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.

Public Service Labour Relations Act

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the parliamentary secretary for his question because it allows me to once again say that he is dead wrong on this. If this bill does not pass, the RCMP has the right to unionize. That is what the Supreme Court has said. Therefore, the principle is already there in the Supreme Court decision, that if we do not have this legislation, it can unionize.

I have said that this regime, which demands or requires one national union and one exclusive to policing, is a good idea. However, that is not just my opinion, that is the opinion of most of the police officers, and certainly of their associations.

When it comes to saying that by voting against this, I am voting against collective bargaining, I would say the opposite. Voting for a bill that leaves essentially only pay and benefits to be bargained is not collective bargaining. All of those other issues that are excluded are at the heart of what most people want to do as part of their union, not just to get more money or benefits, but to have a workplace that contributes to doing the job well.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank our hon. colleague from Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, but I want to put a different spin on it.

We have talked a lot about unionization, secret ballot, and what is included in Bill C-7 for negotiations and what has been left out. However, the hon. colleague mentioned his experience in negotiating contracts at the municipal level.

In my riding of Cariboo—Prince George, our communities are struggling for the capacity to pay for increased policing costs. Ultimately, whatever costs are negotiated in collective bargaining are downloaded onto our provinces and our communities. In budget 2016, the Liberal government has failed to increase policing or any increased monies for police forces. Is this a further cause for concern and evidence that the bill and the government's point of view is flawed with respect to pushing this through?

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Cariboo—Prince George is one of the new members whose comments and contributions I have learned to respect in the House. He raises a very good point.

Having a union is not necessarily something that always increases costs. Given the context the government has given with respect to the RCMP, which is essentially a budget cut, it is not enough money to keep up with the increasing costs. We know that it is not enough money to backfill all of those empty positions that have been sitting there, unfortunately under the previous Conservative government.

However, the process of collective bargaining can also lead to more effective and efficient policing, which is less costly for those communities. When rank and file RCMP officers on the west shore were calling to have those positions filled, the municipalities were passing resolutions saying that they knew they would have to pay more but they needed to fill those positions to keep their communities safe.

Therefore, I recognize the challenge of increasing policing costs for municipalities as I sat on a municipal council after the police board. However, having a union can also promote efficiency and effectiveness as well.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague and commend him for his speech on an important subject that we, as progressive people and New Democrats, care a lot about, and that is the ability to unionize to improve working conditions.

However, the Liberal government seems to be following a certain pattern. It was forced by the Supreme Court to draft certain laws, but it did a sloppy job. The government is doing things that are not consistent with the Supreme Court's request.

The NDP does not understand why the government is proposing all of these exclusions and why it wants to limit RCMP officers' ability to negotiate, when that right has been recognized by a number of courts, including the Supreme Court, under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This bill will likely be challenged and that will result in more legal fees.

I would like to hear what my colleague has to say about that.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie for his work on a day-to-day basis in the House as an effective voice for working people.

His question gives me an opportunity to say again what I think has happened in Bill C-14 and again in Bill C-7. I do not know where the Liberals get these restrictions they have introduced in both bills. I think Bills C-14 and C-7 alike are headed to litigation.

Rather than solving the problem and getting on with the business of the country, we will be sending people back into the courts on both of these bills. I do not understand why the recommendations in Bill C-14 were not those of the special committee. In Bill C-7, I do not know who made these recommendations. There is no evidence about why things like staffing and harassment were excluded from collective bargaining. I do not know where this idea came from, but I certainly doubt that it is constitutional.

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Mr. Speaker, does my colleague know why the Conservatives always oppose unions and say that we should diminish their powers?

What does he have to say about that?

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Mr. Speaker, earlier in a response to one of the hon. member's speeches, I trucked out what I called blue herrings, raising issues about unions and policing that really nobody shared. I have never met a rank and file police officer who is worried about being intimidated over the question of a union, and all of the police forces have unions.

It is one thing to deny the existence of unions or their value, but it is another thing to gut collective bargaining, as the government is doing in Bill C-7. To me, those are equally difficult to accept.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the member seems to be somewhat confused with regard to the issue of urgency. We need to recognize that when the Supreme Court of Canada makes a decision, all members have a responsibility to respect that decision. The two bills the member had made reference to are in fact directives coming from the Supreme Court of Canada. Both issues have been granted extensions.

Could the member provide some comment on whether he believe that parliamentarians do not have to respect what the Supreme Court of Canada has said? Is that the New Democratic approach for dealing with decisions that have been made by the Supreme Court of Canada?

The Supreme Court of Canada has been very clear on this issue, and this legislation is before us today because of that. Just because the Conservatives did not do their homework on this bill or Bill C-14, as legislators, we have a responsibility to, at the very least, listen to what the Supreme Court says, and from the government's perspective, to take action to make corrective measures.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Mr. Speaker, that is probably one of the more absurd comments I have heard on the decisions.

The Supreme Court did not require the House of Commons to legislate. It said that existing law, both for Bill C-14 and Bill C-7, was unconstitutional, and if the House of Commons would like to legislate something else, this was the deadline by which it must do it. The Supreme Court suspended its judgment to a date to allow the House of Commons, if it so chose, to pass legislation, very much the same as what happened with the abortion legislation in Canada. When the Supreme Court ruled that abortion violated the security of the person, it gave a period of time for Parliament to act. Parliament tried twice to act and failed to pass any legislation. The world did not end, but the Supreme Court decision was implemented.

That is exactly what would happen on Bill C-14 and Bill C-7. The Supreme Court does not instruct Parliament to do anything. It gave us the opportunity to say that if we felt there were regimes or restrictions that would meet the constitution that we would like to put it place, we had this much time to do it.

I do agree with the member that the Conservatives wasted a lot of that time. However, the present government has wasted a lot of time calling all different kinds of bills instead of dealing expeditiously with those on which it feels it has a deadline.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today, and I want to inform you that I will be sharing my time with the member for Burnaby South, who works very hard to defend workers' rights here in the House.

Like other members in the House, I want to take 30 seconds to congratulate our RCMP officers and to thank them for all the work they do across the country. They work hard to keep us, our communities, and our children safe. As a member of Parliament from the Montreal area, I do not deal much with RCMP officers, since they do not directly serve Montreal. The SPVM serves Montreal. However, we are aware of the good work they do and of how dangerous and essential their jobs are.

I am very pleased to rise today to speak about fundamental rights like free collective bargaining, a topic that is close to our hearts as progressive, social democrats, as New Democrats. This topic is especially important to us because gathering, assembling, and fighting for the collective bargaining power to improve one's working and living conditions is a fundamental part of social progress and of the progress of our societies and our country.

We have seen what a positive impact the process of unionization can have on people's quality of life in terms of pay and benefits as well as in terms of respect for employees and ensuring that they are not subjected to discrimination or abuse by employers or ignored whenever they speak up.

People say that right-wingers are about defending the middle class, but not many people realize that the middle class exists primarily because of the union movement. In the 18th century, when unions were illegal, people had absolutely appalling working conditions. They had no rights, and they worked like dogs for pay that kept them forever poor. People were constantly being pauperized. That is why we need to recognize the work of the many men and women who decided to join forces and sit down to negotiate collective agreements and labour contracts that laid out the rules of the game and ensured healthy workplaces that enabled people to support their families, enjoy some recreation, travel, and so on.

Unions became legal in Canada in 1872. However, RCMP members have been in a rather unique situation since the force was created in 1918. RCMP members have always been denied the right to organize and negotiate their labour contracts, even though this clearly violates the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the right to free bargaining has been upheld by a number of courts, including the B.C. Supreme Court and the Supreme Court of Saskatchewan, as well as the Supreme Court of Canada.

I am pleased, in one sense, that the Liberal government is finally bringing such a long struggle to an end. For decades now, RCMP members have been wanting the same right that everyone else enjoys. However, I am bitterly disappointed in the drafting of the bill and the work done by the Liberal government. Once again, we are in a situation where, in an effort to follow a directive or ruling from the Supreme Court, the Liberal government is trying to respond to it, but is doing so carelessly and sloppily. It is making things up and forgetting things, and as I think my colleague said earlier, this could give rise to new legal debates. Bill C-7 will probably be challenged in the courts because it contains things that are clearly completely unacceptable and infringe on the right to free bargaining.

Some of the clauses violate the very principle that this bill is supposed to defend. What are they? For us, the most important thing is the exclusions. Bill C-7 excludes some issues, certain matters, from the collective bargaining process. RCMP officers are being told that they have the right to organize and to collectively negotiate a work contract, but they do not have the right to talk about certain things and the government is the one that decides. They are being told that they only have the right to talk about pay and benefits, period.

What are the exclusions? One of them is staffing, the ability to decide who will get a promotion or who will be hired.

Deployment is another: who will go to what city, town, or region. Shift work is yet another: will workers have to work alone or will they have backup?

There is also harassment and disciplinary action. That is an important issue. The Liberals are excluding anything related to harassment in the workplace from the RCMP's collective bargaining process. RCMP officers will therefore be unable to file a complaint in that regard. That is outrageous. Why would RCMP officers be deprived of that option?

There is also disciplinary action. It was excluded out of hand and no one knows why, as though these sorts of things magically take care of themselves.

Whose idea was it to exclude these issues? They are what can make the difference between a happy and healthy workplace and a workplace rife with conflict, competition, poor relations between colleagues, and even poor relations between managers and employees.

The NDP does not understand why these issues, which have a major impact on workplace health and safety, were dismissed out of hand by the Liberal government.

What will happen? It is pretty clear, and the writing is on the wall. If this bill passes, when RCMP officers become unionized, they will eventually claim their right to talk about these issues and to have an internal complaint process so that they can have their say. Why would they be denied this right, when all other unionized police forces in Canada can talk about these issues?

In no way has the Liberal government shown that the reliability, neutrality, or viability of the RCMP would be called into question as a result of these collective bargaining issues and that they therefore had to be excluded from the process. This makes absolutely no sense. This will result in more legal proceedings and additional costs, not only for taxpayers, but also for the RCMP officers' union. This is all completely unnecessary, since we could fix this problem right here, right now.

I urge the Liberal government to listen to reason, instead of forcing Parliament to pass botched, flawed bills that will be challenged in court. I urge the government to do its job and to respect the fundamental right to free collective bargaining.

This issue affects an important, though small, segment of our society. There is no reason why these people should not have the same rights as all workers. The work they do is recognized and respected by everyone. I think that we should give them the tools that will help them create a workplace where they feel comfortable and are heard, and where they are able to speak up when necessary.

For these reasons, the NDP cannot vote in favour of Bill C-7, even though it is well-intentioned and even though the Supreme Court issued its ruling. We cannot support the bill because the government did a sloppy job and this bill will be challenged in court.

I want to use the few minutes I have left to say that I do not understand why, in this debate, the people from the Conservative Party, who dragged their feet miserably after the Supreme Court ruling was handed down in January 2015, keep coming back to the issue of having a secret ballot for the union certification process. That has nothing to do with Bill C-7. It is like they are trying to relive the years of the previous government, when, in fact, a unionization process involving membership cards signed and submitted to the Canada Industrial Relations Board, the CIRB, is the best and easiest way to unionize a group. We often hear the Conservatives say that having people sign cards will lead to bullying and that is why they prefer a secret ballot. In the unionization process, any bullying is done by the employers and not by the workers. It is not documented and it does not exist.

I come from the union movement. In my previous life, I was a union activist and a union advisor. We know that a unionization process by secret ballot often leads to negative results for the workers. It is not as successful. The longer the vote, the more time the employer has to use blackmail or make promises or threats.

That is why we want to keep the current system. I would like our Conservative friends to understand that some day.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to be clear on a critical message. The Government of Canada is committed to supporting the dedicated and proud members of Canada's national police service.

Bill C-7 would allow RCMP members and reservists to choose whether they wish to be represented by an employee organization. The Conservatives have said they are going to vote against this legislation because they believe in the secret ballot. The New Democratic Party is going to vote against this legislation because it would not provide enough.

The very principle of this legislation would provide our RCMP officers and reservists with the option of organized labour. Why does the NDP oppose the principle of the bill that would allow for the unionization of our RCMP?

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, thankfully, ironic comments are not offensive. The claim that the NDP is against a unionization process is one of the most absurd things I have heard in this place.

I am just going to respond to my colleague by repeating the comments made by Rae Banwarie, president of the Mounted Police Professional Association of Canada. He said that they would not support this bill in its current form because it does not respect the spirit of the Supreme Court ruling or the charter. In his opinion, the bill does not meet the constitutional test and it favours RCMP managers. It would continue to undermine the rights of RCMP members and their families. He feels that this bill, in its current form, will undermine and negate established protection mechanisms found in many union organizations and collective agreements of other forces.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I want to correct something the member for Winnipeg North said. He said that voting against the bill would be a rejection of the principle of the bill. Both the NDP and the Conservatives are going to vote against the bill not because we reject the principle but because we reject the specific measures in it. The member who is in this place fairly frequently should know that at second reading we vote on the principle of the bill then at third reading we pronounce finally on the content of the bill.

I want to ask the member about the secret ballot. We have advocated the importance of ensuring that the secret ballot occurs. What is the harm in a secret ballot? Why not allow RCMP members to pronounce through a secret ballot on whether or not they want to join a union? If they want to join they can vote yes in a secret ballot with no problem. What is the harm of the secret ballot?

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I was expecting that question.

I will repeat that card-signing unionization processes are the most efficient and the least controversial processes and those that have the best success rate for workers who want to organize their workplace. In fact, before the workplace is unionized, the employer is free to do whatever it wants.

Card signing works well. If it's not broken, don't fix it. The secret vote creates obstacles for unions in the unionization process and gives the employer tools and weapons to break and prevent unionization. That is why we do not support the secret ballot.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his speech.

I get the impression that the government intends to do as little as possible with this bill, and I wonder whether he agrees with me on that. The Supreme Court asked the government to do certain things to comply with the charter in accordance with certain criteria.

However, once again, the government is trying to do as little as possible to comply with the Supreme Court's decision and guarantee people the rights recognized by that decision.

I get the impression that the government is trying to do as little as possible to comply with the Supreme Court's decision. Does the member agree with me? The government does not seem to want to give very much to the people who deserve the rights that have been recognized.