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.

Motions in Amendment

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, yes, this was in evidence before the committee, and was well explained by a lawyer with a lot of experience in labour relations. I once practised in labour relations, but is has been a couple of decades. However, Paul Champ has worked in the area of labour relations and has actually taken on some of these cases.

Mr. Champ was asked directly by the hon. member for Burlington what the implications would be, from a legal point of view, of taking out the words, “including harassment”, from the bill. His response was that we would have an association negotiating some clause in the collective agreement that would say “fair treatment in the workplace”, or “no harassment in the workplace”, but it would not open the floodgates. Members would not be able to bring in a case to adjudication on their own. It would have to be approved by their bargaining association.

What is more, which was very clear from his response, is it would only create the opportunity for a collective agreement on this point. It still is a matter of free and fair bargaining between the RCMP management and the RCMP workers as to whether they want to have a provision that deals with harassment in their collective agreement. However, what we do by removing the words “harassment” from Bill C-7 is give them the possibility of free and fair collective bargaining on an issue that is of paramount importance to fairness, decent treatment, and human dignity in the workplace.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands on her passion and insight. I agree with much of what she has said, including that the RCMP is one of the finest police forces anywhere, and that harassment is a problem which needs to be better addressed. We need a better regime, and we need to end an abusive culture. However, is collective bargaining the place to do that?

The Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness has said that this is a priority for him. He is currently developing legislation to address just that. The Government of Canada takes harassment very seriously and is addressing it.

When Bill C-7 was in committee, there was agreement among the members present to request that the commissioner and the RCMP team come back to talk about what would be part of a change in culture and what the plans were to do that. Would the member support having the RCMP coming back to the committee to begin that work of changing the culture in the RCMP?

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

,

seconded by Mr. Louis Plamondon, moved:

Motion No. 1

That Bill C-7 be amended by deleting Clause 1.

Motion No. 2

That Bill C-7, in Clause 33, be amended by deleting line 15 on page 20.

Motion No. 3

That Bill C-7, in Clause 33, be amended by deleting line 25 on page 21.

She said: Mr. Speaker, I will note parenthetically that I would reserve the right to come back to you to argue more substantively on the question of the rights of smaller parties in relation to report stage.

It is very clear, though, as you have outlined, Mr. Speaker, that in this case there had been no direction from the committee to afford an opportunity, one that I would either welcome or resist, to appear before committee as opposed to having this opportunity. In our system of our parliamentary democracy, it is a very fundamental issue that all members of Parliament are equal, and it is our job, as to our abilities and our efforts, to equally contribute to the passage of legislation.

To the matter of Bill C-7, we have before us important legislation to create, for the first time, the ability of RCMP officers to collectively bargain with their employer, to unionize the workforce to have an opportunity to work together as employer and employees to set out how that working relationship would go forward and to give rights to the RCMP officers collectively to bargain.

This should not really just rely on legislation. We go back to the B.C. hospitals case. The Supreme Court of Canada was very clear on this matter, that all workers had the right to collectively bargain, whether they were in a position to form a union or not. In fact, in the B.C. hospitals case, it was made very clear that labour rights were human rights.

Why do I bring forward this very critical amendment? I hope members of Parliament from all sides of the House will give my amendment serious consideration to improve this legislation. The amendments are essentially sub-deletions within a section, therefore they are considered substantive amendments and only a member of Parliament in a party with fewer than 12 MPs at this stage in our proceedings is in a position to put forward this amendment. I hope many members of Parliament from other parties will actually be grateful that we have this one opportunity to improve the legislation substantively before passage.

Here is the problem with the sections that my amendments would delete. They would pre-empt the collective bargaining process to say that the collective agreement could not include conditions relating to “conduct, including harassment”. All I am attempting to do is remove that line, to remove the pre-emptive legislative act of taking out of the hands of collective bargaining the opportunity to ensure that the collective agreement between RCMP officers and their employer has the possibility of provisions to protect the workers from harassment.

I want to stress again that by passing this amendment, the legislation would not insist upon the inclusion in a collective agreement of steps to protect workers from harassment. It would only leave that opportunity open to them through the process of collective agreements.

I am actually baffled that we are even having this conversation in 2016 about the rights of RCMP officers to collectively bargain to protect themselves from harassment. The number of complaints that make their way to the public media are fewer than the ones that actually occur. I am in touch with several RCMP officers who have filed complaints against their superior officers or their colleagues for sexual harassment, but their cases are still private and I will not mention their names. However, I will mention the names of women who have been sexually harassed within the RCMP and have come forward.

It is certainly not news to any member of this place that we have an unacceptable degree of sexual harassment within the RCMP. Far too many fine, well-trained exemplary officers find themselves unable to work in a toxic workplace, file a grievance for sexual harassment, and then find themselves completely alone. They often have to go their doctors who tell tham that they are basically dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder, that they cannot go back into that workplace, and they are given notes for sick leave. Officers who could be contributing to putting people behind bars, to helping to take evidence, and to helping to put a case together are home on sick leave while their harassers are at work. There needs to be some rebalancing here.

I refer to the recent case of Corporal Catherine Galliford, which was settled out of court. It was not an internal RCMP sexual harassment complaint, she actually went to court, after years of sexual harassment. She said “What broke me is that I had no one to go to for help”.

That struck me when I was dealing privately with some of the RCMP officers currently involved in internal harassment complaints. I did not realize how grim it was for women within the RCMP when they filed a complaint of sexual harassment. They have no access to a union rep to help them through the process. They have no help in getting a lawyer to protect them and their rights through the process. They are isolated and essentially harassed all over again because they are shunned by other members of the force because they have filed a complaint.

This place has dealt with how we handle issues of sexual harassment within Parliament. We have issues of sexual harassment on university campuses. We are looking at an unacceptable acceptance of misogamy and sexism in various places throughout our society. We have the chance to make one small amendment to Bill C-7, which would give RCMP officers, male or female, the right to have a mechanism in place in a collective agreement to deal with inappropriate conduct within the force.

I do not need to remind members of the evidence, which RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulsen spoke to recently. He said that he really did not need to have it pointed out to him that it was unacceptable for RCMP officers to wander around naked at the office.

Conduct provisions in a collective agreement should be open to the employer and employee to negotiate what level of conduct they can stand, what level of support a victim of harassment, male or female, needs to continue to do his or her job.

Given the extraordinary degree of public awareness of the problem that women in the RCMP face, given the unacceptable conduct in a minority number of cases of men being mistreated within the RCMP, and given that we know the RCMP is one of the finest police agencies on the planet, we want support the RCMP going forward to clean up what many members of the force have referred to as an unacceptable culture, an abusive culture. This legislation is one of the mechanisms to do that.

Why would we as lawmakers pre-empt collective bargaining? As members can see from my amendment, there is no attempt to remove the specific terms or conditions that should go into a collective agreement related to policing. The provisions that would be left in place cover a lot. The collective agreement shall not touch on law enforcement techniques, or transfers from one position to another, or appraisals, or probation, or anything related to carrying out the duties. Anything related to what he or she must do as an RCMP officer cannot be in a collective agreement. I understand why lawmakers would take that stand.

However, why would we remove the possibility of a proper regime to assist any member of the force who needs the support of a union, a lawyer, a counsellor, whatever provisions can be worked into a collective agreement through free, unfettered collective bargaining? Why would we close the door on an RCMP officer's ability to access collective agreements that would include rules, guidelines, and a framework to deal with harassment?

I want to focus the House's attention on the fact that this is one single amendment. It is not an attempt to slow down the passage of the bill. It is not vexatious. Using the democracy that exists through the Westminster parliamentary system that allows any member of Parliament to improve legislation at report stage, I invite all of my colleagues, whether they were on committee during clause-by-clause or not, to take a fresh look at the bill in the hope of improving it. Let us ensure that the House speaks with one voice and supports every woman in the RCMP who has ever been harassed. Let us end an abusive culture by giving them real rights in collective bargaining agreements to improve the conduct of the RCMP and end sexism within the RCMP, end an abusive culture once and for all.

Speaker's Ruling

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

The Chair would like to rule on the selection of report stage motions for 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. Specifically I would like to address report stage Motions Nos. 1, 2 and 3, standing in the name of the hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands on the Notice Paper.

This being the first report stage debate of this Parliament, it affords the Chair an opportunity to remind the House of the Speaker’s role in selecting report stage motions, and the practice that guides it.

In deciding the matter, the Chair is bound by our established practice in relation to the Speaker's role at report stage.

A note to Standing Order 76.1(5) states:

The Speaker will not normally select for consideration by the House any motion previously ruled out of order in committee and will normally only select motions which were not or could not be presented in committee.

House of Commons Procedure and Practice, second edition, sets out the following general principle with respect to the selection of report stage motions. At page 783, it states:

As a general principle, the Speaker seeks to forestall debate on the floor of the House which is simply a repetition of the debate in committee […] the Speaker will normally only select motions in amendment that could not have been presented in committee.

On June 9, 2015, at page 14830 of Debates, the Speaker in the last Parliament referenced these passages. At the time, he said: “Both these excerpts point to an essential truth about report stage, namely that it is not meant to be another opportunity for detailed consideration of the clauses of a bill. For this reason, the Chair rigorously limits the types of motions that could be considered at report stage. In so doing, the Chair rests on the presumption that a committee's clause-by-clause consideration provides ample opportunity to scrutinize the clauses of the bill and have amendments considered accordingly”.

This principle continues to be applied with due regard to the particular circumstances of each case.

At the time that clause-by-clause occurred for Bill C-7, the committee had not yet adopted a mechanism to allow for the participation of members from non-recognized parties in committee. I am not certain, however, that the Chair would agree with the presumption that, in light of this, report stage would be the only vehicle available to these members to propose amendments to the bill.

Committees have shown great flexibility in the past in how they consider amendments at clause-by-clause. In describing this flexibility, we refer to the much repeated axiom: “Committees are masters of their own proceedings”.

With that said, Bill C-7 was one of the first bills to be considered in committee in the 42nd Parliament, and with committees still trying to determine how members from non-recognized parties could participate in committee proceedings on bills, a certain amount of flexibility is appropriate in this instance.

As such, I will allow the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands to move her Motions Nos. 2 and 3, even though they ought to have been moved in committee.

I would like her and all members to understand, however, that in the future, the Chair will be stricter in exercising his authority at report stage. Unless truly exceptional circumstances arise, the Chair will not select report stage motions that could have been moved in committee. I encourage all members to make efforts to have amendments dealt with in committee, so that report stage does not become a repetition of the committee clause-by-clause study of a bill.

Accordingly, Motions No. 1, 2, and 3 will be grouped for debate and voted upon according to the voting pattern available at the table.

I shall now propose Motions Nos. 1, 2, and 3 to the House.

The House proceeded to the consideration of 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 as reported (with amendments) from the committee and of Motions Nos. 1, 2, and 3.

Business of the House

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, that is an excellent question, as always.

This afternoon, as everyone knows, we will continue our debate at second reading of Bill C-15, the budget. We will continue this important debate tomorrow.

On Monday, I know members are really looking forward to this. We are going to commence report stage and third reading debate on Bill C-7, the RCMP labour relations bill, until 2 p.m. In the afternoon, we will resume debate on Bill C-15.

I am hoping and working hard to reach an agreement with my colleagues in the House to be able to conclude the debate on Bill C-15 on Monday evening. That certainly would be my hope. I think Canadians would benefit from that legislation being in committee. Those conversations are ongoing.

On Wednesday, we will resume debate on Bill C-7.

Finally, next Tuesday and next Thursday will be opposition days, something I know members are looking forward to a lot.

Public Safety and National Security

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the second report of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security concerning 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.

The committee has studied the bill and has decided to report the bill back to the House with amendments.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

It is a new world that shows you how Parliament is working. It's quite wonderful.

Now I'm going to ask that we consider clauses 43 through 73. Shall they carry?

(Clauses 43 to 73 inclusive agreed to)

Now we have some enabling motions.

Shall the title carry, which is 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? Such an uninteresting name compared to the old names.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Mr. Chair, I think our concerns have been expressed, and through the witnesses, we explored this issue from the introduction of the bill. I think this is something that RCMP management can bring forward in separate legislation beyond the collective bargaining agent elements of Bill C-7.

If the government is willing to strike clauses 40 and 42 for the purposes of Bill C-7, we appreciate their willingness and we are ready to vote.

[Marco Mendicino, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair

I actually haven't seen the chart yet, but I will take a look at it in due course.

I'll just quickly summarize, and I'd like to hear from the commissioner. I think we've been sort of nibbling around what the central concern is at this moment, which is, going forward, the plan on harassment. That's what I want to come to. Just to summarize how I'm working through this using a methodology that hopefully makes sense, we have a Supreme Court of Canada case that says that the RCMP is entitled to collectively pursue workplace goals.

Bill C-7 is the response to that Supreme Court of Canada decision. I think there should be some consensus in this room that achieving a harassment-free and discrimination-free workplace is a workplace goal. We have some examples of other police associations that do bargain regarding this issue. I don't think there's any dispute about that. This is not unprecedented. We also know that the RCMP has a suite of tools at its disposal to address harassment and that some progress has been made.

What I think we're debating right now is the net benefit to the RCMP of leaving harassment off of the bargaining table as you continue to use the existing tools.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

On that, I don't want to be seen as a cynic. We're more than happy to have the committee study the issue of harassment in more depth and to call back and learn the various pieces on occupational health and safety. We can explore all of those as a committee, but right now we're seized with Bill C-7. That's why we're not giving unanimous consent.

[Manon Brassard, Assistant Deputy Minister, Compensation and Labour Relations, Office of the Chief Human Resources Officer, Treasury Board Secretariat]

To start I'd like to provide a context piece to this legislation by looking at the overall labour relations framework for the Government of Canada.

The RCMP, our national police, are part of the federal framework of the labour relations system. One of the big issues for a labour relations regime when it is in the public sector is the public interest. In the private sector, the bottom line is the money, and if you give too much or ask too much, in the end there's no business. In a government situation the proxy, if you want, is to consider what is in the public interest.

Therefore, since the beginning of negotiations—so since about 1965 or 1967—there's been in place a framework that says that it is in the public interest that certain things not be negotiated. I insist on that, because what has been presented in Bill C-7 is a mirror image of those decisions that have been made over time.

For instance, the Public Service Employment Act, which deals with staffing, and the Public Service Superannuation Act, which deals with pension, say that those are not negotiated. It is the same across the public service; they're not negotiated.

It's the same thing for classifying positions. That's in the Public Service Labour Relations Act, the PSLRA.

The Financial Administration Act, or FAA, provides for the overall responsibility of Treasury Board, and it deals with the determination and control of the establishment, of how we do the work. When you look at this—and I will let the commissioner speak more specifically to what it means in an RCMP reality—the law enforcement technique is nothing but assigning duties and classifying positions. These are things that are not negotiated in the overall scheme in the light of the public interest.

Transferring positions, which is another exclusion, is again a staffing matter. Appraisals and probation are staffing matters, which explains why in this particular context they would mirror what is being done and not be negotiated. The same thing goes for discharge and demotion.

Requirements regarding the carrying out of duties of an RCMP member or reservist are again just typical employer rights.

I think it is important to have this in context. We've been negotiating in the public service with those restrictions for many, many years and through many, many rounds. It hasn't been a particular problem. Because of other legislation that provides for other forums, you don't want to necessarily go over them a lot, given that the parliamentary secretary has already done so, but I think it is important to go back to the labour-management relations committees. They are mandatory under the Public Service Labour Relations Act. Every department needs to have one. The RCMP has one as well, and the union is there to bring to the attention of management every single issue that they wish to.

There is an OSH committee, an occupational health and safety committee, that can bring to management's attention all of their issues related to safety. It's safety, I think, writ large there.

With regard to the pension advisory committee, there's a similar one in the public service for other kinds of issues related to pensions.

Therefore, there is no lack of forums. The forums are there, and there is a duty on management to take them into consideration, but also to keep in mind what is in the public interest overall to provide working conditions mindful of the other obligations vis-à-vis the public interest.

That sort of covers the framework under which labour relations and negotiations are set.

I'll turn it over to the commissioner regarding the RCMP.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

I'm looking forward to our experts' response to some of these very good questions and very legitimate concerns. There are just a couple of things that I want to add to the conversation.

One is that when Mr. Blaikie was speaking about the exclusions, I got the impression that he believed that this was something unique to the RCMP framework for labour relations, but in fact the regime that's been set out in Bill C-7 is consistent with the fundamental framework for labour relations and collective bargaining for the federal public service. Bill C-7 includes exclusions with respect to the RCMP members that already apply to other public servants, and those are things like staffing, pensions, organization of work, and assignment of duties. Having consistent policy for federal public servants is one principle, I think, that this bill provides.

Other issues, such as workplace safety and harassment, have been brought up. I want to point out that those very important issues are ones for which the members have recourse under other acts. Excluding them from Bill C-7 doesn't mean members would have no other recourse for these very important concerns that they have. Having been the defence critic for two years and having colleagues working on RCMP harassment concerns, I know that they're very valid concerns.

I'll give a brief list showing that there are collaborative, solution-oriented, problem-solving processes in place for many of the concerns. One example is the RCMP pension advisory committee under the RCMP Superannuation Act, which deals with pension benefits. We also have the labour-management consultation committees under the Public Service Labour Relations Act, which deal with workplace issues such as harassment and disclosure of wrongdoing, and the occupational health and safety committees under the Canada Labour Code, which are responsible for employees and employers working together on developing and monitoring workplace safety programs and for dealing with safety concerns and safety issues, among other things.

I just wanted to put that element on the table. There are some existing processes for collaborative problem-solving that are backed by statutes and provide a space for members to bring their concerns forward.

I look forward to hearing other perspectives from the expert witnesses.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Yes, thank you very much.

This amendment would effectively remove from the bill the itemized list of exclusions on collective bargaining. I think we've heard, with the exception of some of the folks at the table today, pretty much a consensus from the stakeholders that these exclusions are both unnecessary and unwanted.

These exclusions stand in the way of bringing to the table most if not all the issues that inspired the court case that brought us to this point. We've heard from witnesses that RCMP members are overwhelmingly concerned about issues having to do with their workplace safety, they're concerned about harassment in the force, they've felt that for a long time they haven't had a voice at the table, and they were looking to collective bargaining as a way to remedy that.

They fought in the court for a long time and at great expense to get to a point where they could bring those concerns to the table, and I think they have been disappointed, and rightly so, to see that the bill that would allow them the right to collective bargaining denies them the right to bring those concerns to the table, giving them a kind of Pyrrhic victory, Mr. Chair.

Therefore, I think it's important for us to do justice to the concerns of the members who were motivated to pursue that lawsuit and to the concerns of all the many members who have contacted me and I'm sure other members of this committee to express dissatisfaction with Bill C-7, and in particular these exclusions. I think we should take them out of the bill. I don't think they're necessary, Mr. Chair. I think there are a lot of protections within this bill already for management and for what we've been calling the unique role of the RCMP as a national police force.

We don't need to preclude at least bringing those issues to the table. There's a process that's going to decide whether the proposals of the employees are reasonable or not. It's a process that's governed by binding arbitration, with an arbitrator who in no small part because of this act will be required to consider the unique role of the RCMP as a national police force, the state of budgetary policies of the government, and a number of other things.

Allowing members to bring those concerns to the table doesn't create an outcome; it just allows them to bring those things to the table. Management doesn't have to agree with their proposals. Those proposals can go to binding arbitration. If they're reasonable, they may pass. I'm not personally opposed to the idea that reasonable proposals would pass, even if management happens not to like them. That's what collective bargaining is all about, Mr. Chair. It's not for us to try to prejudge the outcome of those things by deciding what is and what is not going to be on the table.

We may well hear arguments about management rights, and there are prerogatives for managers. No one's denying that. We're saying there's already a process in place that's going to protect those prerogatives. We don't need to double-down on the protection for management with these exclusions.

The other thing that ends up happening when we try to legislate these exclusions is that we are now taking off the table.... We could agree here. I would say it doesn't matter, because we're not at the table and these things should be decided at the bargaining table, but we could agree that it would be nonsense, say, to negotiate the type of shoe that RCMP officers are going to wear on the job. I haven't heard, from the people who have come as witnesses who support the idea of collective bargaining and reject these exclusions, that they want to get down to that level, and I don't think they would. I'm pretty confident that if they brought that proposal to the table and went to binding arbitration, it would be thrown out.

We heard earlier, in arguments against my other amendments, that there's a robust process and there are precedents and there's jurisprudence and there's a whole history with respect to collective bargaining, and that can decide what affiliation means. Well certainly, then, the same process that other members trusted to determine the nature and extent of affiliation could be trusted to determine whether or not certain proposals are reasonable with respect to the unique nature of the RCMP as a national police force, and the other interpretive constraints.

That's something that should happen at the bargaining table. What would be reasonable is a proposal—which may or may not get through the binding arbitration process—that we'd like a joint committee of employees and employers to collaborate on equipment purchases. Maybe the final decision rests with RCMP management, but at the very least there would be a process whereby employees could have a meaningful opportunity to have their views considered. That would be a reasonable clause in a collective agreement.

In looking at information from the MMPAC , we noticed all sorts of things that could be excluded through certain provisions in collective agreements with police forces across the country. They're different, and that's fine. They represent things that have to do with the particular institutional culture of the police force, as well as the personalities, people, and workplace cultures that went into forging whatever those agreements were.

What I'm saying is we don't need these exclusions. We don't have to try to figure out all the details—what may or may not happen at the bargaining table, or what would be a reasonable offer. What we need to do is empower members and management to sit down at the table to figure out solutions in their own workplace, and in this case, less is more.

To those who are concerned that this will mean that unreasonable proposals will go through, I would say that there are many layers of protection for management here. We can get rid of the exclusions. That would allow proposals to be brought to the table, and I'm sure the interests of the RCMP as a force will nevertheless be respected in that process.

There is another thing we can do by getting rid of these exclusions. I think that we've heard clearly that there are some, and I'm one of them, who believe that these exclusions are not consistent with the spirit of the decision in the court case, even if they are consistent with the letter. This is something that has yet to be determined. Maybe they're not consistent with the letter.

What that means is another court case. Those are expensive and they take time. Meanwhile, RCMP members are going to be denied the right they felt they had won in January of 2015 with the Supreme Court decision that granted them collective bargaining. This is going to lead to further frustration and a further sense of helplessness on the part of members. It will also lead to further costs, costs to those bringing the suit and costs to the government. The amount will depend on whether the government decides to defend decisions all the way through, if it is the case that the government is on the losing end of those legal arguments.

I think we have an opportunity here, not only to do justice to members and not only to do justice to the process, but also to avoid unnecessary costs in time as well as money with further legal challenges. This is why I think it would be wise of the committee to pass this amendment and to let members get on with the business of bargaining in their workplace.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

I think I speak for Conservative members, Mr. Chair—or I may be corrected if they want to weigh in on these amendments—when I say that the amendments certainly contradict the basic direction given in the survey, in that members want an RCMP-specific union that will be able to serve the unique needs of a paramilitary organization, as was canvassed at length within committee testimony. That is consistent with direction from the Supreme Court, which has said the Wagner model is not required in all situations and that as long as employee choice and independence are met, the bargaining agent can be narrow to the group impacted by the bargaining.

I would also suggest that despite some of the nice comments about sharing boardrooms and things like that between one union and another, the power imbalance that leads to the need for a union now exists in the creation of these mega-unions that lump together a whole series of workers who do not have shared interests, whereas the collective of the mega-union has weight and power vis-à-vis the employer. In the case of the RCMP, we really want to make sure the needs of the front-line members are respected by a unique and specialized bargaining agent, but this is the creep of other unions trying to then subsume or affiliate, and I don't see that being in the members' interests at all. It clearly runs contrary to the survey and to the intention of Bill C-7, so we'll be opposing both amendments for that reason.