Canada Taxation union joins PSA in fight over TTRA

The Public Services Association (PSA) is getting help from Canada in its battle against the proposed Trinidad and Tobago Revenue Authority (TTRA).

National president of the Union of Taxation Employees of Canada Betty Bannon told PSA members Tuesday there are “vast differences” between the TTRA and what exists in Canada.

She said it is not true that the T&T agency is modelled after Canada's taxation agency.

Chairman of the TTRA Management Company Ltd Andre Henry has said the government looked to Canada when it developed the new authority, describing Canada as one of the countries that has "moved to a semi-autonomous agency framework for revenue collection".

Bannon said the Trinidad and Tobago government likely did some cherry picking from Canada and the United Kingdom to that best support their agenda.

She noted that what the government has done is to give itself "more power and control to your detriment.”

Bannon said Canadian workers went through a transition in 1999 when the government merged the Canadian revenue and customs under the Canadian Customs and Revenue Agency (CRA).

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She said it took six years to determine that it was bad idea and now the agencies operate separately.

Bannon in Canada every employee was given a guaranteed job and with the opening of the Canada revenue agency and said each had a two-year job guarantee.

That is not the case in Trinidad and Tobago.

She said, “There was transparency with the bargaining agents in Canada. That is not so here. They took all the employees in Canada, not here. Their board of management is fully independent with only two members appointed by the government the rest are appointed by the provinces and territories, so there are vast differences."

Under the TTRA Bill, the Finance Minister appoints a nine-member board of management comprising a chairman, vice-chairman, permanent secretary, chief executive officer, a person nominated by the Tobago House of Assembly and “four other persons, at least two of whom shall be from the private sector”.

The PSA is getting support from the Opposition UNC in its fight against the legislation. The party has appointed PSA second vice-president Christopher Joefield a temporary senator to present the union’s case in the Senate.