Yes. With respect, I've represented members of the RCMP for more than 30 years and argued dozens, if not hundreds, of cases. I argued the Delisle case and the MPAO case. The MPAO case was not about the exclusion from the Public Service Labour Relations Act. If it was about one thing, it was about preventing members of the RCMP from unionizing and having collective bargaining. The exclusion was merely a mechanism. This is one of the few cases where the Supreme Court recognized that the purpose of the legislation was to deny unionization and collective bargaining.
On the issue of the paramilitary nature of the RCMP, that's old history. It may be that it was relevant in the days of the North West Mounted Police and the whisky trade and so forth, but all of the evidence before the Supreme Court indicates that the RCMP is a police force like any other. Generally, it has the same kind of role.
What I think is problematic about the exclusions is that they deny the RCMP itself, and people who have to deal with the role of the RCMP, the voice of the members who are on what you call “the thin blue line”, which can inform both management and should inform your committee ultimately, and legislature, on those issues of health and safety. I would turn the question around and say, “What is the justification for excluding that kind of a voice?”