Juno News - Do Canadians have any sympathy for public servants？

00:00:00.000 Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the Rupa Subramanya show. Last week, the Public Service

00:00:21.680 Alliance of Canada Unions, representing 155,000 workers, went on strike. The timing couldn't

00:00:28.540 have been worse for most Canadians as the tax filing deadline is coming up and processing

00:00:35.180 of returns could be delayed. Even more, processing of passports and other services will be delayed

00:00:40.440 and only emergency cases will be considered. Over the weekend, the union leadership announced

00:00:45.300 that they would also be moving their pickets towards sensitive areas like ports, making

00:00:51.020 it clear that they would need to have an effect on the Canadian economy to make their voices heard.

00:00:55.500 To talk about PSAC strike, I'm joined by Franco Terrazzano of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation,

00:01:02.700 an advocacy group that stands for Lower Taxes and More Accountable Government. Welcome to the show,

00:01:08.220 Franco. It's great to have you here. At the time of recording, the PSAC strike has been going on for

00:01:15.740 just under a week. It's been extremely disruptive. It's affected all of us in one shape or the other.

00:01:22.940 The Canadian Taxpayers Federation is not supportive of the strike action. Can you tell us why?

00:01:30.860 Yeah. Well, look, I don't think many Canadians are going to be supportive of this. And I don't think

00:01:37.100 there's too many Canadians out there, especially in the private sector, especially outside of the Ottawa 1.00

00:01:42.060 bubble, that feel sorry for these bureaucrats. Let's call it what it is. They're privileged. They took pay 0.60

00:01:47.580 raises during the pandemic. They never worried about losing their jobs. And now they want to

00:01:52.620 take billions more from their neighbors, from fellow Canadian taxpayers who are worried about

00:01:57.260 mortgage payments going through the roof, who are trying to afford the price of gasoline or

00:02:01.100 the price of groceries. Now, here's what the PSAC is pushing for. They want up to a 47%

00:02:07.660 compensation increase over three years. Folks, up to 47% compensation increase over three years.

00:02:13.980 And that would cost taxpayers $9.3 billion. So they've already taken pay raises. They were never

00:02:19.740 worried about losing their job. And now they want billions more from taxpayers.

00:02:23.180 Yeah. That, I mean, I was going to jump into, that was going to be my next question. What are their

00:02:30.540 demands? What exactly makes their demands egregious? I think they're also calling for a whole bunch of

00:02:37.580 non-wage benefits. I wonder if you could go into, just apart from what you've already pointed out,

00:02:45.100 what are the other more crazy demands that PSAC is making?

00:02:49.180 Yeah. So you probably heard the up to 47% compensation increase. Like that is,

00:02:54.540 that is crazy. That's pushing for Pluto. And the reason that it gets up so big is because

00:02:59.420 that's talking about paying benefits. And some of the benefits, if we went up to our boss and,

00:03:03.980 and asked for what they're asking, we get laughed out of the room. Okay. Here's some of the non-wage

00:03:08.140 benefits that they're pushing for. They want to be paid more to work past 4 PM. Okay. Now,

00:03:15.180 what do most people call working past 4 PM? A normal day. They want to get paid more for

00:03:20.620 working past 4 PM. Here might be the most, uh, egregious demand. They want taxpayer funded

00:03:26.300 contributions into a union controlled social justice fund. Um, and that's what they use to

00:03:32.940 engage in advocacy for progressive public policy. Now I wasn't even aware about the social justice fund

00:03:39.260 until we dived into the list of their demands, but they've been using the social justice fund

00:03:44.140 to send members to climate conferences in Madrid or Cancun. They've even used it to produce a report,

00:03:51.180 which in part advocates for higher business taxes. Now I believe Canadians have a right to advocate

00:03:56.780 on issues they feel important, but they shouldn't be using government negotiations to take money from

00:04:01.100 taxpayers to fund their advocacy. I know I'm rambling, but there's a couple more ones I really want to

00:04:06.140 get across. So they're also pushing for an education fund of up to $17,000 for laid off members. They

00:04:14.460 want more paid time off of up to two weeks a year. They want four weeks of vacation after only working

00:04:21.180 for four years and they want overtime paid a double time. So it's not just the wages that they're asking

00:04:26.780 for. When you include these non-wage benefits, you're looking at up to 47% compensation increase over

00:04:32.780 three years. Anyone watching TV or like anyone keeping up with what's happening in the news will

00:04:39.660 be aware that the union is trying to portray itself as average Canadians who are fighting for their

00:04:45.500 rights. But PSAC workers are hardly average Canadians. They have more generous pay and benefit packages,

00:04:53.100 I would say, than any other unionized Canadians out there. And way better than many who labor in the

00:05:01.180 private sector with little or no benefits. I know you said that most Canadians probably don't support

00:05:08.220 this. But according to a recent poll by Angus Reid, it turns out most Canadians are supportive of PSAC

00:05:15.180 strike action. And this is even more so when it comes to Liberal and NDP voters. Why do you think

00:05:24.300 most Canadians are supportive of the strike action, even though it's so incredibly disruptive?

00:05:31.260 Well, if we're talking about the same poll, most Canadians did not support the wage increase demands.

00:05:37.420 Okay. And that was just the percentage of wage increase that they're demanding. If you included

00:05:42.860 all the other compensation, and if they said they're pushing for up to 47% over three years, by the way, folks,

00:05:49.020 that was from the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat. It was confirmed in the Public

00:05:53.340 Interest Commission report. At least there was no opposition against that number in the final

00:05:59.900 writings. I think even more Canadians would have opposed the wage. So the poll that I saw showed

00:06:05.980 that the majority of Canadians, or at least less than a majority of Canadians, supported their wage ask.

00:06:12.780 But let's just look at the bureaucracy in total, because a lot of the numbers are a high-level

00:06:18.140 snapshot of the bureaucracy. Well, the Parliamentary Budget Officer is the government's own independent

00:06:22.220 budget watchdog. It's not a union group. It's not a taxpayers group. It's a nonpartisan government

00:06:27.900 authority. And it says that the average compensation of a federal government employee, when you look at

00:06:32.620 the pay, the benefits, like pensions, premiums, things of that nature, is $125,000 a year.

00:06:40.140 $125,000 a year, right? A Fraser Institute report just showed that government employees

00:06:46.860 make about eight and a half percent more than their counterparts working in the private sector.

00:06:51.420 So you have people who work less, but are paid more, demanding more money from the taxpayers,

00:06:58.460 who make less and struggle more. So it's completely unfair what's going on. And this is why I say I

00:07:04.460 don't think many Canadians have much sympathy for the privileged bureaucrats who took pay raises during

00:07:09.580 the pandemic when everyone else was struggling, and who have never worried about losing their job.

00:07:13.740 And the strike comes, I would say, at a very embarrassing time for the Prime Minister.

00:07:20.140 Justin Trudeau has always portrayed himself as a friend of the average working Canadian. Yet,

00:07:26.780 in the most recent scandal, question marks have been raised about his lavish Caribbean vacation paid for

00:07:33.580 apparently by a rich friend, and a protracted strike could be damaging for his Liberal government.

00:07:40.860 What do you think this strike means for Trudeau? Do you think he'll blink because he wants the

00:07:45.820 strike to end soon, or do you think he'll hold firm?

00:07:49.260 Yeah, well, you know, I don't have a pundit hat, so it's tough for me to go into the political

00:07:55.020 analysis. But here's what a government should do. If a government was serious about this,

00:07:58.620 this is what we should do, okay? So over the last two years, we saw the cost of the bureaucracy

00:08:03.420 balloon by 31%. 31% over two years, okay? So here's what happened broadly. 312,000 federal

00:08:11.580 government employees took at least one pay raise during the pandemic. More than 90% of the entire

00:08:16.140 bureaucracy took at least one raise. The feds handed out $559 million in bonuses, and it just hired 31,000

00:08:24.220 new employees. So taxpayers just paid for hundreds of thousands of pay raises, hundreds of millions

00:08:29.580 and bonuses, and for tens of thousands of new employees. We just saw the bureaucracy balloon

00:08:34.380 by 31%. So what a serious government would do would take a page from former Alberta Premier Ralph

00:08:41.100 Klein, and what it would say is we're going to reduce the cost of the bureaucracy. Now that could

00:08:45.900 be through attrition, reducing the number of bureaucrats, benefit cuts, pay cuts, or a combination of

00:08:52.620 each. What a serious government would do would put the onus on the unions. Here is the budget,

00:08:57.660 we're reducing the size and the cost, you figure it out. That's how a government should deal with this.

00:09:03.740 Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that sounds pretty reasonable to me. You know, what makes their demand,

00:09:12.940 you know, what makes PSAC's demand for Trudeau's ostensibly progressive government is all of this

00:09:18.860 progressive verbiage, which you pointed to earlier. And one of the things this training called,

00:09:25.980 uh, in unconscious bias, uh, which means that if someone I'm thinking, presumably someone who's

00:09:33.340 white doesn't think they're racist, you'll be trained to realize that you're actually a racist,

00:09:38.380 uh, but you don't realize it. Um, I mean, this is just incredibly bizarre. Um, has this kind of,

00:09:44.940 um, is this kind of demand, uh, during a strike? Is that, is that normal? Like I've, I'm hearing this for the

00:09:51.820 first time. I've never heard of this before, but then again, I'm not a labor lawyer, so I don't have

00:09:57.580 that type of background, but look, if the union wants to push for the, for certain types of benefits

00:10:01.900 and they think that's the priority, then they should be forced to come to the table and find

00:10:05.980 cuts somewhere else. Because from the taxpayer perspective, the union negotiators can't just

00:10:11.020 be demanding more, more, more. That's not an adult conversation and the government needs to actually 0.86

00:10:15.980 push back, right? That's what needs to happen. Um, so let me even go one step further. Okay.

00:10:21.100 Because I haven't really heard much pushback from any of the parties. Now, to be fair, I have seen

00:10:27.020 the opposition, the conservatives say, you know, how in the world do you increase the cost of the

00:10:31.500 bureaucracy by so much and still have a strike? So I have heard that the conservatives take that line,

00:10:38.140 but I haven't even heard any of the parties really come out against these demands from the

00:10:43.660 government union negotiators. I haven't really heard a single member and maybe I'm wrong. Maybe

00:10:48.860 I missed something that's possible, but I haven't heard it yet. And one of the reasons for that,

00:10:53.660 I believe is because they just took their fourth pay raise, the politicians since the beginning of

00:10:58.620 the pandemic. So how can, it's very difficult for a member of parliament to then have the moral

00:11:04.380 authority to push back against government union negotiators after they just stuffed their own pockets

00:11:09.420 with four pay raises since the pandemic. And I, and I really didn't hear a single member of

00:11:13.660 parliament host a press conference or do media, uh, bashing the MP pay. Maybe, maybe they did. I

00:11:19.420 didn't see it. So one of the issues that we're seeing now is that we should at least have one

00:11:24.060 political party or some politicians speak out specifically against the government union negotiators.

00:11:29.820 Maybe they have, but I haven't seen it. Rupa, have you?

00:11:32.300 No, not that I'm aware of, but, uh, I'm, you know, I, I, but I could have also missed,

00:11:38.540 missed something there, but, uh, no, not to my knowledge. Um, you know, civil servants,

00:11:44.940 these are civil servants, like many white collar workers have gotten used to working from home.

00:11:50.940 And this is one of their demands, right. To be able to work from home at least several days a week,

00:11:56.460 rather than fully returning to the office as the government wants.

00:11:59.820 Um, of course, this is also happening in the private sector, um, except that in the private

00:12:05.420 sector, taxpayers are not on the hook. And it just seems kind of really strange when you put all of

00:12:12.940 this in the context of the vaccine mandates, you know, where they were working from home yet you had

00:12:18.940 a vaccine mandate in place, uh, and now they want to continue working from home. Um, you know, how,

00:12:25.580 how does, how does working from home look like for a civil servant? I mean,

00:12:29.580 I don't know if you can weigh in on this. I mean, is there any kind of monitoring they

00:12:32.860 could just be goofing off on our dime? Well, I think that's the big question,

00:12:36.860 right? Is there an accountability mechanism because in the private sector there is right

00:12:41.020 the accountability mechanism of the market. If you are good at your job, you out-compete

00:12:45.660 the competitors, you earn a profit. If you're bad, if you're not productive, you earn a loss.

00:12:50.060 And then there's pressure all the way down through the business to make sure people are actually doing

00:12:54.380 their job. Well, what's the same accountability mechanism in the government when they use

00:12:59.180 taxpayers money, not relying on the profit and loss mechanism of the market. So I think that's

00:13:04.380 the big question, right? Because look, if government employees could show that, uh, you could save money

00:13:10.380 by having them work at home, having them be just as productive for taxpayers, right. Who should be

00:13:16.060 presumably the customers. Then I think you can have that conversation. But the issue is if we're going to be

00:13:23.260 paying them huge salaries and compensation, when you look at pay benefits, all of this kind of stuff.

00:13:29.740 Well, then how do we ensure that they are being productive? Because remember, we've heard from the

00:13:35.740 PBO that government departments are barely meeting half of their own objectives. Now that brings me to

00:13:41.900 another point. A pay raise is supposed to be for when you do a good job. You shouldn't just get a pay raise

00:13:47.740 just for showing up. So by what mechanism do these bureaucrats or these government union 1.00

00:13:54.380 negotiators think that they're entitled to a pay raise? Yeah. And where do you, where do you think

00:14:00.700 that comes from? Well, I think it comes from the fact that it's just been business as usual,

00:14:06.140 right? I think that's where it is. I think it's an entitlement issue. And one of the issues is not just

00:14:11.580 from the government union negotiators or the bureaucrats. It's also from the politicians,

00:14:16.140 because at the end of the day, it's the members of parliament who are supposed to be presiding

00:14:20.540 and watching over the public purse. But like I said, maybe we've seen some people be outspoken.

00:14:25.980 I haven't seen it. I haven't seen members of parliament truly call out some of the outrageous

00:14:31.420 demands coming from the union negotiators. And one, one demand is really striking to me,

00:14:37.260 and it should be easy to be called out. And that's the social justice fund. I mean,

00:14:41.740 even just take away the word social justice or advocating for progressive public policy,

00:14:47.900 even set that aside. They shouldn't be using tax dollars to advocate for any type of public policy,

00:14:55.020 right? If they want to advocate for public policy, they should pay for it with their own money.

00:14:59.420 They shouldn't be forcing taxpayers to put contributions into the fund through these government

00:15:04.220 negotiations. That's a very good point. So, uh, but, uh, and, but yet they're doing this,

00:15:12.220 which is, which is really strange. I mean, um, that essentially amounts to a public policy position,

00:15:18.780 right? Um, and, and, but they're using taxpayers money to bring about what they think is an, you know,

00:15:27.580 yeah, yeah. Even more to that. I've tweeted it out. So we put a, we put out a, um, a, an investigative

00:15:34.380 story by investigative journalists of ours talking about the non-wage benefits that they were demanding.

00:15:38.940 I believe this was out a week ago or two weeks ago and included in this tweet thread. I, I posted

00:15:45.420 in a report from the social justice fund of PSAC that was literally advocating or musing about higher

00:15:54.220 business taxes. Now, look, the Canadian taxpayers federation, we're very much on the record that

00:15:59.820 taxes should be going down and we're very much against higher business taxes in Canada, of course.

00:16:05.100 Right. But look, a group, if they want to go out and fundraise with their own money,

00:16:10.220 they can advocate for that, but they shouldn't be relying on taxpayers money to advocate for

00:16:14.700 whatever public policy that they want to do. That's just fundamentally wrong.

00:16:18.140 Are there no rules against like, um, you know, you can't just make any demand,

00:16:23.020 right? I mean, for it to have some credibility, uh, your demands have to, uh, be credible.

00:16:29.820 Uh, you can't just ask for anything. You can't ask for the moon. You can't, um, you know, make,

00:16:35.100 make these strange demands because you're ultimately your cause is not going to be credible at the end

00:16:40.540 of the day. Um, I, I wonder, I mean, I, I don't know if you can weigh in on this. I mean, can you just

00:16:45.660 ask for anything, uh, and, and go on strike?

00:16:48.220 Well, I don't know the legal aspects around this. Right. But let me tell you a tactic that

00:16:53.420 government unions like to do. Right. So all of this is essentially negotiated behind closed doors

00:16:58.220 for the most part. Right. And to find what they're pushing for, you really have to do your research.

00:17:04.060 You have to do your homework. Right. But the Canadian Taxpayers Federation has, we got our hands

00:17:08.860 on the demands lists from, from the PSAC. And that's why we were able to publish all of these,

00:17:14.460 but it was like a 200 plus page document that we had to sift through to find some of these demands.

00:17:20.460 So essentially, right, because usually this isn't open to the public, um, they're able to, to, to push

00:17:29.340 for some of these types of non-wage benefits that most people would get laughed out of the office if we

00:17:33.900 even brought up with our boss. And so that's why we're trying to show the public, you know,

00:17:39.260 just what they're demanding, because I think for, for most Canadians who are taxpayers, who are living

00:17:44.700 outside of the Ottawa bubble, who are in the private sector, uh, who may be worried about a looming

00:17:49.020 recession right around the corner. I think when most people find out about some of these demands

00:17:53.500 and the fact that they're pushing for up to 47% compensation increase over three years,

00:17:58.060 I think they, that does sound like pushing for Pluto. That does sound out of touch with reality.

00:18:03.500 Yeah. How do you, how do you think this issue is going to play out? Who do you think will fold

00:18:08.620 their hand first? Oh, that's a good question. I, I, I really don't know. Um, it's really our job

00:18:16.140 at the Canadian Taxpayers Federation to, uh, sound the alarm over this, to, to push Canadians to contact

00:18:22.620 their members of parliament or, or to contact the president of the treasury board, Mona Fortier,

00:18:26.380 to tell her that enough is enough to stand up for taxpayers. Um, but you know, let me just go back to

00:18:32.700 another point here. The reason that these government union negotiators can even think

00:18:38.300 about some of these demands is because of how reckless the Trudeau government has been with our

00:18:43.420 finances, right? In, in, in a world where you had a serious government, a government serious about

00:18:49.500 protecting taxpayers and protecting the public purse. There was no way government union negotiators

00:18:55.660 couldn't push for up to 47 compensation increase over three years, right? Like if the government was

00:19:01.660 serious about the finances, it would be way tougher on these government union negotiators.

00:19:07.740 Yeah, no, absolutely. And, um, I know you said you're not a political pundit, but, uh, can you

00:19:14.060 maybe just tell us what you think, uh, uh, about this? Do you think it'll be damaging for Trudeau in the

00:19:21.100 next election or will the union have egg on its face given that very few unionized Canadians, uh, to say

00:19:27.260 nothing of the non unionized, uh, are getting wage increases, anything close to what they're demanding?

00:19:33.660 Well, I do think that the broader perception of government employees isn't going to improve

00:19:39.660 because of this, right? I mean, this is, we're talking about federal bureaucrats who received raises,

00:19:45.580 who were never worried about losing their job, who are now striking, pushing for billions more from

00:19:51.100 taxpayers who in all honesty struggled, right? Because like Rupa, you know, I think it's fair

00:19:56.460 to say that everyone has struggled of the last couple of years. I think it's fair to say people

00:20:00.540 are struggling now. And I, and I, and I think it's fair to say that everyone is, is stressed,

00:20:05.580 but the type of stress that a government employee who got to keep their job, who got to work from home,

00:20:11.180 that type of stress is not the same type of stress felt by a small business owner, the gym,

00:20:16.780 your restaurant down the street, who had to take out a line of credit just to keep the lights on.

00:20:21.180 Those are two different types of stresses, right? At least financially. So I think the people who

00:20:27.420 work in the private sector, the taxpayers, the ones who may have lost their job, took a cut,

00:20:31.420 lost their business. I don't think they're going to have any sympathy for privileged,

00:20:35.980 striking bureaucrats who are demanding billions of dollars more.

00:20:39.100 Yeah. Well, on that note, Franco Tarrazano, I, uh, unfortunately we've run out of time, but,

00:20:46.620 uh, it was great to have you on the show and thank you for sharing with us, uh, your insights. And I

00:20:53.260 really hope that the strike comes to an end soon because there's so much work that needs to be done.

00:20:59.020 And, uh, and I, you know, I'm losing my patience for these, um, self-entitled bureaucrats.

00:21:04.700 And, um, thank you so much for being on the show and I hope to have you here again soon.

00:21:12.220 Well, thanks for having me on.

Juno News - April 26, 2023

Do Canadians have any sympathy for public servants？

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