Mr. Chairman, honourable members of the committee, thank you for inviting me here to speak.
My name is Leland Keane. I'm a director of the Mounted Police Professional Association of Canada, also known as MPPAC.
I've been involved in the pursuit of collective bargaining for members of the RCMP since 1995. I would like to draw your attention to page 4 regarding discipline in part of our brief.
We have concerns with Bill C-7 about the adequacy and independence of the current process regarding discipline. The commissioner has the authority for appointing conduct authorities and conduct boards, but the appeals from these bodies are decided by the commissioner. The procedure lacks any independence from the RCMP commissioner.
In comparison, Ontario, for instance, has the Ontario Civilian Police Commission, which is much more independent. The first level of decision there on most misconduct issues is decided by the chief of police. Under section 87 of the Ontario Police Services Act, police officers or complainants can appeal that decision with the Ontario Civilian Police Commission, which is appointed by that lieutenant-governor. Further appeals would go through divisional court under section 88.
MPPAC calls upon the government to amend the current RCMP procedures for code of conduct and discipline matters to ensure a greater level of independence from the RCMP commissioner. We would like to see some civilian oversight.
On this fair dispute resolution process, RCMP members are precluded from striking. It's also in MPPAC's constitution. We don't want or seek the right to strike. Binding arbitration is vital to replace that process to make it fair and independent, which replaces our constitutional right to strike.
We have serious concerns about fairness and constitutionality of this dispute resolution in place. We understand the necessity for attracting and retaining personnel and Canada's fiscal circumstances, and the government's position is skewed in favour of that position.
In regard to arbitration, we want an arbitrator to independently consider all relevant factors and weigh those. Factors such as classification of employees would be something that we would be interested in having in the collective agreement. RCMP members are not civil servants, and it's not relevant to compare us to other civil servants.
MPPAC would propose such phrases “as between occupations in the public service” be deleted from the arbitrational factors in the PSLRA. We would like to see, on page 5, a paragraph (b):
the necessity of offering compensation and other terms and conditions of employment in the public service that are comparable to those of other employees in similar occupations in the private and public sectors, including any geographic, industrial or other variations that the arbitration board considers relevant;