Toronto Sun :- Tony Clement gets into fight online with union
OTTAWA - Many Canadians relaxed on what is an August long weekend for most, but instead of taking it easy in his Ontario cottage country riding, Treasury Board president Tony Clement got into an online spat with a public-sector union Saturday.
When Ontario's tourism minister took to Twitter to promote a news story about his plea to the federal government to settle with striking foreign service officers who have shut down some visa processing, Clement responded through the same social networking site.
"Where's your plea to the union?" Clement shot back, adding that he'd made a fair offer to strikers.
That's when the Professional Association of Foreign Service Officers (PAFSO) jumped in.
"If your offer is so fair, why have you refused to present it to an arbitrator without paralyzing preconditions?" PAFSO President Tim Edwards said via Twitter.
By then, Clement was fully engaged in a virtual sparring match over strikers' grievance that they're paid less than others who do similar work.
"Tim, let's sit down to resolve," Clement said. "My 'conditions' are reasonable, fair to everyone and allow us to do proper research on issues."
Saying he'd "heard that tune before," Edwards said he'd wait for a ruling on his accusation of bad-faith bargaining by the feds.
"I regret your intransigence," Clement tweeted, while also challenging postal worker Toni MacAfee.
She chastised Clement as a "bad employer" when he said foreign service officers are well paid and hold highly sought after jobs.
"What you just said is what all bad unionists say," he said in response, before the online chatter died down.
