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Government of Canada and public service unions announce compensation for federal employees impacted
Canada's public servants deserve to be paid properly for their important work and the Government of Canada continues to take action on all fronts to resolve Phoenix pay issues.
[ ...More ]Publication date : 2019-05-03
PSAC rejects compensation offer for Phoenix pay fiasco, other groups accept
The federal government says it has reached a tentative deal with some groups on compensation for workers affected by problems with the Phoenix pay system. But the Public Service Alliance of Canada, which represents the majority of federal employees, has rejected the offer.
[ ...More ]Publication date : 2019-05-03
Applying the Jordan framework: Are courts placing too much of the burden on the defence?
In R v. Jordan, the Supreme Court put a hard cap on the duration of criminal trials — sending a thrill of panic through the justice system in the process. The ruling is roughly two and a half years old now. Time for the training wheels to come off.Now, that backlog of pre-Jordan charges has been largely cleared — the transitional period is over. But Crown and defence lawyers alike report that trial times aren’t speeding up; statistics cited in a recent Law Times article show that in the Ontario Court of Justice, average times to disposition and the number of court appearances have not diminished since Jordan. If the SCC intended the ruling as a salutary shock to the system, it didn’t work.So what happens now?
[ ...More ]Publication date : 2018-12-18
RCMP’s forensic firearm testing backlog adding delays to justice system
The RCMP’s forensics labs are taking nearly four times longer to analyze firearms than they did just four years ago, adding delays to a criminal justice system under pressure to speed up after a recent Supreme Court decision.
[ ...More ]Publication date : 2018-12-16
Court delays persist, despite Jordan
The Supreme Court of Canada decision in Jordanand the problems it tried to address are still top of mind in the criminal courts in Ontario nearly two-and-a-half years after it was released.
[ ...More ]Publication date : 2018-12-03
The performance pay saga reaches a settlement
The issue is the prorating of performance pay in relation to pre-promotion period for the year in which lawyers are promoted. If a lawyer was eligible for performance pay and was promoted during the year, the Employer, rather than pay out a prorated performance pay for the period pre-promotion, paid out nothing at all regardless of your performance rating for the year. The AJC originally filed a grievance in 2011 and in response to that grievance, TB had conceded in the context of the adjudication hearing that pre-promotion service should be recognized. Unfortunately, the adjudicator originally disregarded TB's concession in his decision of 2015, requiring the AJC to file an application for judicial review, which eventually resulted on December 22, 2016 in a remedy limited to the right to pre-promotion performance pay for the year 2010-2011. Thus, the AJC filed another policy grievance on July 27th 2016. The hearing was scheduled for October 2018. We are pleased to announce that we now have a signed Memorandum of Settlement on this matter with TB.
[ ...More ]Publication date : 2018-10-30
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Striking Quebec lawyers, notaries to make province counter-offer
24-02-2017
Quebec government lawyers and notaries form a picket line at the courthouse Monday, Oct. 24, 2016 in Montreal. Their union is sending the government a counter-proposal on its latest offer. (Ryan Remiorz/Canadian Press)
Government lawyers and notaries said they'll make a counter-offer to Treasury Board President Pierre Moreau's fifth and final offer which Moreau gave their union, LANEQ, until 5 p.m. Friday to accept or reject.
"We refuse to submit to an ultimatum," said union president Jean Denis, in a statement issued at 5 p.m. Friday.
"We hope the government will seriously examine our counter-proposal."
The 1,100 lawyers and notaries have been on strike since October and have been without a collective agreement since March 2015.
The Treasury Board offer included, among other things, a proposal to pay those on strike on par with Crown prosecutors.
Union accuses government of disrespect
When the offer was received, LANEQ said in a statement that it was frustrated by the way the government made the proposal.
The union accused Moreau of trying to limit the negotiation period to 24 hours after an 18-week-long strike.
The union also accused Moreau of "disrespect" towards the negotiation process for announcing the offer during a news conference.
Moreau has not officially ruled out legislating the lawyers and notaries back to work.
The union says there was a strategy behind the timing of the strike: it leaves lawmakers paralyzed at a time when dozens of measures are waiting to be pushed ahead, such as the provincial rules on dangerous dogs, promised since the summer.
with files from Radio-Canada's Sébastien Bovet
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-lawyers-notaries-strike-deadline-1.3997607
