About 25 CRA jobs on P.E.I. among hundreds the agency is cutting across Canada | CBC News

The Canada Revenue Agency has laid off roughly 25 temporary employees on Prince Edward Island and 126 across the Atlantic region, leading a union official to warn the move will cost the federal government money.

The organization announced on Nov. 15 that 580 term employees from across the country, many of whom were debt collectors, will lose their jobs next month. Term employees are hired for a defined and limited period of time.

CRA told Radio-Canada that it’s focusing its resources on tax filing and wants to reduce its staffing from the level employed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We’re a revenue-generating department for the government, so, you know, by removing collectors you don’t collect money,” said Brian Oldford, the regional vice-president for the Union of Taxation Employees for the Atlantic Canada region. “So less money goes into the account for the government.”

Oldford said the most recent employees to be hired by CRA were the first to be let go in the job-cutting move. He said most were term employees hired in January 2023.

“Usually what happens is you come in at a certain time, and your term will end at another time,” he said. “It will be in your contract, but [the CRA has] the right to terminate your term before the term expires.”

Oldford said these workers aren’t eligible for severance or a compensation package, other than accumulated vacation time. Term-employee positions go hand in hand with job insecurity, he added.

“These people are putting money back in the economy, you know — the collectors, for example, are collecting money, again, to help out the government with their expenses and all that stuff — and these people have been terminated.”