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Good afternoon. My name is Leah Casselman, and I’m the president of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union. My union represents more than 95,000 Ontario public employees, including over 45,000 direct government employees in the Ontario Public Service. I think you can tell by our name that the members of OPSEU have a unique interest in the Public Service Act. I am happy to be here today to talk about Bill 25. I want to start by thanking those members of the Opposition parties who were instrumental in forcing these hearings. To the government members on the committee, I only say, I leave it to you to decide how embarrassed you should be to be part of a government that only accords two-and-a-half hours of public discussion to such an important Bill. Bill 25 concerns the future of a public institution that directs the spending of $64 billion worth of taxpayers’ money every year. At another time in this province, a Bill of this sort would have been the subject of weeks of hearings. At another time, this Committee would have actively solicited input from academics, public employees, and the general public on a Bill like this. At another time, the discussion of changes to the Public Service Act might have been very close to a non-partisan discussion. Not today. It is because of this government’s profound disrespect for the Ontario Public Service that a small handful of us is here today for a token 10-minute presentation -- as if any of this could be dealt with in 10 minutes! Nonetheless, I make these remarks. I have been entertained to read the "Confidential" Question-and-Answer document put out by the government to explain Bill 25 to its top managers. In that "official spin" document, the government says it is changing the rules around union representation of civilian employees of the Ontario Provincial Police because the employees have requested the change. If this is true, it should have been front-page news. It is the first I have heard of this government voluntarily listening to any of our members. Usually it takes the pressure of collective bargaining or a public inquiry to get them to listen. It is truly a miracle. We shall see in the next week if the government is actually listening to these hearings. If Bill 25 passes through the legislature without changes, then we will know, once and for all, that these hearings have been strictly a pro forma exercise. I call on the members of this Committee to make substantial changes to this Bill or, better yet, to scrap it altogether. I think one reason this Bill has received less attention than it deserves is that "the public service" is a bit of an abstract concept. It deals with abstract ideas -- ideas like professionalism, accountability, and impartiality. But these are not merely ideas. They have been at the centre of several top news stories over the last six years. Maybe you will recognize them:
With the shooting of Dudley George at Ipperwash, the issue is this: Did the OPP, who are public employees, act on their own professional judgment? Or did the Premier and his government interfere with the independent operation of the police, and turn them into a political arm of the political policies of a political party? The issue was the same at the Whitney Block: did the OPP act independently to secure peace, order, and good government for all? Or did it act to further the political agenda of one political party? Did the mass downsizing of the public service undermine the professionalism of public employees by stripping them of the resources they needed to do their jobs? Did the downsizing create a "climate of fear," as the provincial auditor said, that prevented public employees from speaking out about disasters waiting to happen? Did the downsizing, and the associated privatization and deregulation, cut long-established accountability relationships? If so, did this contribute to the Walkerton tragedy and scores of non-fatal public service disasters? These are public service issues. The workings of public services around the world have been studied and improved through millions of hours of debate and centuries of practice. As outlined in more detail in our discussion paper, the world knows the principles of good public service. These principles are professionalism, independence, and accountability. Professionalism means public employees have both the skill and the commitment to tell the truth to government -- even when the truth is not what their political masters want to hear. Independence means impartiality. It means a commitment to serve the public interest, not merely the agenda of any one governing party. Accountability means a clear chain of command that makes it crystal-clear who is responsible for what decision. It makes it clear how that chain links non-partisan public employees to democratically-elected Ministers of the Crown. When you are doing your one day of clause-by-clause analysis, these are the issues you should be thinking about. As you study Bill 25, ask yourself: Does the creation of more job insecurity for public employees -- which is what Bill 25 allows -- increase or decrease their ability to act independently from partisan political interference? Does it increase or decrease their professional commitment to public service? What does it do to morale? In the same vein, does giving human resources managers unfettered access to employee personnel files improve employees’ feelings of personal security? Again, what does it do to their morale? Does moving civilian employees out of a civilian bargaining unit into a police association increase or decrease those employees’ ability to speak out about abuse of power by the police? Or is Bill 25 merely a straightforward political payoff to the Tory party’s OPP attack dogs -- a payoff that moves us all one step closer to living in a police state? Does giving private operators the right to direct public employees clarify the chain of accountability? Or does it obscure it by making those operators accountable in two conflicting directions -- to the taxpayers on one hand and to their shareholders on the other? Does giving unelected public service managers and private operators the right to set certain workplace rules for public employees increase or decrease the democratic accountability of Cabinet? Remember that, after Walkerton, when this government was under intense political scrutiny and said it wanted to increase the accountability of the Ministry of the Environment, it turned the Ontario Drinking Water Guidelines into regulations. Bill 25 does the opposite. Why is this? I believe that when you study these questions honestly, you will see that, in every way, Bill 25 leads us away from professionalism, independence, and accountability. It leads us to blurred responsibility. It leads us to politicization of the public service. It leads us to increased secrecy and less transparency. And lastly, it leads us to corruption. History is watching you. Public administrators a century from now will study what you do in the next week. They will know your names. They will know if you helped build on the proud tradition of the Ontario Public Service. And they will know if you contributed to its decay. I urge you to blow the whistle on Bill 25. You should reject its ridiculous and dangerous changes. You should demand that the government make the Public Service Act whole by doing the one thing that is left undone, and that is, to proclaim the whistle-blowing portion of the Act. That is the one thing you can do that will really make the Ontario Public Service more professional, more accountable, and more independent from partisan tampering. I would be happy now to engage in 30 seconds of spirited democratic debate on Bill 25.
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Ontario Public Service Employees Union, 100 Lesmill Rd. Toronto, ON M3B 3P8 (416) 443-8888 www.opseu.org |
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