Motions and Action Items for NCR Executive Board
authored by Dmitry

It was my great honour to be elected to the NCR Executive Board in April 2024 and to serve as the NCR By-Laws and Policies Committee Chair.

In this capacity, I did my best to fulfill my key electoral promises—fighting against political interference and advocating for better transparency and member representation.

This page documents many of my efforts, the main of which was to bring the much needed Electoral Reform for the NCR.

Note: the shown PIPSC web-page screenshot is from the time when I served at the NCR Executive Board. You can recover the whole page using web archives.

13 JAN 2025

Attended (*remotely): 8 people (Quorum)
Stacy, Gordon, Michelle, Sumit, Brian*, Jennie*, Dmitry*, Tim (New Director), Mark (PD) *, Waheed (PD) *,
PD - Past Directors, whose term has been extended until April as per NCR Exec motion on 13 DEC 2024

REGRETS: Gordon, Allison, Suzanne (New Director), Nabilia (New Director), Keelia, (New Director)

Motion: NCR Electoral Reform

Whereas:

The National Capital Region (NCR) represents over 50% of the national PIPSC membership (over 40,000 members).
National elections, as well as elections for several Groups (e.g., NRC-RO-RCO, AFS), are conducted electronically. The technological infrastructure for electronic nominations, ballots, and vote counting is already in place and accessible.
Currently, NCR executives are voted by less than 1% of eligible NCR members (delegates attending the NCR Council). Delegates are selected by the current NCR Executive Board. The vast majority of select delegates are from the existing NCR Executive network. The voting happens over 24 hours during the Council.
This participation rate is significantly lower than the voting rate in national elections, where approximately 12% of eligible NCR members participated in the 2024 elections.
The current electoral process creates the risk of conflict of interest or the perception thereof, as well as disengagement among the broader membership
PIPSC aims to enhance transparency and member engagement.

Be It Resolved That:

The election process for the NCR Region Executive be updated to allow all NCR members to Vote for candidates using an electronic voting system.
Adequate advance notice will be provided to NCR members for nominating candidates and participating in the voting process online.
Full details of the related by-law changes are outlined in the accompanying document, “NCR Electoral Reform” (attached).

Moved by: Dmitry. Seconded by: Jennie & Tim.
Motion: DEFEATED (3 to 5)

Motion 1: Intro & orientation for new NCR Members

Starting from this meeting, be it resolved that
For every exec meeting where we have new NCR Exec members, the meeting will start with the roundtable of introductions and recap of NCR Executive meeting logistics, including the key rules from parliamentary procedure that we have to follow.

Discussion: Dmitry referred to his own experience at his first NCR Exec meeting on May 25, 2024, when no introductions or orientations were provided for newly elected NCR Executives (him and two other executives).

Moved by: Dmitry. Seconded by: Jennie. MOTION CARRIED

Motion 2: Minutes to provide votings on motions

Staring from this meeting, be it resolved to make executive minutes more detailed, specifically to include:
For each motion, in addition to the names of who moved it and seconded it, which are currently noted in the minutes, to also include who voted FOR (A,B,C ...) , AGAINST (D,E,F,...) , ABSTAINED (G,H,...)

I understand that at times we may have as many as 15 motions presented during a single meeting (as seen in the attached minutes from the 2024-OCT-21 NCR meeting). This would result in an additional 15 × 3 = 45 lines of text in our minutes. However, I firmly believe that including this level of detail is an important step toward enhancing transparency and accountability in our operations. This is especially crucial given the recent increase in membership dues, which has understandably led to heightened scrutiny of the Union's activities.

Moved by: Dmitry. Seconded by: No-one. Died on the floor without discussion.

Motion 3: Minutes to provide discussions key points and answers and question

Staring from this meeting, be it resolved to make executive minutes more detailed, specifically to include:

For each presentation (Committee Reports & Other Agenda Items), include the summary of key points as well as questions and answers, if there were any.

We know that BoD always provide such details, whereas we (NCR) do not. - Compare attached: 2024-OCT-21 NCR meeting minutes (mentioned above) vs. 2021-12-10 BoD meeting minutes (mentioned below)

Again, I understand, this would create some extra work for secretary, but I would be happy to assist with note-taking if needed.
Or we can even use AI summarization tools, which I could also assist with (I've been testing already some of them for my work at CBSA

Moved by: Dmitry. Seconded by: No-one. Died on the floor without discussion

Motion 4: Recommend new BoD to address the impact of Vaccination Mandate

According to the published minutes, during the December 10, 2021 BoD meeting, it was announced that the Union would not file a policy grievance on behalf of members working from home. This decision was reportedly based on some "specific reasons," which were not specified in the meeting minutes. This decision has had severe consequences, including causing traumatic experiences—some as extreme as suicidal thoughts—among the impacted members.

If left unchallenged, such decision raises the possibility of preferential treatment or discriminatory conduct by the Institute against members who hold differing health or religious practices - contrary to the Union's values and Equity statement.

To address this situation, NCR exec board requests that its NCR Directors to ask the newly elected BoD to prioritize for consideration the following two actions, stemming from the resolutions P-18 and P-20 submitted by an NCR member for the 2024 AGM (now referred to the BoD - see attached):

Conduct a national survey on the impact of the vaccination mandate on members.
Establish this issue as a topic on the PIPSC News & Issues website.

Moved by: Dmitry. Seconded by: No-one. Died on the floor without discussion.

13 DEC 2024

Motion 1: Member Response emails -

Dmitry would like to develop a common strategy to complaint emails. Gordon suggested that the communications committee might want to look at a common response, Stacy thought that a template might help her as chair respond to these. The Secretary and the Comms committee is tasked with looking at template responses.

Motion 2: NCR Letter to the new Board

NCR Letter to the new Board - Dmitry raised the idea and provided the draft of a letter from the Executive to the new board main focus vaccine mandate and lack of support from PIPSC

Without a motion Moved by Dmitry and without a seconder -and upon completion of the speakers list the Chair moved onto the next item on the agenda as no motion for discussion or decision was before the executive. Dmitry requested the exec reconsider the agenda item and the motion to reconsider was not seconded, motion died

Motion 3: Publication of Min to the PIPSC website -

Moved by Dmitry to have the min posted on the NCR webpage seconded by - not seconded - motion died

19 NOV 2024

Motion: AGM post-mortem (Carried)

Can you add to Agenda please:

- addressing members emails/concerns (as mentioned in my yesterday's email)

- AGM post-mortem (maybe as part of roundtable?): to recap key outcomes and our related next steps (maybe publish in next newsletter issue?)

- NCR electoral reform (maybe as part of our regular update from by-law committee?): I'll present latest draft which takes into accounts the feedback received to date - from our board and others

SEP 2024

Motion: delegate selection discussion (Moved by: Katie Francis. Seconded by Dmitry. Carried)

I second Katie on this concern - I have received similar concerns,

This is something that relates not only to selection for national or NCR AGM, but all region/groups AGM

I'd like to learn more how this is presently done for NCR (beyond what is written https://pipsc.ca/regions/ncr/regulations) and then offer for our group discussion the idea, which we had discussed at RE group AGM a couple of months ago.

It is best described by picture attached which shows the membership demographics by member's Department's mandate (analysis vs. policy vs. ops)

These three distinctive groups have much different concerns/needs and ways of support from the Union.

It is vital to insure that all AGM, in each group and suobgroup and region include representative from each of these group - so that ALL needs are heard and addressed.

Otherwise (because of majority members in one group (analsys), the voice/concerns/needs in smaller groups - however very important groups (such as policy) - are not heard.

Thank you

Dmitry

Discussion: Follow-up on Proposed by-law changes (including Electoral Reform)

NCR Exec team,

Please find in provided link and attached the resolutions for by-law changes to be discussed this Friday

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_o-igZVlqT7TexvJKI20eSLOjXMhzXZCcvcNKILDxi4/edit

AUG 2024

Discussion: Proposed by-law changes (including Electoral Reform)

I also have a topic to discuss related to recommendations that our by laws committee is making with respect to three proposed changes to NCR by Laws which we want to propose . I would Like to hear your feedback on those, and decide on the next steps for our committee with respect to the recommended changes. But I realize we still have enough time until NCR AGM in April next year, so if this is not as urgent as some other items we want to discuss now. Please let me know

JUL 2024 (Petawawa)

Proposed Discussion Item: "Data Scientist Letter to PIPSC President (Re: Professional integrity crisis in Policy Departments)"

I wanted to add an agenda item for the meeting:

- "Data Scientist Letter to PIPSC President (Re: Professional integrity crisis in Policy Departments)"

Below are a few key points from the letter that I started writing to Eva Henshaw, Acting President, PIPSC.

Whether I will submit this Letter to the President in my personnel capacity (as a Data Scientist who has become privy - because of his networking on gccollab (where I led data training course) - to learn about widespread Professional Integrity breaches happening across all Policy & Ops Departments), or as newly elected NCR Executive (who was elected specifically for his pledge to do something about the abuse of Professional Integrity within the Govt and the lack of Transparency within the Union related to that - you may remember my 2-min Electoral speech about that), I would be very much interested to get your feedback and advice on it and the best strategy to proceed.
...

If any of you have any ideas/questions related to any matter presented there (or how it is presented) please let me know -

I'll try to incorporate/address those before me meet.

JUN 2024

Proposal for the Establishment of a Data Analysis and Insights Committee

Also appended below and attached:

a bit of history and an example of what data could do to improve the culture within the organization - in this case for the CBSA.

27 MAY 2024 (First Meeting with Dmitry)

This is how it started :

Dmitry is elected! He attends his very first Union executive meeting with other NCR Executives whom he never met yet, he does not know how they look like, what are their backgrounds or interests. All he knows that they are as passionate about helping union members as himself - which is why they are all here at NCR Executive Board. Dmitry comes with lots of ideas, energy and hope to address the issues highlighted by members who voted for him...

Items for Agenda submitted ahead of my very first executive meeting:

Below is the very first email Dmitry sent to the NCR Executives ahead of our ever first executive meeting together, listing the items I proposed for discussion. Upon arrival to the meeting, I found that none of these items appeared on the agenda...

When I raised my first concern (at the very start of the meeting when the agenda was moved for approval) asking why my proposed items were not in the agenda, I was told they could be discussed under "Roundtable." This looked somewhat strange to me, especially since introductory discussions and key matters are meant to be addressed at the beginning of a meeting. However, I assumed that the seasoned executives, some of whom had been in their positions for over 15–20 years (as I later discovered), knew what they were doing.

Indeed, they did seem to know what they were doing—including the fact that Roundtable discussions are not required to be documented in the minutes, something I was also unaware of at the time.

When I asked to see the minutes of the previous meeting (which was the next motion after approving the agenda), I was told, "You don’t need to see them" and that retrieving them would take too much time, so they would not be provided to me.

Dmitry O. Gorodnichy <dmitry.gorodnichy@gmail.com> Sun, May 19, 2024 at 11:20 PM
To: XXXX
Cc: "ncr_executive@pipsc.ca" <ncr_executive@pipsc.ca>

Hello XXXX, team:

I'm looking forward to our meeting on 27th to meet you all finally, and discuss many items.

I would also like to suggest the following items for Agenda. Perhaps they are already planned as part of Roundtable or other items, but just in case.

*Roundtable introductions (background & roles). It would be nice to start with these before proceeding to other items
*New Exec orientation. Specifically:
- *Best practices to maintain openness and inclusiveness
- *Best practices to address members concerns
- *Cultures and sub-cultures within PIPSC, and anything we need to know besides what is on the website and on private NCR Regional Executive - Google Drive

Then it would also be great to have the following discussions, if time allows

*New members roles
*RTO strategy
*[Vaccination] Mandate policy grievance update and next steps
*Member Engagement update and strategies

For the last item, I can also present the interactive data visualization tool that I built - which shows members by branch, by groups. It could serve as base platform for any further data analysis we may wish to conduct, such as members' engagement and responses - similarly to the way this is done for analyzing PSES results which I did here: https://open-canada.github.io/Apps/pses

Hope, it all makes sense

Dmitry

613 355 9975

On Fri, May 17, 2024 at 11:11 AM 'XXX via ncr_executive <ncr_executive@pipsc.ca> wrote:

Attached please find the Draft Agenda for the next NCR Executive meeting

YIS

XXX

Personal Notes and Recommendations from the meeting

Below are my notes that were shared with all NCR executive after the meeting in the hope they would be found valuable and would be incorporated in the minutes prepared by Secretary. Some of them were (like the proper spelling of my name and indicating who attended remotely and who attended in person). None of rest were.

Notes related to all meetings

Note A

In meeting Attendees listing, esp. for the meeting with newly elected executives, recommend including full name of all attendees, their affiliation, group and whether attended virtually or in person. (None of these was provided in minutes prepared by Secretary. )

Here is the list of attendees of the Meeting on 27 May 2024 - written in the recommended way.

In Attendance

PIPSC Board of Directors:

Vice-Chair / NCR Director / Human Rights and Freedoms Chair
Stacy L. McLaren, Computer Systems Group, Shared Services Canada
NCR Director / Communications Chair
Waheed Khan, Applied Science and Patent Examination Group, Environment and Climate Change Canada,
NCR Director / Branch Coordinator
Dave Sutherland, Computer Systems Group, National Defence - Attended Remotely
NCR Director,
Mark Muench Audit, Financial & Scientific Group, Canada Revenue Agency - Attended Remotely

Other NCR Executives:

Chair / Training Committee Chair
J. Gordon Bulmer, Computer Systems Group, Public Services and Procurement Canada
Treasurer
Michelle Tran, Audit, Financial & Scientific Group, Canada Revenue Agency
Member Engagement
Allison G.P. Thompson, Audit, Financial & Scientific Group, Canada Revenue Agency
Young Professionals Committee Chair
Sumit Katyal, Audit, Financial & Scientific Group, Canada Revenue Agency,
Finance Chair
Brian K.T. Hassall, Audit, Financial & Scientific Group, Canada Revenue Agency - Attended Remotely
Chief Steward
Jennie Esnard, Nuclear Regulatory Group, Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission

Newly Elected Executives:
Dmitry Gorodnichy, Research Group, Canada Border Services Agency
Kaitlyn Francis, Applied Science and Patent Examination Group, Health Canada
Suzanne O'Brien, Commerce & Purchasing Group, Fisheries and Oceans Canada - Attended Remotely

PIPSC employees:
Eric Langlais, Manager, National Capital Regional Office

Note 0:

Do we really need to paste the entire Aboriginal acknowledgment (PIPSC NCR Land Acknowledgment), which take half a page in minutes, in all meeting Minutes? What purpose does it serve pasting these to full texts in every monthly NCR executive meeting minutes?
Would it not be sufficient to have them in Agenda only, if they need to be read a the meeting? Or even better to have a link to a pipsc page where everyone can access them

Notes Specific to this meeting:

Note 1:

Dmitry asked whether his suggestions for this meeting, which he shared by email a week early, were considered. Gordon replied that they were and will be part of Roundtable

Adoption of the Minutes of the previous meeting(s) - Moved by Gordon seconded by Stacy carried
- See Note 2:

Note 2:

Dmitry mentioned that he could not find the Minutes from the previous meeting(s) anywhere, which makes it impossible for him to comment on those. Gordon mentioned that they are available on common NRC Exec google and also that Dmitry does not need to approve them anyway, because these were before he arrived. Dmitry expressed that he is still interested to see them, however he could not find them in NRC Exec google.

New Business -

NCR Executive Elections Gordon turned the meeting over to Eric to do the elections
- See Notes 3 and 4

Note 3:

During the nominations, Dmitry noted there were no round-table introductions, which made it difficult for new executives, like himself, to make decisions related to voting for positions nominations of people whose positions or background he does not know much about.

Equally, Dmitry noted that there were no meeting logistics explained and hence it was difficult for new executives, like himself, to follow the expected rules of interaction, which were not described. See also Note 4 below.
Suggestion: to avoid such confusion in future, next time, lets always have a quick round-table intro or logistics overview, just as we do it with our Equity and Land-acknowledgement statements

Note 4:
Interactions between Stacy, Dmitry and Mark illustrated the importance of appreciating that we all are coming from different backgrounds and what looks “hateful” to someone could, in fact, be the expression of attention and engagement from someone coming from a different culture (In particular, the interceptions during someone’s presentation, which are common in Academic and some cultures). And vice versa , when the audience does not show any signs of attention (e.g. offering comments, raising any questions etc) maybe considered as sign of detachment or even ostracism in some communities, while being the sign of respect in some other communities

Of Note, Dmitry is the only person in the room from Eastern European culture (USSR/Ukraine), and also the only RE in this group coming from intensive Academic background (two PhD, four adjunct Prof in four Universities, over twenty supervised undergrad and grad students) . In his scientific position, he has led many national and international Communities of Practice (he shared detailed minutes from the latest meeting of the Computer Vision CoP that he currently lead at CBSA), conferences,seminars, where interjections with questions/comments during the presentations are welcomed and even encouraged. And vice, versa, Absence of questions/comments in those communities is a normally not a good sign for the speaker.

...

In Roundtable section

- - Dmitry offered ideas with regard to RTO - See Note 5

Note 5:
Dmitry emphasized that Unions must carefully craft the RTO-related messages to ensure these messages will unite (not divide) the population both inside and outside of Public Sector. He provided (by email) the ideas for kind of message that will unite all Canadians - “It’s not about extra one day, It’s about stopping the on-going gov’t practices of doing what they want for political gains. RTO is yet another clear example of a policy that is not made because of scientific or economic reasons, but for boosting political ranking.”

Dmitry inquired how to propagate this idea to those who are deciding on RTO fighting strategies.
Gordon responded that PIPSC Exec Board is doing that and four of these board members are here at the NCR meeting.

- Dmitry offered ideas with regard to Member engagement - See Note 6

Note 6:
Dmitry noted that many PIPSC members are disengaged due to differences in opinions and suggested organizing open Zoom or in-person meetings to re-engage them, specifically on topics used by politicians to polarize society. "We, as a Union of Professionals, have a unique chance to do the opposite - to use these divisive topics to bring members of different backgrounds and views together, making our community more open and inclusive."

Dmitry highlighted two specific topics that divide our community and need to be addressed first:

Woke media (used to undermine democracy).
Vaccine mandates (showing how politicians abuse scientific integrity for political agendas).

He recommended two books available on Amazon and at the Ottawa Public Library:

Dmitry offered to organize Zoom or in-person meetings with the authors of these books to foster dialogue and inclusiveness within the union. He knows the authors personally and can facilitate organizing these meetings if there is interest.

Discussion items for Next NCR meeting (suggested)

Archive all NCR Agendas and Minutes on shared NCR Exec drive

Follow up on RTO messaging strategies

Discuss idea of Open Member Engagement Zoom (or in-person) meetings on the topics of interest

Update PIPSC Equity statement to make it more inclusive and reinforce its mission - see Updated PIPSC Equity statement.doc

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Motions and Action Items for NCR Executive Boardauthored by Dmitry