News release

August 21, 2003   

PSAC issues statement on the continuing electricity crisis in Ontario

OTTAWA – This is a statement by Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) National President Nycole Turmel on the role of federal public sector workers during the electricity crisis in Ontario.

“The federal government took the right decision when it closed most of its operations in Ontario to help ensure the uninterrupted transmission of electrical power.   Despite the cost to the government and the loss of important services to Canadians across the country, the decision was essential.

“Today, as the federal government begins to recall its workforce in a staged way in order to continue to ensure that power remains uninterrupted, the PSAC responded to the attack on federal workers that has been circulating in the media.

“To be clear, federal workers in Ottawa were asked to stay home to help ensure Ontario recovered from an emergency. This is exactly the same situation that large industrial employers found themselves in other Ontario regions – cut production, and send a significant part of your workforce home, or make a bad situation worse.

“The fact that many thousands of public and private sector workers were off the job, does not diminish their contribution to the economic and social fabric of the country. On the contrary, staying away from workplaces was essential - as essential as the contribution made by workers employed in restoring power to the province’s residential and commercial customers.

“As federal public sector workers return to their workplaces they will find a backlog of work. Canadians across the country can count upon PSAC members to bring service back to a superior level in short order. The situation has been made easier since many federal workers have been working from home during the crisis.

“In the coming days and weeks, questions will need to be answered as to the political response to the crisis from the federal and Ontario governments. Why for example, did the Ontario government rely on actions of large employers rather than buy power from other jurisdictions such as Quebec as they did on the August 16-17, 2003 weekend.   What can be answered now and definitively is that the fact that federal workers stayed home has absolutely nothing to do with their workload or the importance of the services that they provide to Canadians.”

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For information:    Louise Laporte, Communications (613) 560-4287