CBSA’s Strategic Review – Negative Impact on the Atlantic Region
Sep 03, 2010
August 20, 2010
Ms. Camille Therriault-Power
Vice President
Human Resources Branch
Canada Border Services Agency
99 Metcalfe Street, 3rd Floor, Room 302
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0L8
Email: Camille.Therriault-Power@cbsa-asfc.gc.ca
Re: CBSA’s Strategic Review – Negative Impact on the Atlantic Region
Dear Ms. Therriault-Power;
We are writing to express our deep reservations about your plans to terminate 21 Trade positions in CBSA’s Atlantic region and to transfer the work done by the incumbents of those positions to incumbents of existing Trade positions in Montreal – all in the name of the Agency’s recent Strategic Review.
First, we believe that the successful delivery of CBSA’s Trade services in the Atlantic region will be greatly reduced if you proceed as planned. The region will be deprived of the undeniable operational advantage obtained from a local presence – a presence that currently benefits businesses doing trade in and through the Atlantic region. Efficiency, we believe, demands being close to clients and no one likes receiving service remotely.
Second, Trade personnel in Montreal are already carrying a fully charged workload and dumping additional work on their existing workload – transferred from another region at that – would be hard to characterize as anything but irresponsible management.
Third, morale amongst many of our members in the Atlantic region is already unnecessarily low on account of having had to work under a constantly budget-wearied management team that has been nickel and diming operations for far too long – often restricting our members from being able to fully carryout their work – and we would argue – at the expense of allowing our member to deliver excellent service in the region. For example, the Atlantic Marine Unit was, on occasion, ordered to stay in the office rather than allowed to do its job and go out to undertake deep ship rummaging.
Fourth, eliminating Trade jobs in the Atlantic region erodes career advancement opportunities for CBSA employees in that region and forces them, instead, to either stay in their existing jobs or be forced to move to another region. We add that 5 enforcement and intelligence positions that also offered career advancement opportunities were recently eliminated from the Atlantic Region. Also some 15 targeting positions based in Halifax are currently in jeopardy of being removed from the region under Strategic Review.
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Fifth, the plan was explained as being motivated by the CBSA’s need to reduce expenditures. As you may know, CIU warned CBSA and the Government on numerous occasions about unnecessary expenditures incurred by CBSA for arming and recertification. On each of these occasions, CIU stated that CBSA will be forced to compensate for these inordinate expenses by cutting operational activities that will negatively impact Canadians. It is unfortunate, although not surprising, that the Strategic Review will now make that prediction entirely accurate for the Atlantic region.
We therefore urge you and CBSA’s senior management team to reconsider the need for triennial recertification. Recertification at a frequency comparable to police forces across Canada would most certainly enable the Agency to find the savings its needs to keep Trade jobs in the Atlantic region.
Sixth, in assessing the cost effectiveness of centralizing the trade functions, we ask that you ensure all direct costs are accounted for, such as the inevitable transportation and accommodation costs that will be incurred when trade personnel need to travel from Montreal to the Atlantic region to testify in a prosecution.
Additionally, we urge you to be mindful of the social costs to local communities in the Atlantic region. These communities will likely see reduced commercial clearance efficiency.
Finally, we would have greatly appreciated being approached by management and asked – before any decision was made – for our input about cost-saving measures that would not lead to job loss or cuts to service. The manner in which this decision was made and shared with us is not consultation.
Sincerely,
________________________________ ________________________________
DougTremblett Brett Evans
President President
Newfoundland and Nova Scotia
Labrador District Branch District Branch
________________________________
Peter Russell
President
New Brunswick
District Branch
cc. Stephen Rigby, President, CBSA
Dianne Giffin-Boudreau, Regional Director General Atlantic, CBSA
Ron Moran, President, CIU