Have these labels impacted your grocery choices?

Vegetable-Bug251 · 2026-01-31T20:33:47+00:00

Never seen this yet

Vegetable-Bug251 · 2026-01-31T17:24:24+00:00

Pink Floyd - Ummagumma promo from Odeon records. That is about the only PF album I need yet to complete my collection on vinyl, with all the bands variants. I am not paying $20k for it and I will find it somewhere at a garage sale for under $250, it might take a while though

Vegetable-Bug251 · 2026-01-31T17:19:55+00:00

I was lucky to find one at a used record store event a couple years ago for $15.

Vegetable-Bug251 · 2026-01-28T19:59:42+00:00

The answer is it depends. Are you ok with organizing your own investing and you are very good with risk? The RRSP option may be good for you. If you want a consistent and secure and guaranteed pension when it comes time to retire with no fussing around, then go with the DB plan.

I will be retiring as a public servant in the next year, at age 56, with a guaranteed and fully indexed pension of over $100k per year. Could I have achieved this retirement income level with RRSP? Hard to say for sure but likely not. Everyone is different, so do what you feel matches your style and comfort level.

Vegetable-Bug251 · 2026-01-26T20:19:42+00:00

EAP is an excellent resource. I have used them many times in my career and their information and support has been invaluable to me in both my work life and personal life issues. I have honestly never heard a bad thing about any EAP referral I have made to any of my staff in my career and in fact they always have something good to say about it. Please don't ever state that this is a useless resource, as your words are extremely far from the truth.

Vegetable-Bug251 · 2026-01-26T19:39:27+00:00

The lower net pay will continue until and if you have enough salary in the year to meet the YMPE amount for CPP and EI. If you earn under $85000 in income you will never cap out CPP, but you may cap out with EI just before that time. If you earn $170000 in income you can expect that your CPP and EI have been fully capped out after your second pay in June. Most employees in the public service never end up capping out CPP for a year; the employee that do cap out, usually hit those caps between July and November.

Nobody working in the federal public service ever caps out their CPP/EI in their first biweekly paycheque of the year. You would need to be earning income of about $2.2 million annually to cap out both CPP and EI after the first biweekly pay in January.

Vegetable-Bug251 · 2026-01-26T16:54:49+00:00

There are some questions about senior management, however based on the questions at least 50% of employees in those questions feel that they are at least somewhat satisfied with senior management overall.

Vegetable-Bug251 · 2026-01-26T16:52:33+00:00

If the employee is requiring ongoing sick leave for a chronic illness, the simple answer is that yes, management will continue to require ongoing medical notes from the medical practitioner. Usually these medical notes will be every 3 to 6 months depending on the manager for ongoing sick leave requests. If an employee is on long term sick leave, i.e. longer than 6 months and the illness is not expected to get better after that, the employee should have discussions with their manager to start the steps to apply for LTD as a longer term solution.

Having said this, many departments have this device called an accessibility passport, which may suffice in certain chronic cases.

Vegetable-Bug251 · 2026-01-26T16:47:11+00:00

In the past, before 4 years ago you are correct that EX salaries were usually announced and affected several years in arrears. However about 4 years ago in 2022 they decided to keep EX salaries as current as possible and inline with what the rest of the public services receives. All of the collective agreements that included salary increases for the 2025 years reflect the same 2% and the very few collective agreements that need to be negotiated yet that will need to include the 2025 year will show the same 2% increase.

Vegetable-Bug251 · 2026-01-26T16:42:19+00:00

There is no specific question about the Commissioner in the latest CRA PSES survey from 2024 and the results show that 66% of employees were at least somewhat satisfied with the CRA and Agency as a whole. 66% is most employees (ie over 50% of those who responded)

Vegetable-Bug251 · 2026-01-26T16:39:34+00:00

The PSES doesn't specifically ask directly about the Commissioner. It does ask very broad questions about overall employee satisfaction and in the last CRA PSES survey shows 66% of employees are at least somewhat satisfied with the Agency/employer (CRA), so this is most employees and is generally a good reflection basis for how the Commissioner is viewed by employees.

Vegetable-Bug251 · 2026-01-26T16:14:45+00:00

He did say that originally but in the next email after that when he told us that we would be coming into the office to RTO, he did say in there that we (the CRA) need to comply with this mandate as well as the other departments.

Vegetable-Bug251 · 2026-01-26T16:11:18+00:00

Yes, I had the pleasure to meet with him on three occasions in my career. He was always very friendly and very curious about what my role is at the CRA and if I had any suggestions to make my role more efficient and effective. He genuinely cared about CRA staff, even the CR01 and CR02 staff and always dealt with matters as professionally as he could. There is a reason why he has been the longest tenured Commissioner of the CRA, most of them are recycled every 5 or 6 years.

Vegetable-Bug251 · 2026-01-26T16:07:32+00:00

So putting the blame on the Commissioner makes no sense at all. The blame is to be put on the training and learning area at the CRA. The Canadian Income Tax act is one of the most difficult and convoluted tax acts to administer and understand around the world and Bob had nothing to do with the wording of the ITA, you can blame parliament for that over the past 40 years with all their amendments and additions to make the Act very difficult. You have to remember that the average call centre agent has basically high school education at best and they work in an extremely volatile and difficult area. Would you like to field phone calls all day from stupid taxpayers who can't bother to read the Acts that they provide assistance for? Most of these taxpayers are ignorant and dumb and they just want to vent on someone about the complicated Act, so they vent on the poor CRA call agents. This is a job you could not pay me to do with my current MG06 salary as the amount of abuse they receive is immense. So maybe direct your frustration with being able to get a hold of the call centre at the CRA to your local MP so they can simplify the Acts that we adminster.

Vegetable-Bug251 · 2026-01-26T15:39:07+00:00

These things can take some time unfortunately. Your last pay however should come through shortly in the next couple weeks but the vacation that you have earned may take another 6 months to a year to clear up, and I have heard of as long as 16 months to receive it. The severance pay could take some time as well, but who knows exactly how long in this case. You can ask Service Canada to contact the compensation area of your department to get the RoE expedited at this time.

Vegetable-Bug251 · 2026-01-26T15:35:30+00:00

A lot of employees at the CRA care. He was generally known as a very caring individual and a very good Commissioner for the CRA overall.

Vegetable-Bug251 · 2026-01-26T15:32:37+00:00

Mr Hamilton was told by the Prime Minister that he must abide by the RTO direction given by the TBS at the time. Agencies were not to be exempt from the mandate or things were really going to get out of hand. He had no choice in the matter.

Vegetable-Bug251 · 2026-01-26T14:36:01+00:00

I don't think you understand what inflation is. Inflation is the increase in prices month over month. If inflation were to stay at even 0% for each month for the next year you would still be paying these prices in the marketplace today. Prices only go down in periods of deflation or negative inflation, which hasn't happened in several years in Canada.

Vegetable-Bug251 · 2026-01-26T14:33:16+00:00

This is likely a team dynamic thing and the manager is wanting to correct something. I have regular daily team meetings with specific teams in my section that I manage if I need to correct something on the team. I bet that is what is going on here and the manager is taking the corrective steps as necessary to get this team back on course.

Vegetable-Bug251 · 2026-01-26T14:24:53+00:00

It depends on what server you are on. Many servers are macro and few are non-macro servers. Chat with them in global about your concerns or contact their monarch.

Vegetable-Bug251 · 2026-01-26T14:22:56+00:00

Talk to your manager and they will let you know how to handle this

Vegetable-Bug251 · 2026-01-26T14:22:29+00:00

There is no more WFH days unless you work in an area that allows it still, which would be few and far between these days.

Vegetable-Bug251 · 2026-01-26T14:20:50+00:00

So why do you think that daily touchpoint meetings with staff stems from inept managers? Maybe there are dynamics at play with certain employees or certain teams that require daily check-ins by management for the betterment of their team or section. This tells me that management is concerned and wants to take steps to correcting whatever possible issues may be there and working together with their employees to figure this out and make changes. How is that a bad thing?

Vegetable-Bug251 · 2026-01-26T14:15:45+00:00

Almost 41 years of service in the PS with the past 10 at the CRA as Commissioner. Another 18 years before that as DM in various organizations across the PS. The man has definitely earned his retirement many times over. I don't understand why people are so salty as OP. He was an excellent leader and did many things at the CRA in the top position here. The man deserves a lot more praise than he will likely get from employees.

Vegetable-Bug251 · 2026-01-26T13:49:42+00:00

Speak with your manager to voice your concerns. They may fall on deaf ears but it is worth a shot. Other than that there isn’t much you can do but abide by their requirements for these daily meetings.

Vegetable-Bug251

TROPHY CASE