Nearly six months after launching Service Canada, the Paul Martin government is still not ready to begin talking in concrete terms about the impact it will have on public servants and office closures.

Even members of his own caucus are having trouble getting answers about what the new initiative, launched with much fanfare in last February’s federal budget, will mean once its fully implemented.

In response to an Order Paper question from Liberal Sen. Percy Downe, asking how many public servants are projected to be relocated from the National Capital Region, the government tabled a response on July 20 noting that “it is premature to speculate on the closing of any offices, or to speculate on the opening of any new offices related to the Service Canada initiative.”

Sen. Downe, who used to be at the centre of power as former prime minister Jean Chrétien’s chief of staff, has been watching the new file develop carefully. He, along with several other Parliamentarians, have been pushing the Martin government to relocate thousands of public servants from their jobs in the National Capital Area to the outlying regions of the country.

But Sen. Downe is worried that Service Canada-a one-stop point for Canadians to receive government services such as EI-will merely turn into a bunch of “glorified call centres.”

I’m concerned that Service Canada, rather than relocating a full department of the government, everyone from the deputy minister on through, that Service Canada may simply be glorified call centres. And the regions are desperate for federal presence and federal employment. But they should get the full benefit of a full department, as opposed to glorified call centres,” he said last week in an interview.

Under the current plan, Service Canada comes with a three-year implementation plan. The government estimates that net savings will total $2.5-billion over five years, from 2005-06 to 2009-10.