Mayor calls emergency meeting over job losses

North Bay city council will hold an emergency meeting Monday at 5 p.m. to discuss the loss of 35 Ontario government jobs.

Mayor Vic Fedeli said all mayors in the region and Nipissing MPP Monique Smith have been invited to attend meeting.

There’s no word yet, Fedeli said, whether Smith will be there.

“What we want to do is talk about how we can save the 35 jobs,” Fedeli said.

Net gain
BayToday.ca reported Thursday that 320 Management Board Secretariat Shared Services Bureau jobs are being moved to six cities the government hopes will become centres of excellence: North Bay, Sudbury, Orillia, Peterborough, Thunder Bay and the Greater Toronto Area.

North Bay loses the 35 jobs, but gains only 29, for a net loss of six.

Sudbury, on the other hand, losses four jobs but gains 126, for a net gain of 122.

“We want to know how we ended up with negative six jobs and Sudbury has that net gain of 122,” Fedeli said.

“Couldn’t we have shared those jobs with Sudbury?”

Pilot project
Premier Dalton McGuinty will be in North Bay Tuesday night, and Fedeli said the meeting was being held “so we can speak to him about this with a unified voice.”

Jason Wesley, spokesman for the Management Board Secretariat, said for the past two years Sudbury had been the site of a financial processing pilot project.

“In addition there’s also a similar federal financial processing facility there,” Wesley said.

“There’s a very large labour pool too to go along with the very good information technology infrastructure that’s already in place.”

Six-city consolidation
Wesley said 80 of the 320 jobs are temporary positions due to end next March.

As well, he said Northern Ontario will gain 102 government positions as a result of the six-city consolidation, which is expected to save Queen’s Park $12 million a year.