It is day two of the nationwide general strike in Canada where the union is asking for a 13.5 per cent raise over the next three years, while the Treasury Board and the CRA say they have offered a nine per cent raise over three years.

Aaron Kernaghan has been on the picket line in Saskatoon. She is the local president for the immigration union representing Saskatchewan who says they have been without a contract for three years and are being paid at pre-pandemic, pre-inflation wages. She says they are looking for a cost-of-living adjustment to a reasonable amount just to keep paying for food and rent as these things are going up by 10 per cent aggregately.

“The other thing we’re asking for is that the government be responsible for paying us correctly and on time. I would encourage any your listeners to look into the Phoenix class action lawsuits brought against the federal government. The federal government actually lost those lawsuits and that was specifically about paying us correctly and on time.”

The Phoenix pay program was launched in 2016 and according to the Standing Senate Committee on Finance by July 2018, Phoenix had caused pay problems to close to 80 percent of the federal government’s 290,000 public servants through underpayments, over-payments, and non-payments.

The government and the Public Service Alliance of Canada have warned that ongoing action could amount to a complete halt of the tax season. But the CRA has issued a statement telling Canadians to continue to file their tax returns to get them in before the April 30th deadline. The strike could also lead to slowdowns at the border and disruptions to E-I, immigration and passport applications.

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