Category: Treasury Board

Penalties for Public Servants Who Won’t Go Back to Office to Be Handled Individually

Treasury Board President Mona Fortier says any repercussions forany federal public servants who refuse to return to in-person work will be handed out on a case-by-case basis. On Monday all federal public servants still working from home will begin the transition back to in-person work. Fortier is ordering all departments to bring employees back to…


Federal Government to Tighten Access to Information Regime, Streamline Fees

Citizens seeking to obtain government records may need to provide documents proving their identity, according to new regulations made public on Dec. 24 by the Treasury Board. “If the information contained in the request is insufficient to establish that the person making the request has a right of access under section 4 of the Act, the…


Feds Launching Task Force to Reform Public-Service Whistleblowing Law

The federal government is launching an external review of the legislation that governs whistleblower protection in the public service. Treasury Board President Mona Fortier is asking a nine-member task force to consider reforms to the federal disclosure process that would strengthen supports for bureaucrats who come forward to report wrongdoing. The review of the Public…


Canada’s Top Five Federal Contaminated Sites to Cost Taxpayers Billions to Clean Up

With a cost estimate of $4.38 billion, remediation of the Giant Mine, one of the most contaminated sites in Canada, is also expected to be the most expensive federal environmental cleanup in the country’s history. The figure, recently approved by the Treasury Board of Canada, spans costs from 2005 until 2038, when active remediation at…


Cleanup of Former Gold Mine in Northwest Territories to Cost More Than $4 Billion

Cleanup of one of the most contaminated sites in Canada is estimated to cost taxpayers more than four times what was initially expected. The Treasury Board of Canada recently approved a new $4.38-billion cost estimate for the remediation of Giant Mine, a former gold mine that operated from 1948 to 2004 within Yellowknife city limits….


Treasury Board Rejects ‘Blanket Exemption’ Idea for Official Language Requirements

The Treasury Board is rejecting an idea pitched by some Indigenous public servants to offer “blanket exemptions” from having to learn both of Canada’s official languages. A briefing note released to The Canadian Press under federal Access-to-Information from last fall shows senior officials deliberating over the exemption call coming from some members of the Indigenous…


Indigenous-Speaking Federal Employees Will Not Receive a Bonus, Treasury Board Says

Federal employees fluent in one or more indigenous dialects will not receive a language bonus, said Treasury Board President Mona Fortier. Currently, federal employees who are fluent in both English and French—Canada’s official languages—receive a “bilingualism bonus” worth $800 annually. When reporters asked Fortier if the Treasury Board would approve an indigenous-speaking bonus for federal…


Major Public Sector Unions Challenge Federal Vaccine Mandates

Three major public sector unions are challenging federal COVID-19 vaccine mandates for government employees, saying that putting unvaccinated workers on unpaid leave when they could have worked from home is “unjust.” The Liberal government’s mandatory vaccination policies, introduced on Oct. 6, 2021, required all federal employees to be fully vaccinated with two doses of a…