OTTAWA (Staff) – Agriculture Canada employees who lose their jobs because of Feb. 27 budget-cutting will be offered a series of buy-out options to ease their slide into unemployment, the government announced last week.
As Agriculture Canada workers, a department targeted for some of the deepest cuts, are declared “surplus”, they will be eligible for early retirement packages if they are at least 50 years old and have worked for the government for at least a decade.
The second option will be a cash buyout. For those declining the offers, there would be a year of continued health, dental and pension benefits before these are cut off.
Read Also
Alberta researcher helps unlock the economics of farming
Lethbridge Polytechnic researcher helping agriculture producers with decision-making tools in economic feasibility
Treasury board president Art Eggleton told a news conference it was the most humane treatment the government could offer the tens of thousands of civil servants expected to lose their jobs.
The announcement enraged the Public Service Alliance of Canada, the union which represents two-thirds of the government’s almost 250,000 employees across Canada.
More than three years ago after a strike, PSAC won a job security guarantee from the previous Progressive Conservative government. Anyone laid off would be guaranteed another job offer within the civil service within a year.
When PSAC refused to give up voluntarily the job security in the name of deficit reduction, Eggleton said the government would simply break its contract with the union by passing legislation to be in effect for three years. PSAC leader Daryl Bean said the government decision to break the contract will lead to confrontation with the union.
No tax on eating out
Canada’s restaurateurs have been warning the government that thousands of workers in the food retail industry will lose their jobs if taxes are increased. They said last week any hike in food-related taxes or any attempt to undermine the business tax deduction rule that allows business people to write off a portion of business lunches would hurt the industry. In 1991 when the Goods and Services Tax was implemented, 46,000 food service jobs disappeared as restaurant spending declined.
