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Last week, the government announced that Passport Canada would be dissolved and split between Citizenship and Immigration Canada and Service Canada. The announcement was unexpected \u2013 and the decision is striking many as rather strange.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot only did they fail to give the union any notice, they totally bungled the announcement,\u201d said National President Doug Marshall.<\/p>\n
The department chose to announce the change to its staff by way of a mass email that was sent at 4:23 Eastern Time, when most employees from Ontario eastward were either on their way home or already there.<\/p>\n
Some employees report that they only found out about the email that night thanks to friends on the West coast who alerted them of the announcement. The email concludes with, \u201cfor more information on the transition, please visit your Intranet site later today and speak to your manager.\u201d<\/p>\n
Later that evening, a series of questions and answers were added to the Passport Canada intranet site. However, since employees cannot access the intranet from home, many were left with unanswered questions until morning.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously many members were concerned \u2013 and they had no way of getting answers to their questions. The way they carried this out shows that employees were the last of their considerations,\u201d said Marshall.<\/p>\n
But it gets better<\/strong><\/p>\n Among the questions and answered prepared by Passport Canada was, \u201chave the unions been informed?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYes,\u201d wrote Passport Canada. Uhh\u2026 not so! The Union of National Employees learned Passport Canada\u2019s plans after its employees did. It\u2019s thanks to concerned members who forwarded the announcement that we even learned of the transfer.<\/p>\n Passport Canada has since agreed to make a correction to the Q&A.<\/p>\n We still know very little<\/strong><\/p>\n Upon learning of the transfer, Marshall contacted Passport Canada\u2019s CEO. A meeting was scheduled for the next day; it included representatives from Passport Canada and Citizenship and Immigration Canada.<\/p>\n \u201cDuring that meeting, we learned very little that wasn\u2019t already public knowledge,\u201d said Marshall.<\/p>\n In fact, the only new information to surface was that that no planning had been done; the employer will start working on plans this week.<\/p>\n The transfer affects all Passport Canada employees; 850 will move to Citizenship and Immigration Canada, 1900 will move to Service Canada. The change takes effect July 2.<\/p>\n Service Canada has yet to respond to our meeting request.<\/p>\n If it ain\u2019t broke, don\u2019t fix it<\/strong><\/p>\n Over the past decade, Passport Canada has more than doubled the number of passports issued annually. Today, 67 per cent of Canadians hold a passport.<\/p>\n According to Passport Canada\u2019s own CEO<\/a>, more than 4.8 million passports were issued to Canadians last year \u2013 and 99 per cent of clients received their passports on time or earlier.<\/p>\n