Bill C-7 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Public Service Labour Relations Act, the Public Service Labour Relations and Employment Board Act and other Acts and to provide for certain other measures

This enactment amends the Public Service Labour Relations Act to provide for a labour relations regime for members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and reservists. It provides a process for an employee organization to acquire collective bargaining rights for members and reservists and includes provisions that regulate collective bargaining, arbitration, unfair labour practices and grievances. It also amends the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Act to bar grievances related to the interpretation and application of a collective agreement or arbitral award, which are to be filed in accordance with the Public Service Labour Relations Act.
It changes the title of the Public Service Labour Relations Act and the Public Service Labour Relations and Employment Board Act and the name of the Public Service Labour Relations and Employment Board. It also amends that latter Act to increase the maximum number of full-time members of the Board and to require the Chairperson, when making recommendations for appointment, to take into account the need for two members with knowledge of police organizations.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-7, An Act to amend the Public Service Labour Relations Act, the Public Service Labour Relations and Employment Board Act and other Acts and to provide for certain other measures, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Public Service Labour Relations Act

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Anthony Rota]

The hon. member for Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel had two minutes left for questions and comments. Are there are any questions or comments?

The hon. member for Winnipeg North.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, perhaps the member could comment on why we have Bill C-7 on the Supreme Court of Canada's decision before us today. Does he want to provide some thoughts as to why it is important to pass the bill as soon as possible?

[Nicola Di Iorio, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.

I will give a little background. About 15 years ago, the Supreme Court validated the existing regime, to an extent. A more recent Supreme Court ruling overturned that decision, in light of the changes that took place since the original ruling. As a result, the existing regime is no longer valid and the government was given a deadline.

A new government came in after the last election. We came in and we took over the existing files. We therefore had to request a six-month extension. In its wisdom, the Supreme Court decided to give us another four months instead.

That is why we must have final legislation before March 16, 2016. The key point is that we must have a new collective bargaining regime. It is up to Parliament to choose a model for this regime.

We are proposing a regime that is modelled on the existing regime for other members of the civil service, other government employees.

We will obviously have to make some adjustments to reflect the unique nature of their work, to reflect how they operate, and to reflect their responsibilities.

[Jim Eglinski, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to Bill C-7, an act to amend the Public Service Labour Relations Act, the Public Service Labour Relations and Employment Board Act and other Acts and to provide for certain other measures.

I will be sharing my time with the member for the great riding of Foothills.

As a former member of the RCMP, I was proud to serve with Canada's national police force. I recall the first day that I joined the force and I recall my last day. All of my 35 years within that organization were great.

Like many thousands of other members from the 1960s and 1970s who joined Canada's traditional world-famous redcoats, I can attest that I did not join up for the $4,800 a year but for the pride in serving our great country in Canada's police force.

We went where the force wanted us to go, from sea to sea to sea. We were all proud to serve, and we gave much to the force in long hours with no overtime.

We got the job done with basic equipment by doing the job with pride. In those days, some of our cars did not have radios. We were notified by a light that was turned on over the community that we had to return to the detachment, and we did so because that was our job.

Things needed to change with the rapidly changing times of the 1970s. Better equipment, better communications, better working conditions, and better compensation were the issues facing us. This was accomplished by a unique program that came about in 1974. The RCMP senior command listened and made changes. One big change was the division staff relations representation system, known to the membership as the DSRR.

The DSRR's work moved our force to the forefront. We remained one of the top 10 police forces in Canada in relation to compensation and working conditions through the efforts and great work of the RCMP DSRR system. We needed to have a say with respect to promotions, discipline, and grievances, and the DSRR program protected and served our members through the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s up to this present day.

Today it appears to have lost some of its effectiveness in promoting working conditions, compensation, and so forth, for reasons I do not want to go into. Last year I was shocked when I examined the 2015 RCMP review of the force in comparison to other police forces in Canada. When I proudly served, we were always rated among the top five police forces in Canada. Last year the RCMP was ranked below 50 other police forces in Canada with respect to pay, compensation, limited-duration postings, etc.

Canada's internationally acclaimed police force should not be at the bottom of the pile. It should be at the top. My personal feeling is that the DSRR program worked well at one time and could work well again if all of the departments within government would work together for the betterment of our men and women in uniform. This also applies to the military, firefighters, and first responders. Our men and women in uniform protect Canadians from harm's way. They often risk their lives in serving their communities, their provinces, and their country.

Personally, I believe that the RCMP, Canada's international police force, should not be unionized. There are so many situations that might complicate how this great organization performs its policing roles in the future, and I could go on for quite some time explaining what I foresee as future problems. However, I want to switch hats for a moment.

I was formerly mayor of a northern British Columbia city. For most cities, the cost of policing is one of their biggest budgetary items. I would like to provide a comparison of policing costs, and I will use British Columbia as an example.

The first example is with respect to RCMP communities. For communities with a population of under 5,000, the province pays 70% and the federal government pays 30%. For communities with a population between 5,000 and 15,000, the municipality pays 70% and the federal government still pays 30%. For communities with a population of over 15,000, the municipality now pays 90% and the federal government pays 10%.

Second, a comparison done several years ago showed that unionized municipal police forces in 12 communities in B.C. had 2,262 police officers looking after roughly 1.2 million people, at a cost of $348 million. RCMP contract services in B.C. at the same time in 28 communities with a population of more than 15,000 had 2,692 police officers looking after 2,109,601 people, at a cost of $369,652,000, or $22 million more for doing twice the work.

In my opinion, if the RCMP is unionized, the cost to communities across Canada contracted to the RCMP for policing services will increase dramatically.

Our Conservative Party respects the Supreme Court decision that the RCMP officers are entitled to bargain collectively. However, I cannot support any legislation that denies employees, especially RCMP members, the right to vote in a secret ballot on whether to unionize. The court's first and fundamental tenet of the charter right is employees' choice, and that is not reflected in this bill.

We do not use a show of hands or a public petition in our democratic elections, nor should we do in the workplace. The RCMP risk their lives every day. The least we can do is to give them the democratic right to vote, free of all intimidation, on whether to unionize.

We support this legislation going to committee, where we will ask the government to amend it to explicitly allow RCMP members the right to vote by secret ballot on whether or not to unionize. The RCMP's collective rights under paragraph 2(b) of the charter can be exercised by their employee choice at the first instance, saying whether they want an association or not, and that vote should be conducted in a way that conforms with our democratic principles, namely, by secret ballot.

Bill C-7 would bring certain parts of the workplace relationship outside of the bill, certain elements through the grievance process, and certain elements of the workplace would not be subject to the collective bargaining relationship. That is important, due to the unique role, chain of command structure, and heritage of the RCMP as a police force.

I urge the minister to work alongside the commissioner of the RCMP to ensure the bargaining and the well-being of our people, in safeguarding the employees' wellness in uniform and afterwards.

In closing, I want to remind my colleagues that RCMP members risk their lives every day. The least we can do is to give them the democratic right to vote on whether or not to unionize, free of all intimidation.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Yellowhead for his service on behalf of Canada.

I would like to point out that the Public Service Labour Relations Act has a number of sections that prohibit intimidation. I agree with him that a vote by RCMP members for or against unionization must free of intimidation. In fact, that is required by law in sections 186.1, 187, 188, and 189 of the act. The law requires that be no intimidation by the employer or the union or any person.

Once this law is passed it will allow the board to select the appropriate method, whether it be a card check or mandatory vote or secret ballot. Why would the member require a one-size-fits-all approach that would not be suitable for all situations, rather than giving the board the flexibility to put forward the method that makes sense in the situation?

[Jim Eglinski, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I did not quite get that whole question, but I will answer it in the best way I can.

There is no unanimous agreement within the RCMP on unionization. There is a group within the organization that wants to go that way; there is a group within the organization that wants to remain basically the way it is today. The DSSR system was a great negotiating tool for the RCMP. It worked extremely well until government started to intervene with the democratic process of enabling the DSSR reps to represent the members in the field in the appropriate ways.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my seatmate on behalf of the residents of Canada for his years of service in the RCMP. I owe him a great deal of respect for serving this great country for that many years.

I would ask the member to explain again why this vote should be done by secret ballot. We have recently heard comments by other members of how their parents were intimidated by the card-showing process, which is why this should be done through a secret ballot.

[Jim Eglinski, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to serve and will keep serving. I will try to make 50 years. I will see if I can do it.

There is dissension within the RCMP, and I hate to see it. It breaks my heart. However, there are two factions, and one faction of members wants to unionize, because they think they can make things a lot better for themselves and force the hand of management in the RCMP.

There was a DSSR program that I feel worked extremely well at one time. It was the envy of a lot of police forces, because government paid RCMP members to represent us. We voted for those people, and they represented us. They argued for us, worked on discipline matters, internal matters, promotional matters, and worked very effectively at one time on our pay. When they were very effective and government listened to them, we were at the top level of Canadian police forces. We did not say that we had to be number one; we just wanted to be at the top and be fair. However, things have gone downhill drastically.

Therefore, I support the bill if it will help my members in the field. I do not want to see an organization that I was so proud to serve for 35 years stay at the bottom. I want it up there and my members to be happy. When they are happy, they will serve their communities in a much better way than they do today.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it truly is an honour to follow my respected colleague from Yellowhead. I thank him for sharing his time with me. I have a lot of respect for his 35 years of service with the RCMP, protecting the communities of Canada. We are truly blessed to have him as a member of our caucus.

I want to talk a bit about some of the history. I am very blessed to have a deep RCMP and North West Mounted Police history in my riding. Fort Macleod was founded in 1874. It is now a world-renowned museum of the North West Mounted Police in western Canada. Downtown Fort Macleod is now a provincial historic site, as well as the museum.

There is also the Alberta Provincial Police Building in Crowsnest Pass, which was founded in 1918. I am proud to say that the Conservative government last year contributed $100,000 to the refurbishing of that police building to protect its history. I am sure many people in the House would like to know that Corporal Stephen Lawson was killed in front of that building in the early 1900s. One of the accomplices in the shooting was Florence Lassandro. She was convicted of that murder and was the first and only woman ever hanged in Alberta's history. That is a bit of Alberta's history.

Today I want to speak to Bill C-7 and say how disappointed I am. On this side of the House, I think many of us are. We continue to have to challenge the Liberal government on the importance of accountability and transparency when it comes to unions, and specifically the importance of a secret ballot.

Members of the RCMP are out there each and every day protecting our rights, freedoms, and democracy. Why we would miss this opportunity to stand shoulder to shoulder with them and protect their democratic rights when we have the chance to do so? It is disappointing that we are missing this opportunity by putting forward Bill C-7, which does not include the right to a secret ballot. I ask the Liberal government to send the bill back in order to add the provision of a secret ballot for RCMP members when they are faced with the question of certifying or not certifying as a union. Simply put, that is the right thing to do.

Members of the RCMP have the democratic right to a free and fair secret ballot vote when certifying or decertifying as a union. Every one of us in the House was elected by way of secret ballot. Every member of a provincial or municipal government was elected by way of secret ballot. It only makes sense that we would be sharing that democratic right, not a privilege but a democratic right, to a secret ballot at all levels, including unions.

A secret ballot is the cornerstone of our democracy and at the heart of Canadian values. However, the Liberals have shown again, with the combination of Bill C-7 and Bill C-4, that they see the right of secret ballot as being somehow obsolete. In many cases, they do not feel it is democratic at all, which I find to be extremely disappointing and concerning.

This is about balance and creating a fair environment in which workers are the ones making the choice they feel is best suited to their needs. The Supreme Court decision speaks to allowing the RCMP the right to associate for the purpose of collective bargaining. I think all of us in the House agree and support that decision. However, we also believe this is an opportunity to vote by way of a secret ballot, and it should be a privilege and democratic right that the RCMP have this opportunity.

Our specific intent has always been to preserve the democratic rights of Canadian workers through increasing public confidence in unions, but to have that confidence, unions must operate in a transparent and accountable way without any chance of undue influence or coercion. Our democratic system was designed with a secret ballot as its keystone, specifically to maintain the integrity of the vote and to allow citizens to cast their ballot in privacy.

The jobs minister has made it very clear that she does not believe in the integrity of a secret ballot. In fact, she has said that the card-check system is a much more democratic way to certify or decertify a union. Recently in committee meetings, she was asked why she would repeal Bill C-525, which gave employees the democratic right to a secret ballot to decertify or certify a union. I will read this quote, because her answer was very clear on where she and the Liberal Government stood in terms of democracy. She said:

The card-check system is a perfectly democratic way of gauging support as it ensures that an absolute majority of employees support the union, not just those who come out and vote.

Our jobs minister is saying in committee that a card check system is a much more democratic way to decide if a majority of people support whatever that issue is, over a secret ballot; that somehow when people actually show up to vote for something, they are not legitimate.

I went around door-knocking in my riding, as I know most of the members of this House did as well in their ridings as we went through the election period. If I went up to ask those people for their vote right then, and I wanted them to sign a piece of paper that would tell me that they voted for me while I was standing there, how often do you feel that person would be telling the truth?

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Anthony Rota]

Order, please. I am giving the member a signal to speak through the Speaker, but not directly to the other member.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Mr. Speaker, how often do members think those residents would be telling the person at the front door the truth? How would we feel here about it? When there is a card check system vote and they are asking people in a union shop, for example, to raise their hand while everyone else is standing there looking at them, how is that fair and democratic? Compare that to the opportunity for a secret ballot where, with their own conscience, we would know people are making a decision they feel is right for them, with no coercion, no intimidation, and no one influencing their decision.

On that fact, after an election most of us in this House go and speak to our residents. We have all had the discussion at the coffee table or the dinner table about who they are going to vote for the next day. No one wants to tell. They are very reluctant to tell. That is something very private, something we need to hold to ourselves; and we should respect that decision and the foundation and importance of that secret ballot.

I have heard that story over and over again from people in residences. Canadians expect privacy when they are casting their ballots, and that is something we should embrace.

Voting is a very personal action. People cherish the privacy of marking their ballot in secret without intimidation, influence, or coercion. Why would we not make the same basic right for the men and women who put their lives on the line every single day when they put on their uniform to go to work? What could possibly be easier and more straightforward than a secret ballot? There is absolutely nothing more simple: one person, one vote. That is how it should be. Open, transparent results ensure confidence that a true decision was made whether certifying or decertifying a union.

The Liberal Party campaigned on accountability and transparency. By their keeping secret ballots out of this legislation, it is again obvious that the Liberals have no intention of keeping those election promises. Accountability and transparency seem to have gone the way of commitments to a $10 billion deficit, balanced budgets, and dinosaurs. That seems to be all in the same viewpoint of election promises broken time and again.

At the federal level, the previous Conservative government introduced extensive reforms to ensure Canadians have trust in their political institutions. That included legislation like Bill C-525, which ensures union members have the right to a secret ballot. That legislation recognized the right to peaceful association—a right that extends to all workers in Canada, whether they should wish to have a union represent them or not. That is a right that should be passed on to the RCMP as well, if its members choose to form a union. This choice is theirs and theirs alone to make.

The previous card check system for federally regulated industries required 50% plus one to sign a union membership card. It is very clear, despite what my colleague on the other side of the floor would like to say, that this is open to abuse. It has been open to abuse, and certainly there are many stories where employees have been pressured to sign a union card against their will. I know the member rattled off different laws that were in place, but just because a law is written down, I am certain all of us can agree that does not mean it is followed. I am sure we all understand that there are many opportunities where card check systems in place definitely open the door to intimidation and coercion.

To wrap it up, the message I want to get to here is very clear. Members of the RCMP each and every day put their lives on the line to protect our rights, our freedoms, and our democracy. We have one chance here. We are at the root opportunity here in dealing with collective bargaining with the RCMP. This is an opportunity for us here to stand up with our RCMP officers and stand up to protect their democratic rights, and the Liberals will not do it.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to take this opportunity to thank the hon. member for Yellowhead for his service in the RCMP and protecting Canadians for, I believe, 32 years. That is very impressive.

I appreciate the comments by the hon. member and the fact that at committee there has to be serious discussion about a secret ballot versus the card system. It should be subject to a very legitimate debate.

I want to ask the hon. member a different question. The NDP has voiced concern about some of the limitations in the bill with respect to some areas that the collective bargaining negotiations cannot touch, such as harassment. What is the Conservative position on those limitations and does he agree with the limitations in the current bill?

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Mr. Speaker, we have been very clear. We do support the outline of Bill C-7, but we are encouraging the Liberal government to take this back to committee and have a fulsome discussion on the merits of a secret ballot over the card check system. I am very relieved to hear from a member of the Liberal government that they are willing to have that discussion. I hope he will follow through on that commitment to have a legitimate discussion on why we should have a secret ballot over the card check system. I think most of us on this side would support Bill C-7 if that were part of the discussion.

[Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet, NDP, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Foothills spoke a lot about justice, or fairness. However, he only spoke about fairness in the context of a secret ballot.

Does the member not think that it would be fair if the people who work on the ground and who have to take each day as it comes were able to negotiate all their work conditions, such as those regarding deployment or even harassment?