How I won the election for the PIPSC National Capital Region Executive position: My electoral platform speech and insights gained (AUDIO)
How I won the election for the PIPSC National Capital Region Executive position: My electoral platform speech and insights gained (AUDIO)
Issue 5
La version française de cet article est publiée ici.
Disclaimer and orientation for new readers: This newsletter is published by Dmitry Gorodnichy, a candidate for the PIPSC Vice President (part-time). It does not represent an official position of The Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada (PIPSC). For all details related to my Electoral Platform, please go to my Portal: en.gorodnichy.ca. Additional related references are provided at the bottom of this page.
This article is linked on my Portal in About Me → Pictures page.
As some of you know, PIPSC held a virtual town hall this week for members to hear from the candidates for the Vice President positions. For those who couldn’t attend the live sessions, they’ve been recorded and will be uploaded to the PIPSC National Elections page (here).
In the meantime, I’d like to take this opportunity to share more background on how I won an election earlier this year for a Regional Executive position, as well as some important insights I gained from that experience. Enjoy!
Background:
Following my contributions to improving the culture in my department [1] and my efforts to help colleagues who faced workplace-related challenges in their departments [2], I was encouraged by my colleagues to get more involved in PIPSC matters. In April 2024, I successfully ran for one of the Executive positions for the National Capital Region (NCR) of the Union. This took place during the two-day NCR Council (the regional AGM) at the Hilton Lac Leamy, just across the Ottawa River.
There were 14 candidates running for four open Executive positions, all nominated during the meeting. Each candidate had two minutes to present themselves and their platform. Below, you can listen to my speech.
The election occurred on the second day of the meeting. On the first day, there was a Q&A session with the Acting President. During this session, I asked a question that many members had encouraged me to raise.
My Question to the Acting President:
"What is the Union doing to protect the scientific integrity of its highly skilled professional members' work? (We are the union with the highest percentage of PhDs, M.Sc., and other professionals among all unions.) How does the Union protect professionals who defend the integrity of their work from political and industry interference?"
In her response, the Acting President assured us that the Union is actively taking steps to safeguard scientific integrity and support workers who uphold it. She emphasized that the Union consistently advocates for these values at the Canadian Labour Congress. I was encouraged by this response, and it became a key part of my electoral platform, which I delivered the following day. Judging by the strong applause and the election results, this message clearly resonated with many of the delegates attending the Council.
Candidate speech - Dmitry Gorodnichy (2-min)
The quality of the audio is not good. Hence the transcription is also provided
.
Transcription
“I'll start from correctly pronouncing my name - Gorod-nee-chee, Dmit-ree Gorod-nee-chee.
So again, I grew up in Ukraine. I studied in Moscow for my Master in Science in Applied Mathematics and I did PhD at University of Alberta here in Canada.
As I mentioned yesterday, it's my first day at the union, [I mean] at this [large union] meeting, but I'm been working with the Union very heavily for the last 10 years - with steward at CBSA, where I am with 2008 and I have successful grievances at CBSA, specifically based on scientific integrity. And we had successes on improving the culture at CBSA through openness and transparency.
It's very important. I came from Soviet Union I know what openness can do. There are many people who cannot talk, who are afraid to express their concerns.
It's very important that we make environment open and transparent to everyone. That's why friends of mine suggested me 'Dmitry, why not you come here and be more engaged here?". So that's why I'm I'm here.
So I helped, I think, I helped to improve the culture at CBSA through data. So, I forgot to mention that my domain is performance evaluation. I'm data scientist, senior data scientist reporting to director. I was evaluating biometric systems in airports. So, PIK kiosks [Primary Inspection Kiosks in airports], it's me who evaluated them.
You know, there are good and there are bad ones. It's never a 'Yes or No' simple question, like what our politicians would like to hear. And that's what I'm saying - we must protect our scientific professional integrity. So that's why I'm here for. So I think that is a key message. Let's make it happen. Thank you.”
Some comments from this new experience of mine.
The first thing I wanted to find out after being elected was how many votes I received. It felt like almost 100%, especially when many people, even strangers, greeted me in the hallways, shook my hand, and told me they had voted for me. Or maybe it was just a narrow win compared to the other candidates? So, I asked some of my senior union colleagues about the exact vote count. The answer surprised me — they told me that this information is not shared.
As a newcomer to this forum, I found it odd. Imagine running for a position in Parliament and not being told how many votes you received, or how many votes the other candidates got. The reason given was that it might discourage people from running for office. It struck me as strange. But what was even more surprising was learning that this very issue had been raised the previous year by another member, who had even submitted a resolution at the National AGM requesting that the union start publishing the vote counts for all candidates [3]. However, due to time constraints, the resolution wasn’t even discussed at the AGM — it “died” without ever reaching the floor, as some other senior members told me
That’s why I resubmitted the same resolution this year, and I’ll keep pushing from within the network to ensure election results are transparent and accessible to all members.
Another concern I had attending the regional NCR AGM was understanding how attendees were selected. It seemed unusual that for an organization representing over 40,000 members, only 200 or so approved attendees could vote on who the executives would be. This concern grew even stronger when I realized that more than half (or even 90%?) of those attending were already in executive positions within the NCR. Just counting the executive roles across the 20 branches in NCR — about 10 positions in each — almost fills the capacity of the AGM venue at Hilton Lac Leamy, where these selected delegates elect the executives.
Is there a better, fairer, more inclusive, and transparent way to do this? I believe so. That’s why, once I became Chair of the Bylaw Committee for NCR [4] this May, one of my first recommendations was to propose an election reform. The goal is to move from the current in-person election process to an online system, similar to the one used for national elections for the Union’s Board of Directors. The digital platform is already in place, and the NCR region accounts for more than half of the national membership, so it should be easy to implement for the NCR too.
I’ll keep you updated in future issues on how this proposal progresses. We have a real chance! Maybe not for the April 2025 election, but certainly by April 2026.
References:
"Analyzing and improving the CBSA performance using PSES data: Data Science Way", Submission to the Culture Division in the Chief Transformation Officer Branch, October 2019
"Where is the highest Fear of Reprisal and Why?", Data Evidence for Discussion, May 2021 (Updated: July 2024)
2023 AGM Resolutions - Individual Members, Presented to the PIPSC 104th Annual General Meeting:
P-12 - Election Transparency Improvement (E),
Sponsored by Steve Anderson | Disposition: BLANK (“Died" not reaching the floor”
PIPSC National Capital Region Executive: https://pipsc.ca/regions/ncr/executive
By-Laws & Policies Committee Chair: Dmitry Gorodnichy