Cancel Aliant contracts, P.E.I. mayor urges N.S.
Summerside mayor calls for united action over Bell Aliant jobs move
Last Updated: Saturday, November 7, 2009 | 3:23 PM AT
CBC News
Summerside Mayor Basil Stewart is calling on his municipal counterparts in Nova Scotia to end their Bell Aliant contracts.
Stewart is angry the company plans to move 11 call centre jobs from Summerside, P.E.I., to Charlottetown.
Bell Aliant is also moving jobs out of five Nova Scotia communities, including Sydney and New Glasgow.
Stewart, who is president of the Canadian Federation of Municipalities, was guest speaker Friday at the annual meeting of the Nova Scotia Federation of Municipalities.
'So if Aliant is gonna start pulling this on these 11 municipalities, then they can pay for it financially.'—Summerside Mayor Basil Stewart
He said his city is considering pulling its contract with Bell Aliant and urged his counterparts to do the same.
"Sydney, N.S., or the Regional Municipality of Cape Breton as it's called now, they pay Aliant $1.4 million a year for services and they're fit to be tied about this, the way they're handling it as well," Stewart said.
"We're going to get together the municipalities and total up the revenue that Aliant is presently getting from the municipalities.
"I think Nova Scotia municipalities alone … pay close to $12 million a year, just the municipalities, not counting the people and the private business and private phones in those municipalities," he said.
"So if Aliant is gonna start pulling this on these 11 municipalities, then they can pay for it financially."
N.S. considers bulk tender
The Nova Scotia Federation of Municipalities will do a survey to find out exactly how much municipalities pay for phone services, said president Lloyd Hines.
The 55 municipalities are considering tendering their phone services together and issuing a bulk tender, he said.
"So what we're saying is well, I mean, we understand that this company, this private company, Bell Aliant, has made a business decision to consolidate their employees in several centres around the Atlantic region and that for them makes good business sense for their shareholders," Hines said.
"But we have shareholders too, as municipalities, and they're our taxpayers.
"So what we want to know — and we're just taking a page from Aliant's book in terms of good fiscal management — are we getting the best buy for our telephone expenditure also? So we're going to review that."
Meanwhile, the city of Summerside is scheduled to decide next week whether it will annul its contract from Bell Aliant.
Stewart, who earlier this week tried unsuccessfully to change Bell Aliant officials' minds about closing the Summerside centre, has said he will personally no longer be a customer and has also urged his family and friends to cancel their service.
In October, Bell Aliant announced it plans to close 11 of its 16 call centres in Atlantic Canada by April as part of a consolidation.
Each of the affected centres has fewer than 50 employees, officials have said.
