Dear members,
I hope everyone had a chance to get a bit of rest over the Labour Day long weekend. It’s always a good time to reflect on the gains made by the labour movement throughout the years. And, though we are no longer fighting for the 8-hour day or for maternity leave, it is important to work hard to protect the advances that were made over the years, and to keep up our commitment to defending our profession.
And it’s with that in mind that we are busily putting the final touches on the various components for our upcoming Annual General Meeting. Before I get into more details about that, I wanted to catch you up on a few things that have been going on since my last message.
Impending legal action on healthcare coverage abroad
In my last message, I promised you an update on our efforts to hold the Government of Canada to account for its failure to provide employees and their families with functioning health insurance coverage abroad. As you are aware, in July we launched human rights complaints against both the Government of Canada and MSH International. At the same time, I wrote to the President of the Treasury Board on behalf of PAFSO to ask them to work towards compliance with their legal duty to ensure that our Foreign Service community receives the healthcare to which we are entitled.
In our letter, we asked for immediate action including: the provision of alternate private insurance until problems with the current plan are conclusively resolved; the monitoring and enforcement of service standards; a firm deadline for the full resolution and restoration of a functioning plan; and a written commitment to prioritize the health and safety of employees and their families in dealing with the health insurance issue going forward.
Unfortunately, their reply failed to address any of our concerns or take any responsibility for the ongoing problems. Therefore, we have no choice but to proceed in seeking a mandamus order to compel the Government to act on its legal duty in a timely manner. Although this will represent a considerable expenditure of time and resources, we believe it is important to do everything we can to ensure that a functional health care plan with timely and accurate claims processing is provided to our members and their families while they serve Canada abroad.
Please stay tuned for more developments soon.
The Employer’s new on-site presence requirements
As you are aware, Monday marks the start of the Employer’s updated hybrid work model that will see eligible employees working on site for at least three days a week. I know that this new policy does not affect most of our members, as many of you, at home and abroad, are already working mostly on-site due to the face-to-face requirements of our profession. We continue to believe that, as professionals, you and your managers are best placed to determine the best way to get the job done for Canadians while taking into account both employee circumstances and operational requirements.
That said, it is important to note that any exception to the minimum prescribed on-site presence will require approval from management. If you face a barrier to the new requirements that is related to any of the 13 prohibited grounds for discrimination under the Canadian Human Rights Act, you should request accommodation by discussing your needs with your manager. It is important to note that provisions for childcare do not fall under the aforementioned prohibited grounds for discrimination. If you feel that your request for accommodation is being dealt with in a discriminatory or arbitrary manner, please reach out to our office for help.
We are also acutely aware of the lack of suitable workspace at GAC in particular, due to the ongoing renovations in some buildings. If you find yourself arriving on-site, but without an appropriate workstation, you should have a discussion with your manager and consider requesting an exemption to the prescribed presence directive. It is the Employer’s responsibility to provide you with an appropriate workplace. Working in a hallway or in the cafeteria is not an acceptable solution to the current shortage of space.
Last Friday, the heads of the bargaining agents at GAC received a briefing from Labour Relations on their plans to track attendance at the group level using swipe-card data. Although we were assured that this information would not be used to monitor individuals, anything that is collected can be analyzed at a later date. We are looking into what all this will mean for our members and how to respond to any disciplinary actions that may result from these unreliable data sources. In the meantime, we highly recommend that you make sure to always swipe your access cards to ensure your presence is being recorded. And, again, if you cannot be present on-site for any reason, please inform your manager and try to find an accommodation. If after discussing your circumstances with your manager you are still facing issues, please let us know.
The Hill Times article on the fiscal situation at GAC
Last week, Neil Moss had an interesting article in The Hill Times highlighting how GAC and Canada’s other international apparatus are being underfunded by the government’s latest belt-tightening measures. You can read the article here, but because it is behind a paywall, let me give you a short synopsis.
The article focuses on an internal memo obtained by The Hill Times under the Access to Information Act. In it, deputy minister David Morrison details six strategic risks facing GAC in the coming years. Two of these top risks include the inability of the department to carry out its obligations and to sustain its foreign presence under increasing financial pressures.
Neil reached out to me for my take on the memo. I told him that it was obvious that with less money available, the Foreign Service won’t be able to do everything it is there to do. The likely outcome is that many smaller missions will have difficulty operating and could be forced to close. Also, we are likely to see more exhaustion and burnout among the diplomatic corps as staff will be given fewer resources but told to perform the same duties.
Also reached for comment were former diplomats Colin Robertson and Dan Livermore, close friends and former members of PAFSO. Robertson warns that increased financial constraints will lead to reduced capacity for Canada’s Foreign Service. And Livermore says that our current network of missions will simply be unaffordable within a tightened budget.
None of this comes as a surprise to us. We’ve known for a while that we would be facing the financial pressures of tightened departmental budgets at both GAC and IRCC. Our job now is to try to minimize the impacts cuts will have on our profession and, more importantly, on our members.
This is just one of the threats identified in the process of developing our new 3-year strategic plan. If you’d like to know more about our plan, and our vision for the association over the coming years, this all dovetails nicely into my next item of business.
The 2024 AGM
Our 2024 Annual General Meeting will be taking place (virtually) on Monday October 21, at 4pm, Ottawa time. It’s a great opportunity to learn more about PAFSO’s aims and goals for the coming year. You’ll get to hear a number of reports on our activities over the past year, as well as a glimpse of what’s to come as we discuss our plans, the 2025 budget, and our new three-year strategic plan.
If you are interested in participating in this year’s meeting, we kindly request that you send an email to agm-aga@pafso-apase.com with their name and department. A formal meeting invitation with the full agenda and all related documents will be sent to registered participants at a date closer to the event.
Nominations for positions on the executive committee are now closed. While we have filled the FPDS and at large positions, we did not receive any nominations for the Trade position. Furthermore, we learned of an unexpected vacancy in one of our FSIA positions while the nominations were already in process. Therefore, we will be taking nominations for these two spots from the floor at the AGM. So, if you are interested in being a bit more active in your association and taking part the big decisions that will directly affect you and your colleagues, you still have a chance. To find out a bit more about what’s involved in being on the executive, you can watch last year’s webinar on how it all works here on our YouTube channel.
PAFSO Breakfast on the new Canadian Diplomatic Family Network
I am pleased to announce the launch of a new season of our PAFSO breakfasts. Please join me on Tuesday, September 17, at 0900 Ottawa time, when I will be hosting a virtual session on the formation of the new Canadian Diplomatic Family Network. The CDFN, created with the support and encouragement of PAFSO earlier this year, is a not-for-profit volunteer group of Government of Canada spouses. Its goal is to connect spouses and dependents of GoC representatives at all diplomatic posts, and advocate for their interests. I’ll be joined by IRCC Executive Committee representative Meagan Dalby, who is our liaison to the Network, and other members of the CDFN team, for what promises to be an interesting discussion of the issues facing this important segment of our foreign service community. Please use this link to register for the event.
That wraps things up for this week’s message. If there is anything causing you concern at work, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us. Are you having issues with your pay? Do you feel harassed or discriminated against? Do you have a grievance or a staffing complaint? Or do you just want some clarifications on our collective agreement or the FSDs? Whatever the case, PAFSO is here for you. Just send us an email with your name, department and a detailed description of your concerns. For anything and everything else, please send us an email at info@pafso.com and we will get back to you as soon as we can.
Until next time, take care of yourselves and each other.
All the best,
Pam Isfeld
President
@PafsoPresApase