing at various levels, I believe that it would be useful for us to meet at an early date so that you may more fully appreciate the position of the Alliance and the Alliance membership on these issues.

Although a generic meeting is both necessary and desirable, the pension reform issue is pressing, since the Senate Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce is set to address the issue once again on August 23^rd and 24^th in advance of a final Senate vote expected sometime in early September.

While your predecessor and I exchanged correspondence on the outstanding pension issues following the June 17^th Senate decision to delay the third reading vote of Bill C-78 until September, no meetings of the Consultative Committee have been convened by the Treasury Board. As I said in a July 30, 1999 letter to former Treasury Board President Massé "it is incumbent upon us to meet and meet quickly. Such meeting should take place without precondition, and with all parties free to put any of the issues addressed in the Senate Committee Report on the table for discussion and a hopeful resolution". While crafting a pension reform package that is acceptable to the government, federal public sector workers and retirees and the Senate, will be difficult in the twenty days available before the Senate Committee reconvenes, I do not believe that the task is insurmountable if all sides enter the discussions in good faith and without precondition.

In closing, let me assure you, that I, the leadership and membership of the PSAC are looking forward to a productive relationship with you where many of the outstanding issues are resolved to our mutual benefit.

Sincerely,

Daryl T. Bean,
National President.

c.c. Michael Kirby
      David Tkachuk

    233 Gilmour, Ottawa, Ont. K2P OP1