Thank you all for coming here today.
I want to follow up a little bit with Mr. Hill on one of the points that he raised. I'm an electrician, not a lawyer, but my understanding is that part of the Supreme Court decision was that the SRR system was unconstitutional because there was no way for employees to organize; there was no choice that they had. That's still the case with the new system up to the May 17 deadline. There was no need to get rid of the SRR system or to go after the legal fund in the interim, and even after that deadline there's still going to be a time before successful certification.
It doesn't seem to me that the Supreme Court ruling actually rules out having the old SRR system, once there's a choice, and then, if members chose another system because they had certified, it would supersede the SRR system. It seems to me that the RCMP management decision to deep-six those tools for members was premature.
I think it's wrong, in the context of a bill, to tell your members that you can't speak to parliamentarians. I think it's wrong for employers to intimidate their employees during certification processes.
I'm just wondering whether you can speak to the vulnerability felt by RCMP members from not having a decent representation structure and not having access. One of the differences, for RCMP members, if I understand correctly, is that they don't get the same presumption of innocence when certain kinds of charges are brought against them. This means they can be suspended without pay; it means it's very hard for them to fight legal battles in the event that they are charged with something, and that's part of the role of your fund, if I understand it correctly.
Can you just speak to that feeling of vulnerability and what it could mean in the context both of this bill and then of a certification drive?