The Connaught Building in downtown Ottawa is the headquarters of the Canada Revenue Agency. Michel Rathwell/Wikimedia Commons

The union representing Canada Revenue Agency employees is publicly campaigning against Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer’s plan to implement a single tax return for Quebec that would be administered by the province’s revenue agency.

The Union of Taxation Employees (UTE), which is part of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, announced Monday that it had launched a campaign against Scheer’s proposal that includes a French-language radio advertisement for the wider Shawinigan region, which is home to the CRA’s National Verification and Collections Centre. There are over 1,300 CRA employees in Shawinigan alone.

UTE national president Marc Brière called Scheer’s suggestion that the 4,000 union members working for the CRA in Quebec who would lose their current jobs could simply be reassigned to audit functions to fight tax evasion as nonsensical and “completely ridiculous.”

“We wish to vehemently denounce this highly dubious proposal from the Conservatives. To tell Quebecers that they will be treated the same as other Canadian citizens is simply not true since in the rest of the country, it’s the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) that administers taxes for the federal government and for the province and not the other way around,” he said in a statement.

Quebec is the only province that independently collects its own taxes, with all others delegating that responsibility to the Canada Revenue Agency. As a result, Quebecers must file separate returns to the federal and provincial governments.

The federal Conservatives announced in early February that if they form government after this fall’s election, they would immediately start negotiations with Quebec on moving toward a single tax return for the province, and Scheer said he would allow Quebec’s revenue agency to collect federal taxes for the province.

At the time, Tory Quebec lieutenant Alain Rayes moved a motion in the House calling on Ottawa to work with the province to implement a single tax return, arguing it would help reduce waste and slash the paperwork burden for taxpayers.

The Liberals countered that the Tories’ proposal overlooks several major logistical challenges and would jeopardize thousands of CRA jobs in the province. Revenue Minister Diane Lebouthillier warned that Quebec would need to harmonize its definition of revenue with the federal government and the nine other provinces that currently use the CRA to collect their taxes, or have these governments adopt Quebec’s definition.

She also said the move would threaten thousands of CRA jobs in Quebec, including those at the Jonquière Tax Centre and National Verification and Collections Centre in Shawinigan.

Collectively, the CRA employs over 5,500 people across 14 regional offices in Quebec.

READ MORE: Tories promise single tax return for Quebec, though Liberals warn of job losses and logistical challenges

The Conservatives, though, accused the Liberals of fear mongering in warning of impending job losses, pointing out that Scheer has repeatedly promised that the Tories would not cut any CRA positions in the province. They also noted that the party would work with the Quebec government to find “solutions” to challenges in consolidating collection activities, including differing definitions on what constitutes revenue.

“Our leader has been clear: there is no desire to cut jobs through this proposal. The sole objective is to improve the lives of Canadians,” Rayes said in the House last winter in French.

Brière said the UTE is “not opposed” to having a single tax return but if the Conservatives really want to save taxpayers money, the “single tax return should be administered by the federal government, not by Quebec.”