I respectfully submit my report covering my tenure as Acting National President from September 27, 2018 to January 8, 2019 and as your National President from January 9, 2019 to present.
Since September I have been extremely busy in the National Office. There are many files, situations, andhappenings that I have been working on or involved in and not all will be covered below.
I worked hard with the National Office staff once returning from our PEI National Executive Officers meetings to look at what needed to be done, what was pending and what was coming up.
There were many items that had to be handled upon our return from the NEO Meetings; office access, systems, parking, email notifications, banking, and meeting with staff.The office may be small, but we have been working hard for our members. Some of our work isn’t visible to ourmembers as it is the behind the scenes work that needs to be done to ensure the continued functioning of the Component. The NEO have been very supportive, and I would like to thank the NEO for the support and assistance as we move forward. I have been working to keep regular contact with our RVPs.
One of the first items that I followed up on was the process to hire our part time LRO. The hiring of the LROwas a Resolution that was passed at our 2017 Triennial Convention. I worked with PSAC HR to determine where our process was at. Unfortunately, we needed to restart the process. I expedited the process without impacting the integrity. We were able to hire our part time LRO on February 4th, 2019. For the first 7 weeks, Ihad our LRO working 5 days a week to be able to provide proper orientation to the Component and get him starting to work on case files that were pending in the office. Our new LRO is Michel Lépine.
During this time, I was working to get up to speed with what has been going on for our members at Deer Lodge Centre and what actions had been taken by our Component and PSAC. There were a couple trips to Winnipeg to Deer Lodge Centre to touch base with the Local Executive, members, REVP and theCommissioner. There is a lot of work for us to do to help save our members at DLC.
I have been working through our Financial Administration Officer to ensure that our signatories for the Component were updated both on banking as well as with our investments. We have just finished transferring our investments and moving some into long term investments while keeping other investments in short term GIC’s to have the funds set aside for expenditures from the Component for example, the 2020 Triennial Convention and the severance pay coverage for UVAE staff.
We had some additional changes to the National Executive in January which has us coordinating elections. I am still working on the Alternate RVP Atlantic election. As I write this report, we are still in the process of coordinating the by-elections for the Alternate NEVP and the Alternate EOC positions. Nomination forms have been received and a secondary letter with voting ballots are being prepared to be mailed to all eligible delegates. This process will take until mid to late May to finalize.
I have been working closely to ensure our new LRO and NEVP get settled into our office and feel welcome.
In February we started to get some good media after my presentation to the Senate Sub-Committee around our ever-changing Minister and the impacts to our members and to our Veterans. We then started to get some media around the delays/backlogs at VAC, shortage of staff and the impacts of Bill 29 in Manitoba forour members at DLC. I am still working with a few different media outlets regarding Deer Lodge Centre and other items related to VAC.
In early March I had a meeting and made a request through PSAC to obtain some funding to run political mobilization regarding DLC and our members. It is time to push the political mobilization and therefore Ihave hired a lobbyist who will be assisting with the political mobilization. We have written letters to Liberal Party Leader, NDP Party Leader, Manitoba Health Minister, Conservative Party Leader, Veterans Critics including the NDP Veterans Critic and the Conservative Veterans Critic. I had previously written to the new Minister of VAC to request a meeting with him, however, as I write this letter I am not optimistic that this meeting will happen anytime soon given that our new Minister is recovering from injuries sustained on a submarine in Victoria and further injuries at an event held in Vancouver. I will be sending follow up letters out to those members of parliament to whom our office has written to.
There have been delays in completing the Components 2017 Audit as there needed to be adjustmentscompleted as we worked on the reconciliation of previous files. I am hopeful that we will have the audit before the end of April.As a member of the NEO I want us to continue our hard work and show patience to each other. We are a strong team, we all want to make a better Component for all our members from Coast to Coast to Coast and together we will achieve this.
In Solidarity
Virginia Vaillancourt
UVAE National President Activities September 27 to April 30, 2019
This list of activities does not include all meetings, consults, teleconferences.
November 7
Met with REVP Marianne Hladun and Commissioner regarding Bill 29 & Deer Lodge Centre
November 21
Meeting with DLC Members and REVP Marianne Hladun
November 22
Meeting with opposition leader and opposition health critic regarding DLC
December 14
Meeting with Manitoba Health ADM re DLC with REVP & RVP
February 11
NBoD Phoenix Ad-Hoc Committee Meeting
Feb 11-14
NBoD meeting
February 15
CBC PEI TV Interview regarding Minister of VAC Resignation
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canda/prince-edward-island/veterans-affairs-turnover-union- frustrated-pei-1.5021109
Feb 23
Met with lobbyist to look at political action options re DLC
February 27
Presentation to the Senate Sub-Committee on Veterans Affairs
February 27- March 1
Media interviews re Minister of VAC
https://www.hilltimes.com/2019/03/01/vets-frustrated-by-high-turnover-groups-tell- senate-as-macaulay-sworn-in-as-trudeaus-fifth-veterans-affairs-minister/191008
https://www.vancourier.com/macaulay-faces-tough-task-repairing-relations-with-angry- veterans-community-1.23650740
https://www.theguardian.pe.ca/news/local/move-to-veterans-affairs-a-great-honour- says-macaulay-288796/
https://www.ctvnews.ca/mobile/politics/macaulay-faces-tough-task-repairing-relations- with-angry-veterans-community-1.4319539
https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/macaulay-faces-tough-task-repairing-relations- with-angry-veterans-community-2
Feb 28- Mar 1
Deer Lodge Centre meeting with members & working with RVP
March 8
Nova Scotia Federation of Labour International Women’s Day Breakfast
Guest speakers Canadian Senator Wanda Thomas Bernard, highly regarded social worker, educator, researcher, community activist and advocate of social change
Magali Picard, National Executive Vice-President for the Public Service Alliance of Canada. Organizer, educator, political and social activist
March 8
Attendance at Local 80041 AGM
March 8
Site visit with Dartmouth Local with PSAC REVP Atlantic and PSAC NEVP
March 12
Edmonton AGM & Elections with RVP Western
March 13
Calgary AGM & Elections with RVP Western
March 18 &19
Meetings in Montreal, Montreal AGM and Rally
March 20
Ottawa AGM & Elections
March 25-29
Finance Committee Meeting
April 3-5
Penticton AGM; meeting with Local Rep; meeting with members
April 15
Meeting with RVP Deer Lodge Centre & member visit
April 16
Winnipeg Local AGM & Elections