November 4, 2026
Sisters, Brothers and Friends,
In 2024-2025, the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) paid its executives $11.1 million in performance and at-risk pay. Spread over a year, that is the equivalent of more than $30,000 a day.
Today, more than a year after our collective agreement expired, our members are still waiting for the employer to table a wage proposal.
Think about that the next time we are told to tighten our belts.
Those executive payments alone were equivalent to nearly 140 annual SP-05 salaries at the top of the pay scale, before benefits and employer contributions. A substantial workforce’s salary bill devoted to rewarding the people at the top.
Apparently, the belt-tightening message stops at the executive suite.
The CRA has a system for recognizing executive performance through financial rewards. Yet the workers whose labour makes the Agency’s results possible cannot even get a wage proposal. Executives taking care of executives, while members are expected to keep delivering and keep waiting.
Frankly, it is absurd.
Our members are already dealing with the cost of groceries, fuel and housing. Their bills do not stop coming because the employer refuses to negotiate wages.
We did not impose the tariffs. We do not set fuel prices. We did not create the trade crisis or the economic uncertainty facing this country.
Our members are not the government’s economic shock absorbers. Our wages and jobs should not be used to absorb the consequences of a crisis we did not create.
If the government wants Canadians to stand together with “elbows up,” it should explain why public service workers are expected to shoulder the burden while executives continue to be rewarded.
You answer the calls, administer benefits, process returns and collect the revenue that funds public services. The employer depends on your work every day. You deserve a fair agreement that recognizes that contribution.
A year without a wage proposal is a choice the employer must answer for.
Our bargaining team returns to mediation on November 24 and 25. The CRA must arrive with a wage proposal and the authority to negotiate seriously. Members have waited long enough for the employer to give their demands the attention they deserve.
There is every reason to be angry. Let’s turn that anger into pressure.
Talk to your colleagues about these figures. Wear your bargaining T-shirt and connect with your local about upcoming mobilization activities. Show the employer that our bargaining team has the membership behind it.
We know from experience that collective strength moves this employer. Keep up the pressure. We will not quietly accept being made to pay for a crisis we did not create.
In Solidarity,
Adam Jackson
National President
Union of Taxation Employees