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.… read more

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.

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Resignation of Member

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

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise to pay some words of tribute to the member of Parliament for Durham, who I first encountered when I was a newly minted MP. The member for Durham was his party's critic at the time for Bill C-7, which had to do with RCMP collective bargaining.

It was my first assignment on a bill. I sat in on the public safety committee, and I have to say that debating that bill with the member for Durham gave me an unrealistic expectation about debate in this place because it was principled, sophisticated and well executed. Even though we did not agree on all of the points of that bill and, in fact, disagreed on many of them, he carried out parliamentary debate in the style I thought was appropriate. Things got so downright collegial that it earned him a quote in one of my very first householders. It was not an authorized quote, but it was on the public record, so it was fair game. Now that he is leaving public life, I feel it is time to reciprocate, so I may have a few nice things to say.

That relationship further developed later in the 42nd Parliament when I had the honour of sitting in on a study of Canadian sovereignty in the north. We were able to travel to northern Canada together. That was a great trip in its own right and I learned a lot, but one of the things I really enjoyed about that trip was the opportunity to get to know the member for Durham better and to discuss some of the issues of the day in a less public forum. That was certainly a pleasure.

One of the lessons of that experience for me, and for the folks who looked at that report or the joint all-party press conference we did at the end of that study, was that it was a fine example of when parliamentarians, who come from different political movements with different ideas about where the country should head, roll up their sleeves and immerse themselves in the study of an important issue together, they can find ways to find common ground instead of just finding ways to wedge and divide. That report showed nicely how the priorities of maintaining Canada's sovereignty in the north and some of the military components of that can dovetail nicely, with an emphasis on investing in the people of the north and making sure that their needs are met. I was very proud of the work that we all did together to make that case to Parliament and, more widely, to Canadians.

As I say, one of the great contributions, which was demonstrated later when the member for Durham became leader of the Conservative Party, was his ability to state differences of opinion in a principled way and in a way that promoted the kind of debate that Canadians want from their politicians. They do not need to see us agree on everything all the time or to cover over important differences, but to explore them in ways that are far more constructive than we sometimes explore those differences in this place.

He talked earlier about the tendency toward division that we are witnessing in politics right now and the dangers of performance politics. I think we can say with hindsight that the member for Durham exhibited a refreshing lack of demagoguery in the way that he presented the Conservative position, and for that I am grateful, as I know many Canadians are. There are a lot of lessons for all of us to learn in how we carry ourselves in public debate.

I know that can be a difficult thing to do, not just for members themselves but especially their families, so I too want to add my voice to the chorus of thanks to Rebecca, Mollie and Jack, who supported their husband and father through this journey. I thank, on behalf of New Democrats, the member for Durham for his service in this place, and I offer my well wishes for what awaits him as he exits public life.

Royal Canadian Mounted Police

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety]

Mr. Speaker, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police is a cornerstone of policing across much of rural Canada, in the Canadian north and in many towns and large urban areas. Its members keep our communities safe. The RCMP is the frontline police service of jurisdiction in the territories, in all provinces except Quebec and Ontario, and in more than 150 municipalities.

The Government of Canada shares the cost of these policing services. In large municipalities, the federal government pays 10% of salary, equipment and other costs. For municipalities with a population of fewer than 15,000 people, the federal government pays 30% of these costs.

I fully agree with the member for Battlefords—Lloydminster that RCMP members deserve fair compensation for their work in keeping our streets safe. That is why, in 2017, our government passed Bill C-7. This historic, first-ever collective agreement between the Government of Canada and the bargaining agent for RCMP members, the National Police Federation, came into effect on August 6 of last year. The agreement provided a reasonable economic increase and market adjustments to address wage differences that existed between RCMP members and reservists and other police services across Canada. It marked the first time RCMP members had received a pay increase since 2017. It also brought their salaries in line with other police services across Canada. The agreement was fair both for our hard-working RCMP members and for Canadian taxpayers.

Our government is mindful that policing represents a significant cost for all communities and local governments. Officials are working hard to engage directly with every contract policing jurisdiction on the costs to implement the new collective agreement. They have written to all partners to provide information, and meetings with individual jurisdictions to discuss their specific situations have started and will continue in the coming weeks.

In closing, let me assure members that our government will continue to work with contract jurisdictions on the financial impacts of the collective agreement, and we will continue to support the RCMP and all jurisdictions to ensure the safety and security of our communities.

Royal Canadian Mounted Police Act

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

Madam Speaker, this is a continuation of my remarks on Bill C-98 from over a week ago.

I would be remiss if I did not note my disappointment with the last vote. This was an opportunity for the government, with a Prime Minister who said that the government would be transparent by default, to release the critical document in the Admiral Mark Norman affair, the memo from Michael Wernick, from the early days, on why Mr. Norman was picked out of 73 people on a PCO list. Mr. Wernick is not a lawyer, so it is not legal advice. Canadians know Michael Wernick and they know the SNC-Lavalin affair.

Unredacting that memo would have been a gesture of goodwill on the part of the government, in light of the fact that the Crown had to admit in court that it had no reasonable prospect of success at trial. After the terrible ordeal Mr. Norman has been through, that would have been a nice recognition. I have to say that I was disappointed.

As I was saying in my previous remarks, one of the main issues I have with Bill C-98, and with some of the bills we are debating now, in the final days of this Parliament, is the fact that if the bill were coming here after robust consultations with the people affected, we might be in a position to say that this is legislation that is in the long-term interest of the RCMP and other groups caught by the legislation, but it is not.

Bill C-98 is another example of legislation related to public safety, related to peace officers and related to police officers that misses the mark yet again. It is unfortunate, because as the minister would know, we tried, in good faith, at the beginning of this Parliament, to work with the government on these issues.

The minister would remember Bill C-7, the RCMP unionization bill. We worked with the government, and thanks to the member for Beaches—East York, it accepted our recommendations to make the provisions of Bill C-7 more equitable for members, regardless of what province they were in with respect to workplace injuries, rehabilitation and supports. On legislation related to the RCMP, we provided substantive input that helped with that legislation.

Canadians see at the end of this parliamentary session that we are getting a little raucous and a little feisty. An election is on the horizon. I will remind them that at the beginning of this Parliament, when it came to the RCMP, in light of a Supreme Court decision—

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

Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege to follow my friend from Scarborough—Guildwood, who has had millions of minutes in this chamber. However, I am at a loss to ascribe any real substance to those minutes, despite the fact that I hold him in great affection. He has been very helpful on some projects related to veterans, and on that matter, maybe he can help get the Afghan monument finally done.

I share the comments from a lot of people today in that I have frustration with when the bill is being put forward. I think all members of this chamber have tremendous respect for the men and women who wear the uniform of the RCMP or wear the uniform of the Canada Border Services Agency, CBSA, who would be impacted by the bill. Nothing shows a lack of priority like introducing bills when the tulips are coming up here in Ottawa. This is when we are in the final weeks of the parliamentary sitting, and so when the government introduces something in this time period, it shows how much it has prioritized it. If the Liberals are doing that in the fourth year of their mandate with literally a few weeks left in the session, it actually shows disdain for the underlying issues of the bill when they have had four years related to it.

My friend from Scarborough—Guildwood was suggesting that we needed to stay in our partisan lane and was bemoaning the fact that we are decrying the lack of consultation and lack of prioritization by the government, but the Liberals have left us no choice. We do not even think, at the pace things are going, that this will be substantially looked at in committee, despite his nice offer to take phone numbers of union members who were ignored in the preparations behind the bill. We will not even be able to get time to hear from them, and that is amiss, because our job as an official opposition is to hold the government to account, critique and push for better. I should remind my friend, the Liberal deputy House leader, that better is always possible, and this is an example.

The bill was introduced on May 7, 2019, literally in the final weeks of Parliament, much like Bill C-93, another public safety bill, which was introduced in the same month. What is shocking is that these are areas the Liberals have talked about since their first weeks in government. In fact, the marijuana pledge is probably the only accomplishment of the Prime Minister in the Liberals' four years in government, and they are putting the cannabis records suspension bill to the House in the final weeks. Who have they not consulted on that? It is law enforcement, which is really quite astounding.

Canadians might remember that in the first few months of the Liberal government, back in 2015-16, the Liberals were fond of consultations, which I think my friend from Sarnia—Lambton and others have made note of. In fact, there were little vignettes created saying, “We're going to consult. We're going to have public consultation.” I guess after that the Liberals stopped doing it entirely.

My real concern in the matter of public safety and security bills is that the CBSA alone will be swept into elements of Bill C-98 and the 14,000 people in that department, including the almost 7,000 uniformed people at 1,200 locations across this country, should be consulted on a substantive piece of legislation that would impact them. They were not. In fact, the Customs and Immigration Union has been demanding to be consulted, and not at the committee stage in June, a few days before Parliament may rise and go into an election. They should have been consulted prior to drafting the legislation. That is the real problem I have with this.

It is the same with the cannabis record suspension legislation, which is another public safety bill being thrown into the mix in the final weeks. The Canadian Police Association was not consulted. Tom Stamatakis, the president, had this to say:

Were we directly consulted? Not in an extensive way. We had some exchanges, but we didn't have a specific consultation with respect to this bill.

It is the same now with Bill C-98. The underlying people impacted by it, including members of the Customs and Immigration Union, were not consulted on the bill.

We also see other important pieces of public safety legislation still lingering in the legislative process. For example, Bill C-83, legislation to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, is now at committee. That committee is already charged with other legislation from the final year of the government.

A lot of us are watching Bill C-59 as well, a quite comprehensive, almost omnibus bill on national security. It is in the Senate committee. I have been advocating on that bill with regard to the no-fly list, supporting the good work done by the families of the no-fly list kids to make sure that we can have a system to remove false positives and remove children from this list, which is ineffective in terms of public safety if it has tons of erroneous and duplicative names on it.

It is also substantially unfair to Canadians, especially young children, when they are impacted by being on the no-fly list. We need a mechanism for them to take themselves off the list. That is in Bill C-59. I am publicly urging Senate colleagues to make sure they do a proper review, but get it done quickly.

As we can see, there is already a backlog of public safety and security legislation in Parliament now, not to mention a number of other bills being introduced in May.

Stepping out of the public safety area for a moment, it should also concern Canadians that some of the signature issues for indigenous Canadians also had to wait until the final months of the government. They include child welfare legislation, which I think I spoke about in this place maybe 10 days ago, and the indigenous language bill, which was also tossed in at the end of the year when the flowers are coming up here in Ottawa.

That is a lack of respect. It shows there is a priority given to speech, imagery and photos with the Prime Minister, and a lack of priority given to action on public safety issues and on issues related to reconciliation. Governing is more than lofty language. It is delivering on the priorities for Canadians and the things they need.

To review, I would like to see substantive committee time for Bill C-98 so that the Customs and Immigration Union can be properly consulted. The same goes for the RCMP. In fact, I was the public safety critic before I took a little diversion and a national tour to get into a leadership race. We actually worked with the government on Bill C-7, which was the RCMP union bill. We have tried to work with the government, particularly when it comes to uniformed service members. In fact, we pushed for amendments to Bill C-7 so that there would not be a hodgepodge approach to workers' compensation for our RCMP men and women and so that there would not be different standards in different provinces. These are important bills, and people should be consulted.

I would also urge the former chair who spoke, the member for Scarborough—Guildwood, to make sure that adequate time is given. Despite the government's claim that it would never use time allocation and never use omnibus bills, we have seen it use these measures literally by the week. The government House leader appears to relish it now. My friend the deputy House leader wishes he could erase all the speeches of outrage he gave in opposition about the use of time allocation and omnibus legislation, because now he is part of the government House leader team that the member for Scarborough—Guildwood blamed for the delay that we have with these bills, and he uses it with relish.

Let us make sure we have the proper committee time to look at the changes to the RCMP Act and the CBSA Act to make sure we are doing a service to the people who will be impacted by them, whether it is on a public complaints process or other elements in Bill C-98. The consultation should have been done first, but to do this properly, the committee debate time cannot be rushed. We will work with them, but we want to make sure the people impacted are part of the committee review process.

Motions in amendment

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

Mr. Speaker, early in its mandate the government introduced a bill to repeal Bill C-377, but did not repeal it right away. Then, what we heard on Friday was that every assault by the government since then on collective bargaining, whether the tight restrictions it wanted to put on collective bargaining in Bill C-7 for RCMP members or the back-to-work legislation it rammed through on Friday, should somehow be forgiven because it repealed Bill C-377.

Early in its mandate the government brought in the child benefit, which did something for low-income families. The funny thing is that that is not in keeping with the government's theme either. Looking at the changes to parental leave under EI, how are low-income families going to be able to access that? They already have low incomes and cannot afford to live on 33% of their income. The extended parental leave time is for who? Is it for low-income families that want to spend more time at home with each other, or is it for the high-income families the government said it was taking on when it eliminated the original UCB?

This is the thing. Early on, the Liberals implemented a couple of their election commitments to workers and low-income families, and that is now supposed to forgive everything else they do for their Bay Street buddies and big multinational companies. The evidence does not bear out that they are serious about helping real Canadians who are struggling every day.

Federal Public Sector Labour Relations Act

[Scott Duvall, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Madam Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-62, an act to amend the Federal Public Sector Labour Relations Act and other acts. I have heard some good feedback on this.

What struck me this morning were some of the statements made by the member for Louis-Saint-Laurent. He is a good friend. I really respect the person, but obviously, we have different ideas. He made statements about union bosses and union leaders and about the Liberals just saying “thank you” because some of the unions were putting money in and campaigning against the Conservatives in the last election. I want to say that I totally disagree with that. The unions were campaigning against the Conservatives, yes, but they were also supporting anyone who could beat the Conservatives, and that was because they have a very bad reputation for taking away gains from labour that people have fought for all their lives, and they wanted to make sure that those people never got back in power until they got their act together and started to respect what labour could do.

We are pleased that the government is finally moving forward to repeal legislation based purely on a backward ideology that forces public servants to go to work sick and that totally undermines the principle of collective bargaining. We have to ask what took the Liberals so long to bring this bill forward. What took them so long to act? Of course, this is a question many Canadians are asking more and more often about the current government. Why are the Liberals not keeping the promises they made during the election, and why are they so slow to act or are not acting at all?

The list of broken promises is far too long to list in the time I have today, but we all know about the Liberals' failure to support electoral reform, their failure to restore door-to-door postal delivery, and the failure to keep the promise to make government more transparent. We also know about their failure to support pay equity legislation, anti-scab legislation, and measures to increase retirement security. One of their most shameful failures is the unwillingness to protect workers' pensions.

We have heard over and over again expressions of sympathy from the Prime Minister and his Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development for Canadian workers, like those at Sears Canada who have lost severance and termination pay and health care and life insurance benefits. They now face reduced pension benefits.

Canadians need and expect more than their sympathy and their shallow talking points. They need action. They need the government to change Canada's inadequate bankruptcy and solvency laws. We have shown the Liberals how this can be achieved, but still the government fails to act or move to protect millions of vulnerable Canadians. As my friend from Timmins—James Bay is fond of asking, when is the government going to put the protection of Canadian pensions ahead of Bay Street profits? It is a very good question and a question millions of Canadians would like to know the answer to.

Let me come back to Bill C-62. New Democrats want to undo Harper's anti-labour legacy and build a fair framework for collective bargaining. We welcome the introduction of Bill C-62, which would formally put an end to measures introduced by the former government. We know that the government Bill C-5 and Bill C-34, both introduced last year, have been languishing on the Order Paper since their introduction. We hope that their being amalgamated into Bill C-62 means that the government is finally ready to move forward.

Bill C-62 would reverse the attacks by the former Conservative government on the collective bargaining rights of federal public service employees, and it should be passed without delay. This bill would repeal the power given to the government to remove sick leave from federal public service collective agreements so that it could be changed unilaterally, outside of the bargaining process. The bill would also restore some of the changes to the Federal Public Sector Labour Relations Act affecting collective bargaining, which the Conservatives had included in one of their budget implementation bills in 2013, such as those affecting the designation of essential services. New Democrats rallied against the Conservatives' agenda to curtail public service workers' right to strike. The Federal Public Sector Labour Relations Act was amended in December 2013 to remove the choice of dispute resolution being available to essential services.

In our 2015 platform, we promised Canadians we would stand up for public sector workers in light of the lost decade of Harper's union abuse. Supporting this bill makes good on that promise. A respectful relationship with the public service starts with safeguards to free and fair collective bargaining, not stacking the deck in favour of the employer.

Bill C-62 is aimed at repealing two blatantly anti-labour pieces of legislation introduced by the former Harper government: division 20 of Bill C-59 and Bill C-4. The first of these sought to unilaterally impose an inferior disability and sick leave management system on public servants, which was an unwarranted and significant attack on the rights of public service workers.

Bill C-4 would have drastically changed the rules for collective bargaining within the public service, giving the government full control over union rights, such as the right to strike and the right to arbitration. The government would have also determined what positions would be considered essential.

A key provision in the collective agreements of public service workers is sick leave, which allows full-time workers 15 days per year of leave for use in case of illness or injury. The previous Conservative government was determined to unilaterally change this provision by reducing the number of sick days from 15 to 6, eliminating banked sick days, and imposing a short-term disability plan for federal public servants.

The previous government claimed this change would have saved $900 million, despite evidence to the contrary. According to the 2014 parliamentary budget officer's report, “the incremental cost of paid sick leave was not fiscally material and did not represent material costs for departments in the core public administration.” That means most employees who call in sick are not replaced, resulting in no incremental costs to departments.

Under the Conservative legislation, workers would have been forced to choose between going to work sick or losing pay for basic necessities. Its legislation would eliminate all accumulated sick leave for public servants, reduce the amount of annual sick leave to 37.5 hours per year, subject to the absolute discretion of the employer, and institute a seven-day waiting period without pay before people could access short-term disability benefits.

I want to comment that, because I come from a union background. I served the union for 36 years. We had that seven-day waiting period also, and we made great gains. We proved to the company that having a waiting period of seven days would bring in workers who were sick, causing other workers to be sick, which actually caused a downturn in production because there were not have enough workers on the job to produce the machinery. Therefore, doing that was a step backward.

Both the NDP and the Liberals committed to reversing the changes during the last election. Bill C-62 would repeal the offending legislation, thus restoring sick leave provisions to public servants for the time being.

Bill C-62 would also revoke some of the more offensive Conservative legislation, including: giving government, as the employer, the right to unilaterally define essential services instead of negotiating an essential services agreement with the bargaining agent; undermining the right to strike by making it illegal to strike if at least 80% of the positions in a bargaining unit provide essential services, as defined by the employer; removing the bargaining agent's right to choose arbitration as a means of resolving collective bargaining disputes, making conciliation the default process, and undermining the workers in cases where the employer consents to arbitration by requiring arbitrators to give priority to Canada's fiscal circumstances relative to its stated budgetary policies. It also removed discrimination-based complaints by public servants from the jurisdiction of the Canadian Human Rights Commission. That to me is a shame.

While we fully support Bill C-62, we also know there is more to be done to dismantle the Harper government's legacy of anti-labour legislation. Some of those measures include restoring the Canada Labour Code provisions pertaining to the rights of Canadians to refuse dangerous work. That was gutted by the Harper government, a right that everybody wants when they go into a workplace. Too many deaths have happened, and it should not be determined by the employer. The Fair Wages and Hours of Labour Act should be reinstated, bringing forward pay equity legislation, as well as the federal minimum wage, bringing Bill C-7 back to the House of Commons, and respecting the right of RCMP members to associate and bargain collectively.

[Brigitte Sansoucy, NDP, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to rise today to speak to Bill C-62, which addresses a key issue for all those who believe in democracy.

The NDP has always defended workers’ rights and the rights of all Canadians in order to ensure that no one is left behind. That is why we believe it is important to continue playing an active role in this debate. Unions are the machinery that make democracy work. They took part in every struggle and are constantly coming up with innovative ideas. They have given workers a voice and a measure of power. I applaud their work and their unwavering dedication, and I want Canada to remain an egalitarian society.

Unfortunately, in the past decade, we have neglected our public servants, violated their rights, and subjected them to dramatic cutbacks and restrictive legislative measures. Today, thousands of employees are still not being paid properly because of Phoenix. Once again, as always, the NDP stood by Canada’s public servants and their unions throughout the process. The NDP would like to see public servants and the government enjoy a relationship based on responsibility, trust, and respect, today and in the future. That is why we are proposing concrete measures to reinstate a healthy working climate and a relationship of trust in the public service.

Among other things, we propose protecting whistle-blowers; granting powers to the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner of Canada; adopting a code of conduct for departmental staff; and restricting the growing use of temporary employment agencies to the detriment of permanent employees.

We are as determined as ever to pursue these important goals. It is not a question of modifying a few policies here and there. We need a real change in attitude. The NDP will continue to demand that the government re-establish a free and fair collective bargaining process in the public service, and that it safeguard acquired protections and rights.

On October 17, 2016, the government introduced Bill C-62, which we are discussing today. Yes, I said 2016. The bill is more than welcome. It is aimed at re-establishing fair framework legislation for labour relations in the public service, and it is raising a lot of expectations. In December 2013, the Federal Public Sector Labour Relations Act was amended to eliminate the procedures for the choice of process of dispute resolution, including those involving essential services. The NDP vigorously opposed these amendments, which the Liberals are now looking at.

In our 2015 platform, we promised Canadians that we would defend the interests of public sector workers.

It is because of this promise, which we intend to keep, that we are supporting Bill C-62 today. The bill repeals various sections of the two profoundly anti-union legislative measures adopted by the former government, namely Bill C-59 and Bill C-4. The Harper government’s first legislative measure attacked by Bill C-62is the former Bill C-59, in particular section 20. The bill unilaterally imposed an inferior system for the management of disability and sick leave on public servants, which was an unjustified and major attack on the rights of public service workers.

That bill also abolished employees' right to good faith bargaining, taking sick leave out of federal public sector collective agreements so that the employer could unilaterally modify that leave outside the bargaining process.

One of the key provisions of current public sector collective agreements relates to sick leave. It gives full-time employees 15 days of leave per year to be used in case of accident or illness.

The Conservatives' Bill C-59 also took away accumulated unused sick leave days and imposed a short-term disability plan on public service employees. To make matters worse, the Conservatives introduced a seven-day unpaid waiting period before employees would receive their short-term disability benefits.

This is unacceptable. The previous government had the nerve to claim that these measures would save $900 million, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

According to a 2014 report by the parliamentary budget officer:

...the incremental cost of paid sick leave was not fiscally material and did not represent material costs for departments in the CPA.

The quotation speaks for itself. It means that most employees who are on sick leave are not replaced, resulting in no incremental cost to departments.

The parliamentary budget officer confirmed that public service employees use sick days at about the same rate as private sector employees. An average of 11.52 days were used in the public sector, compared to 11.3 in the private sector. A difference of 0.2 days is pretty minor.

Division 20 of part 3 of Bill C-59 also authorized the Treasury Board of Canada to nullify terms and conditions in existing collective agreements. It gave the employer the authority to override many provisions of the Public Service Labour Relations Act, including the statutory freeze provisions that maintain the status quo during the collective bargaining process.

Members may be surprised by what I am about to say. Under the provisions of Bill C-59, employees would be forced to choose between reporting for work even if they are sick and losing a percentage of the salary they need to survive.

Robyn Benson, the national president of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, denounced these measures. According to PSAC, the sick leave plan for federal public servants is essential, and it must ensure that employees do not have to work when they are sick. That seems obvious to me, and I agree with PSAC.

I worked as a manager in various government and community organizations for 25 years. I managed a number of teams and a hundred or so employees. As a manager and as a member of Parliament, I believe that it is totally ineffective to make employees report for work when they are sick. It is even worse to cut employees’ sick days by more than half.

The second legislative measure of the Harper government addressed by Bill C-62 is former Bill C-4, in particular section 17, which radically changes the collective bargaining rules in the public service by giving the government full control over union rights, such as the right to strike and the right to arbitration. Bill C-4 takes away bargaining agents’ right to choose arbitration as a means of resolving collective bargaining disputes, making conciliation the default process. However, arbitration is a valid solution in situations where members want to avoid a strike, and the right to arbitration should therefore be maintained.

Section 17 of Bill C-4 also undermines the right to strike by making it illegal to strike if at least 80% of the positions in a bargaining unit provide essential services, as defined by the employer. Under Bill C-4, it is up to the government to designate which positions are essential, rather than working with the bargaining agent to negotiate an agreement on essential services.

This same section 17 infringed on workers' rights in cases where the employer consents to arbitration by requiring adjudicators to give priority to Canada's financial situation in relation to its budgetary policies.

Discrimination complaints filed by public servants to the Canadian Human Rights Commission were simply erased. These measures are unacceptable.

That is why it is time to take action. This sets aside or amends changes that were made to four statutes during the last lost decade when the Conservative government violated union rights. I am referring to the Federal Public Sector Labour Relations Act, the Public Sector Equitable Compensation Act, the Canadian Human Rights Act, and the Public Service Employment Act.

The NDP always made a point of opposing the former Conservative government's attempts to limit union rights, mainly the public sector workers' right to strike.

We are therefore happy to support the government's efforts to undo the Conservative Party's damage and make Canada's public sector labour code equitable once more. The NDP is also happy to support Bill C-62.

We do not support it blindly, however. My job as an opposition MP is to scrutinize the bill and identify elements of it that need fixing. By expressing opposing views, sharing knowledge, and engaging in dialogue, we will come up with ideas to refine this bill and make sure it does everything it is supposed to, and it certainly needs help on that front. That is why I will now take a critical look at the bill's weaknesses.

After all the back and forth on this, Canada's workers deserve an ironclad law that will level the playing field for everyone involved and restore the balance of power. Although Bill C-62 is progress, it is just the first step toward instituting all the measures we want to see.

We should never legislate easy solutions to the problems we face. We have to avoid that. The NDP fought very hard to have the government abolish the previous government's initiative that attacked provisions governing public servants' sick leave. Bill C-62 can do that by repealing Division 20 of former Bill C-59 on sick leave.

Why is the government concurrently working on a new health regime that has short-term disability provisions similar to those proposed by the Conservatives in the past? That is the first reason why Bill C-62 does not allay all of our concerns.

Other points have me wondering. The greatest weakness of Bill C-62 is that it does not reverse all the negative changes made by the former government to our labour legislation. While this bill seeks to restore the rights C-62 stripped from public sector unions under Stephen Harper's tenure, Bill C-62 falls short of addressing some elements of Bills C-4 and C-59. I am referring to Division 5 of Part 3 of Bill C-4.

The Liberal government seems to be taking half-measures in an area where expectations are monumental. If we are to truly do away with the Harper government’s anti-labour legacy, Bill C-62 must do better, first by re-establishing the provisions of the Canada Labour Code respecting Canadians’ right to refuse dangerous work, such as changing the definition of “danger”, now limited in scope to situations of imminent threat.

We are also concerned about another point that Bill C-62 ignores: the removal of health and safety officers from the process of refusing dangerous work. As it stands now, the employer assesses the safety of the work, and the worker must appeal directly to the Minister of Labour. The minister can simply refuse to investigate if he or she deems that the matter is trivial or vexatious, or that the employee’s refusal is in bad faith. This measure implemented by the Harper government should be permanently struck down by Bill C-62.

Lastly, we believe that we should take this opportunity to re-establish a federal minimum wage and to reinstate the Fair Wages and Hours of Labour Act repealed by the Conservatives in 2013.

We also need to advance gender equality in the federal public service. That is why Bill C-62 should include a proactive federal legislative measure on pay equity in order to counter the effect of labour market forces on women’s wages.

The government claims that Bill C-62 demonstrates its commitment to fair collective bargaining for public servants. However, the exclusions to collective bargaining in Bill C-7 show that the Liberals have not always defended fair collective bargaining.

The government must commit to eliminating the exclusions in Bill C-7 in order to respect the right of members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to meet and bargain collectively, just as public servants do.

That is why, in light of all the previous explanations, we deplore Bill C-62's lack of ambition. This lack of ambition restricts the scope of a bill that deserves more than what the Liberals are proposing.

Our disappointment appears to be shared by the national president of the Public Service Alliance of Canada. She recently called on the government to do more than simply introduce a bill to correct the Conservative bills aimed at restricting public servants’ bargaining rights.

It is imperative that we continue to work on this bill. We must go much further and take advantage of its full potential. I explained which measures should be retained, which measures need to be taken much further, and which measures should be eliminated. The Liberal government really needs to repeal all of the Conservative measures.

This morning, I heard the President of the Treasury Board mention some lofty principles. If the Liberals wish to follow these principles, they must repeal all of the anti-labour measures the Conservatives introduced. We must take advantage of this opportunity.

We know that this bill was introduced in the fall of 2016, which was quite some time ago. People have very high expectations. The federal public service is dedicated to serving Canadians. We just marked the second anniversary of the problems with the Phoenix pay system. We need to take Bill C-62 as far as we can in order to resolve these problems that we have been grappling with for far too long.

We have amendments to propose. I outlined the measures that we want to implement. I hope that we will all be able to work together so that, when Bill C-62 passes, we can all proudly say that we accomplished our mission and that we implemented proper working conditions for federal public servants, working conditions in which they can feel secure. I hope that we can allay the concerns related to the Phoenix pay system and that public servants will have working conditions that will allow them to do their jobs properly.

We know that front-line work is demanding. That is what everyday life is like in some departments. Those employees listen to Canadians who are in difficult situations and who come to them for help or to get the their file sorted out. We are therefore asking federal public servants to do very demanding work.

Here, we pass bills. The next step is to implement them. We need to make sure that public servants feel that we parliamentarians here in the House are collaborating to provide them with the working conditions they need to do their job properly.

Budgetary considerations have been mentioned. All elected officials, at all levels of government, always need to ensure their decisions stay within budget. As I explained, a number of measures cost nothing. As we know, employees who are off sick are not even replaced, so their sick leave does not cost us anything.

For this reason, we are eager to collaborate in perfecting and completing this bill, which will officially reverse the anti-union measures of the past.

Bills C-5 and C-34 have been languishing on the Order Paper since they were tabled by this government. We hope that merging them with Bill C-62 is a sign that the government is finally ready to move forward.

That is why I want to make an appeal, an appeal to set partisanship aside and implement an infallible law that genuinely protects the rights of all workers, an appeal for teamwork and collaboration to make sure the proposed amendments I have presented here can be considered and approved.

Royal Canadian Mounted Police

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Madam Speaker, the government takes its responsibility to keep Canadians safe and secure seriously, and that is reflected in Bill C-7.

As I mentioned, our government has made a huge step forward in restoring a culture of respect for and within the public service. We have rescinded some of the provisions the previous government put in place that were essentially an attack on collective bargaining and on unions. We have gone forward with collective agreements with 85% of public servants. We will continue to work on that until they are complete, and we will always respect our first responders and do our very best on their behalf.

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

Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise in this House to say a few words about Bill C-7.

I appreciate the acknowledgement of the member for Kootenay—Columbia that there were changes made to the original bill proposal and that some of the critical amendments put forward by the Senate were accepted and incorporated into the bill. I also want to acknowledge the member for his staunch defence and support of first responders, including security officers on the Hill who protect and defend members of Parliament every day in the very important part of our lives here as members of Parliament.

I am pleased to say that this government, which inherited a collective bargaining situation in which many outstanding agreements had not been signed, has completed 85% of the public servants' collective agreements, including the one for the RCMP. On March 9, the government introduced legislation to support the dedicated and proud members of Canada's national police service by providing them with a labour relations framework that gives them the respect they deserve.

Bill C-7, which received royal assent on June 19, was a great step forward. It is a labour relations regime that takes into account the special circumstances of the RCMP and respects it as Canada's national police force. The legislation takes into account the operational integrity of the RCMP as a police organization and ensures alignment with the labour relations regime that applies to federal public service employees. This legislation respects the 2015 Supreme Court of Canada decision by providing RCMP members and reservists with the ability to pursue their interests through collective bargaining for the first time in Canada.

There was much consultation with regular members of the RCMP and with jurisdictions with RCMP police services agreements in crafting this legislation. I want to express my gratitude to all members of the House of Commons and the Senate who helped in the development of this bill. Bill C-7 gave us an important opportunity to further improve Canada's RCMP labour relations regime and to serve the men and women who benefit from it.

This is a new era in the history of the RCMP. Now the RCMP members and reservists have the same collective bargaining rights as other police forces in Canada.

Our national police force has a storied past in Canada. It deserves our respect, and with this bill, the RCMP also has a bright future ahead.

[Wayne Stetski, NDP, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Madam Speaker, much has changed since I asked my question about Bill C-7 last spring. The government accepted the Senate's amendments to the bill, and the legislation came into force last week.

However, the problems at the RCMP and at other federal law enforcement agencies across the country have not changed at all. In my riding of Kootenay—Columbia, at least two of our detachments are at 50% of their full complement. Many others are short-staffed and are working with outdated equipment.

Why is this so? It is because under the previous Conservative government and continuing with the current Liberal government, budget cuts have been aimed squarely at RCMP members on the ground. The Conservatives even increased the amount RCMP officers had to pay for their medical benefits.

In New Brunswick last week, we saw the RCMP itself convicted of failing to provide its members with the weapons and training needed when responding to an active shooter tragedy. That failure contributed to the loss of three officers, and resulted in other officers being injured.

The RCMP is losing members to provincial and municipal forces where they receive better pay, better equipment, and better treatment. It takes incredible commitment for any officer to stay with a force that cuts their benefits, and will not keep up with critical equipment and training needs or offer them the respect they so rightly deserve. I thank them for their commitment.

Until the passage of Bill C-7, the RCMP was the only police force in Canada not to be unionized, and even with the bill's passing, RCMP members will be forbidden from taking their grievances to the Public Service Labour Relations Board and from engaging in negotiating tactics such as strikes.

Sadly, the lack of respect paid to our RCMP officers is not an isolated situation. I spoke recently about our border security officers, who have been without a contract for more than three years and whom the government refuses to recognize as federal law enforcement officers. Canada's corrections officers have gone without a contract for almost four years. They were recently on Parliament Hill lobbying for treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder. The federal government, however, does not consider them to be first responders and will not require provinces to pay for their PTSD treatment where it is currently not offered.

Right here, a few feet from where we are sitting in the House of Commons, officers of the Parliamentary Protective Service, those women and men who work to protect us and our visitors, are once again protesting the government's refusal to negotiate a new contract with them in good faith.

Last spring, our parliamentary officers signed an agreement to back off on their quiet protests in exchange for fair negotiations. Oddly, that happened just in time for the Canada 150 celebration here on the Hill. However, the government now refuses to negotiate in good faith, and we are once again seeing these officers wearing green hats to protest their treatment.

There is a crisis in federal law enforcement, a crisis made by successive Conservative and Liberal governments who have refused to honour all those officers who put their lives on the line for us, every day. It is unacceptable to those officers. It is unacceptable to Canadians. I would hope that it is unacceptable to the members of the House and to the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness.

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

I have the honour to inform the House that when the House did attend His Excellency the Governor General in the Senate chamber, His Excellency was pleased to give, in Her Majesty's name, the royal assent to the following bills:

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—Chapter No. 9.

Bill C-18, An Act to amend the Rouge National Urban Park Act, the Parks Canada Agency Act and the Canada National Parks Act—Chapter No. 10.

Bill S-233, An Act to amend the Customs Act and the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (presentation and reporting requirements)—Chapter No. 11.

Bill C-4, An Act to amend the Canada Labour Code, the Parliamentary Employment and Staff Relations Act, the Public Service Labour Relations Act and the Income Tax Act—Chapter No. 12.

Bill C-16, An Act to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code—Chapter No. 13.

Bill C-6, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act and to make consequential amendments to another Act—Chapter No. 14.

Public Service Labour Relations Act

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Anthony Rota]

It being 5:45 p.m., pursuant to order made earlier today, it is my duty to interrupt the proceedings and put forthwith every question necessary to dispose of the amendments made by the Senate to Bill C-7 now before the House.

The question is on the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to rise here once again to discuss Bill C-7, which would give RCMP members, at long last, the right to collective bargaining.

I spoke to this bill last spring when it was first put before us here, and I must admit disappointment has been expressed by others at how long the government took to bring this measure back to the House. The Supreme Court gave Parliament a year to create this legislation. That deadline was May 2016. The Senate sent its amendments to the bill in June 2016, but it has taken the government 11 months to come up with a response.

In that time, the morale in RCMP detachments across this country and certainly in my riding has declined significantly, and the delay has needlessly created significant legal uncertainty and confusion for the certification process.

The RCMP is one of the best-known police forces in the world, with their red serge at ceremonies and the musical ride. Many young men and women have joined the RCMP to be part of that proud tradition, but now many are increasingly disappointed with their position.

Morale is so low that some members are removing the yellow stripes from their pants in protest. The ribbons that some of us in the NDP caucus are wearing today were made out of those stripes by RCMP members.

As a member from British Columbia, I am grateful for the dedicated work of the RCMP in protecting citizens across most of our province and indeed across the country. I make regular visits to RCMP detachments in my riding. Usually I meet only the officer in charge of the detachment, but in the last few meetings I arrived to find almost all the members and civilian support staff as well waiting to meet me.

They are so concerned about deteriorating morale, understaffing, poor equipment, and other issues that they took the time to tell me in no uncertain terms that the situation had to change, and it had to change quickly. They were extremely frustrated with the government's foot-dragging on this issue. These members were speaking out in contravention of orders not to speak, even amongst themselves while on the job, about these serious issues. The only way that they were allowed to communicate with other members was through Facebook, since they could not speak at the office and they could not use work emails to discuss these issues.

What are they concerned about? To start with, they are concerned with the dramatic decline in pay that RCMP members receive for their work relative to the other forces in Canada. Only a few years ago, the RCMP was in the top three forces in Canada when it came to pay, and of course that was to be expected. RCMP members face difficulties that other police officers in Canada do not. They spend their early years on the force serving in small and often remote communities across the country. They are moved regularly, causing hardship within families and relationships.

In fact, their pay was calculated with the assumption that the rate put them in the top three forces in Canada. That is not the case today. Now the RCMP is 72nd out of 80 police forces across Canada in terms of pay rates. I have heard other numbers today, such as 54th or 78th. The number does not matter; they are at the bottom of the pile.

It is not only that. While the government refuses to act on a pay council report entitled “Fair Compensation for the RCMP” that recommended significant wage increases for members, the RCMP top brass were given $1.7 million in bonuses this year. Front-line members received nothing.

Unfair pay levels have an immediate and significant effect on everything else in the force. Members are leaving the RCMP in large numbers to take positions with other police forces. Why should they stay, when they could make 20% more with another force?

It is easy to see why so many members are leaving and why many detachments are chronically understaffed. In one of the biggest detachments in my riding, I heard that on a recent Friday night there were only three members on duty. One was a brand-new rookie and one was a 67-year-old retired member. It was just because other members did not want to work yet another weekend overtime shift. There were just not enough staff members to do the work required.

That said, I am encouraged that the government has more or less accepted the amendments put forward by the Senate that removed the exclusions on the issues that can be discussed in collective bargaining. The most important exclusions in the original bill were staffing, deployment, harassment, and discipline. What good is bargaining about pay if there are no discussions about work hours or staffing levels?

We asked in committee for the government to remove those exclusions, but we were voted down by the Liberals and Conservatives.

I have some concerns around the management rights section that replaces these exclusions. It is not clear those provisions are necessary and they risk obstructing the right of RCMP members to bargain solutions to significant problems in the workplace.

The RCMP members who I have—

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

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the words of my NDP colleague across the aisle and the personal stories that she mentioned.

Bill C-7 and our response to both the House committee and the Senate amendments would give labour relations and collective bargaining a regime that would allow RCMP members to stand up for their rights and to address issues of workplace well-being and harassment which, as the member has pointed out, are so critically important. Our government listened to the Senate, listened to members of Parliament from all parties, and expanded the issues which are now available for collective bargaining.

Will the member support this important piece of legislation?

[Sheila Malcolmson, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member of Parliament for South Okanagan—West Kootenay.

I want to extend more than anything my sincere thanks to members of the Nanaimo, Ladysmith, and Gabriola detachments of the RCMP for the work they do in the riding that I am honoured to serve. There are 159 sworn members of the RCMP who form the ranks in my riding, and they join 18,000 members across the country. As we talk today about Bill C-7, I am reminded that it does not only affect officers in my riding and across the country, but it also affects their spouses, grandparents, children, classmates, our entire Canadian community.

To remind us of what it is we are debating today, I have an email that was sent to me by Robyn Buchanan. She writes:

As you know members of the RCMP have waited a long time with lower than fair wages due to both conservative and liberal governments. This past weekend they are banding together by removing the yellow stripes from the side of their uniforms. This peaceful protest is to speak to the government and let them know that they are dissatisfied with safety issues and wage issues. Plainclothes members and members of the public are showing their support by wearing yellow ribbons. Often these ribbons are made from the very stripes that are removed from the uniform.... I can make you a ribbon myself, as my husband is an RCMP officer on Vancouver Island.

I am wearing one of those ribbons today, as are many members here in the House.

I also have an email dated April 4 fromDavid Buchanan who said:

The Treasury Board's stance is that as an RCMP member I am just another federal employee. I assure you we are not just average federal employees. I was one of the first police on the scene at the Nanaimo Mill Shooting. I ran towards the gunfire and not away. I also arrest countless impaired, unlicensed and dangerous drivers. I am not just another federal employee, I am a police officer. We should be compensated as police officers. I put my life on the line. RCMP members have the added stress of feeling undervalued and unsupported by our government. We are watching police officers falling to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder on a daily basis; yet we are considered “just another federal employee”.

I am just one police officer attempting to make things right for my other police brothers and sisters.

These fine men and women do dangerous work on our behalf. Collective bargaining is about fostering respect for workers and their rights, creating a safe working environment, and rewarding workers for their dedication and growth. It allows employees to have a voice and enables employers to listen. The cornerstone of collective bargaining is that respect. This is a right that is enjoyed by a vast majority of federal workers and those rights generally allow workers to be part of the conversation about staffing levels, deployment, relocation, and sexual harassment, except for the RCMP. That is what the court ruled in 2015 and it ruled that it must change.

We appreciate that the bill in front of us today does include those elements, that workplace safety and sexual harassment issues be allowed to be collectively bargained. We heard that loud and clear from RCMP members over the last year and a half that they have been writing us letters.

The extent of sexual harassment in the force has been widely documented and widely covered in the media. What makes it especially troubling to me is that it was explicitly excluded from the first version of the government's bill, which we debated a year ago.

On workplace safety, rural officers have special concerns. I think in particular of the terrible tragedies in Mayerthorpe and Moncton, where there was a terrible loss of life of RCMP members. There remain issues as to the extent to which they were protected. These men and women stand up for us and we should stand up for them.

A letter was sent to me by Thomas Trachsell, in which he said:

The RCMP has fallen so far behind almost every other police force in Canada in almost every area that we are literally on the verge of breaking. We are near the bottom of pay in Canadian police forces, our training opportunities now routinely lag far behind that of most other police forces, and our equipment is often years out of date or decades behind schedule being deployed.

If the government restricts us to negotiating pay and benefits alone, that may help us recruit more people, but it won't stop our members from dying because they are working alone in remote places without radio communications or proper backup because local managers creatively interpret backup policies or ignore them altogether.

It won't stop over-worked people from descending into depression, losing families and committing suicide. It won't stop abusive managers from bullying and intimidating the men and women that they supervise. It won't fix our broken promotion system. It won't promote any change in the imbalance of power between management and employees in the RCMP that has bred a culture of fear and distrust of management among many members, a culture which actively opposes innovation and creativity.

Tell the government that RCMP members deserve to be given the dignity of being free to bring all matters relevant to our working conditions to the bargaining table, a freedom that every other police force in Canada enjoys, so that we can begin to fix our own problems from within.

How did the government embrace this plea for support and this call to action? The government bill that we were debating a year ago excluded staffing, deployment, harassment, and discipline from collective bargaining. Most witnesses at the committee that studied Bill C-7 expressed great concern about what was left out of this collective bargaining agreement. In the New Democrats' view, this meant that the bill failed to live up to the court's direction, but the government members voted down our amendments at committee which would have brought those vital topics into collective bargaining and would have amended the bill at that time.

The government then shut down debate last May, a year ago, because it was so urgent that we move forward. Then the Senate did its work and did it quickly. It removed those exclusions from collective bargaining. It allowed those matters to be included in the legislation for the purposes of collective bargaining. It reported to the government in June 2016 and the government sat on those Senate changes for 11 months.

I still feel that if the government had taken the opposition's advice a year ago, it could have incorporated those amendments early and could have given RCMP members some satisfaction that they were being heard. I am glad that the government members are listening to the Senate's advice on this matter, but still the government only told us this five days ago, and stakeholders did not hear before then, and it is shutting down debate tonight. I believe I am the second-last speaker. We have had closure on debate twice on a bill that is still not perfect. With respect to the Senate amendments the government is going to receive, we cannot tell entirely whether the government is going to accommodate all of the supports that our men and women on the front line need in order to be safe themselves while they keep our communities safe.

I will end by noting what Corporal Clover Johns from Nanaimo reminded me. He said that members of the House have what RCMP members do not now have. We hold the power to listen and to voice their concerns when they were not afforded an opportunity to do so. We have the power to enact just laws that enhance the national police force, to treat its members fairly, and to advance public safety in Canada. We should do that today and we should guarantee members of the police in Canada equitable, open, and harmonious labour practices.