Federal public service union president confident she won't be impeached

The embattled president of the Canadian Association of Professional Employees says she's confident she won't be impeached because the majority of union members support her.

"I'm not the horrible person who has been depicted," Emmanuelle Tremblay said in a telephone interview from China, where she is on a month-long vacation with her family.

"I trust the members to come out and vote and vote to keep me because I'm the right person for the job."

CAPE represents 13,000 statisticians, economists, translators and policy analysts from across all federal government departments.

The unionized government workers will have until Friday to decide if they will recall Tremblay, who is facing allegations she directed union staff to conduct surveillance on members.

Tremblay will have to step down if two-thirds of voters cast a ballot to recall her. She was elected as president slightly more than two years ago after winning by 25 votes.

Tremblay booked her overseas trip months ago and said she feels nervous she isn't in Ottawa to get out the vote and defend herself against a barrage of attacks that have surfaced on Twitter and Facebook.

"I'm portrayed as corrupt and trying to buy my friends. All this social media nonsense was dangerous and a huge liability for CAPE."

Tremblay denies the surveillance allegations, but said CAPE did try to track down anonymous Twitter users who were leaking private documents and posting "obscene and libelous" material.

"It's being portrayed as a huge enterprise of spying on our members. But this is a legitimate course of action, of defending CAPE's image and my image and protecting our employees from libel," she said.

Division within CAPE executive board

But CAPE's actions have led to a defamation lawsuit filed by a policy analyst union member.

CAPE board member Maureen Collins, who represents union members at Citizenship and Immigration Canada, disagrees with Tremblay's characterization of the posts.

Collins told CBC News she acknowledges some of the posts were "distasteful," but said they often provided previously unknown information about union activities.

"I would characterize much of the material as strong political satire like Frank Magazine, but on many occasions it was the only way by which information was accessible to members," she said.

Internal statistics show only 15 to 30 per cent of CAPE members participate in union elections. Collins isn't sure if this controversy will drive more public servants to the polls.

Regardless, she isn't hiding how she will vote.

"I do not believe [Tremblay] has demonstrated transparent, democratic and member-representative leadership," Collins said.

"She has politicized staff and used CAPE resources to attempt to stifle free speech and dissent — which I consider to be an 'un-union' mode of behaviour."

Recall vote triggered by petition

The movement to unseat Tremblay began more than a year ago, when more than 100 members signed a petition to have her recalled.

The majority of the petitioners were from Statistics Canada and were upset one of their own didn't get elected as CAPE president, she said.

Tremblay also experienced pushback from "small-c conservative" members who disagreed with the union's decision to move in a more militant direction by creating a strike fund, after the previous Conservative government threatened to overhaul public sector sick leave, she said.

Last year, Tremblay was suspended for five weeks without pay after an investigation found she improperly accessed voter information in a byelection. Tremblay said she only shared the information with one other person — a union vice-president — and chose not to fight the suspension even though she was within her legal right to do so.

Despite her attempt to mend fences, she said there is a group of people within the executive who have consistently lobbied for her removal.

"I've said, 'Why don't we sit down and try to understand why you hate me so much?' Those people don't want to sit and talk — they [would] rather attack me [using] anonymous accounts on Twitter."

If she's ousted on Friday, Tremblay said it won't deter her from putting her name up for re-election in 2018.