P.E.I. tax offices cut 70 jobs

Seventy Canada Revenue Agency employees in Summerside and Borden-Carleton have received notice they'll be out of a job in 2014.

The Union of Taxation Employees says the cuts come as a shock to its members.Local president Dawn Hardy said all 20 workers at an archives office in Borden-Carleton were notified on Thursday that they would be out of a job in April of 2014.

The remaining layoffs will be at the Summerside Tax Centre, including up to 50 temporary positions. Hardy said the job losses are connected to contracting out work.

"There's going to be a facility established that's going to handle all the records operations for CRA," she said.

"The unfortunate part about all that is that it's going to go out to tender. So it's not going to be a government department that is actually going to be handling the papers. It's probably going to be a private company."

Hardy called it another devastating loss of federal jobs on the Island. The province has also lost jobs at the Department of Veterans Affairs.

"People are fearful of the future," she said.

"They really feel that they made their career here and their lives here on Prince Edward Island. And working for the tax centre was certainly a way to sustain their families."

Hardy said about 250 jobs across the country will be lost as CRA moves to eliminate the storage of tax records in a number of offices.