This form is part of the Lobbying Kit for TEOs.
Click here to download as a PDF.
This worksheet has a summary of talking points, plus space for you to prepare your own notes ahead of your meeting with your MPP. It’s your cheat sheet for the meeting!
Please create your talking points in the spaces below ahead of time. These talking points and questions will help guide your discussion with your MPP. Have a pad of paper and pen handy to take notes at the meeting.
MPP Name:
Riding:
Name of OPSEU member visiting MPP:
Name of person coordinating lobbying efforts:
Four key talking points for TEOs
This is the scope of our work:
- We are peace officers who ensure road safety by inspecting 90,000 commercial vehicles per year (including trucks and school buses)
- We pull over trucks for infractions, issue citations, and staff highway truck inspection stations.
- We oversee the Motor Vehicle Inspection Service program and ensure that mechanics who do safety certifications for personal vehicles are in compliance.
- We handle special requests by police to inspect personal vehicles for illegal modifications.
- It takes a year or more for a TEO to complete basic and specialized training, and we take yearly refreshers in self-defence, use of force, and CVSA (commercial vehicle safety). Many of us are also licensed mechanics.
We get paid a lot less than comparable positions in the OPS:
- TEOs get paid much less than most enforcement officers, inspectors and investigators in other ministries despite similar job duties – the difference is as high as $19,000 per year.
- Drive Clean inspection duties were transferred to us from higher-paid Environmental Officers.
- We enforce the EMPCA and Reopening Ontario Act side-by-side with higher-paid Ministry of Labour inspectors. We also enforce more than 20 regulations, federal and provincial laws.
The ministry has rejected the “special case” we put forward for higher compensation:
- TEOs have put forward a special case for reclassification and higher wages for years now.
- MTO managers supported our case and sent it forward for approval to the Treasury Board.
- The Treasury Board Secretariat has blocked it. There is some kind of bureaucratic impasse between the managers of the two ministries.
The consequences of inadequate compensation:
- TEOs are leaving for higher-paying jobs and the Ministry has been unable to fill the vacancies.
- It affects road safety. In 2019, the Auditor General found the number of commercial vehicles that are inspected per year has dropped by 22% since 2014 due to unfilled TEO vacancies.
- Since 2019 we’re down another 60 TEOs – there are only 170 active TEOS on the job now.
Introduce yourself and the work you do.
My name is:
I live in your riding. I’m here as an OPSEU/SEFPO member, and I’d like to talk to you about fair compensation for TEOs. We want the Ministry of Transportation and the Treasury Board Secretariat to grant our request for reclassification and increased pay.
This is how unfair wages affect my colleagues and me:
(Fill out ahead of time with a personal story. Talk here about what you do at work, and how being paid unfairly makes you feel. If you’ve seen colleagues leave for higher-paying jobs, share that story.)
Can we count on your support?
Ask MPP: What is your position on this issue? (Write down MPP’s response here.)
Ask MPP: These are the actions I am asking you to take on this issue. Will you commit to taking these specific actions on this issue?
(Fill out ahead of time: list the concrete actions you want them to take here and record their responses.)
Ask MPP: What action are you going to take on this issue?
(Write down MPP’s response here. List specific commitments made by MPP if different than above.)
Tell MPP: Thank you for taking time to discuss this issue with me.
After the meeting:
Debrief with your group. Then visit https://opseu.org/cold/lobby-report-back/ and fill out the survey to let OPSEU/SEFPO know how your meeting went!