We have looked into the training period with the other police plans. If they were hired as employees of that force, then it's a tax compliance issue. In order to recognize prior service as pensionable, the member has to have been an employee; so if they were, they could be eligible. If it's like our program, where they're not hired as employees, they're not eligible.
We have done some research with our eight comparator forces, the police forces the RCMP compares itself against in terms of total compensation. The Vancouver Police Department, and Edmonton, Winnipeg, Toronto, and the OPP, we have discovered, do provide a salary to recruits. The others do not.
To go a little bit further, when you were asking if there is a provision in this bill that could deal with our own cadets, on page 2 of the bill we are amending the definition of “service in the Force” just for housekeeping and to refer to this “act” instead of this “part”, because of a change that was made to the definition.
I can point out that all members of the force are covered under the pension plan as long as they're working a minimum of 12 hours. This is where it goes back to being an employment issue. If those cadets, as in the past prior to 1994, were hired as members of the force, they were employees, and they're automatically in under the pension plan. It's not something we deal with in this bill. It's an employment issue. So if they're hired as members, they're in.
Can we have them buy their own RCMP cadet time as pensionable? No. We've consulted with CRA. There's a very strict requirement that as a registered pension plan we have to meet.