Marking a milestone
P.E.I. Tax Centre celebrates 25 years in Summerside
It was 1993.
Barb Mann had recently graduated from university and had found work as a substitute teacher. She liked her job but was hoping to find something more permanent.
She applied for work at what was then known as the Summerside GST Processing Centre, which had been under construction on Pope Road since 1991 but was set to open shortly.
It turned out to be a fateful decision. Mann got her job and has made a career of working for what is now known as the P.E.I. Tax Centre for the past 25 years.
“I’ve always felt it’s been a good place to work,” said Mann, looking back at the past two and half decades. “There are great benefits, you work with great people and it is kind of a family aspect in some respects.
“Everybody is there to support each other. In a big place like this that’s a real benefit to have.”
The tax centre (or the GST centre, as many Islanders still call it) held a celebration of its first quarter century on Thursday.
There was cake, speeches, pictures, a time capsule and more than a little reminiscing about the past 25 years.
Gayelene Cook-Angus, the centre’s director, said they recently conducted a rough head-count and estimate are about 100 people, including herself and Mann, who have worked at the centre since it opened.
The centre currently employs 1,145 people, though that number tends to fluctuate depending on the time of year. It was recently reconfigured as a business tax processing centre, which means it deals primarily with commercial returns and related matters.
The tax facility was built in Summerside following the closure of CFB Summerside in 1991. A group of local, municipal, business and concerned citizens lobbied hard in the years leading up to the closure of the military base for the federal government to compensate the community in some way. That lead to the construction of the tax centre. Cook-Angus said she is proud of the work done at the tax centre and so should the rest of the community be as well. The Summerside facility has a stellar reputation across the country, she said.
“It’s been a very successful operation here really for the past 25 years, even when we’ve had changes to the workload people have just done their very best.” Summerside Mayor Bill Martin thanked the staff of the centre for their work inside and out of the building. He noted their significant contributions to local charities and fundraising initiatives have done a collective amount of good over the years.
Summerside would be a very different place today if the tax centre had never been built, said Martin, speaking to employees as they gathered to celebrate.
“I want you to picture this city with no Gavin Estates, LeFurgey Subdivision, MacKenzie Drive, a boardwalk, a pollution control plant, a wind farm. Because I’m not sure if any of those things would exist without the multiplication factor of the wages that have been paid to you as employees of this centre,” said Martin.