Public Safety Committee on April 19th, 2016

[Paul Dupuis]

Are you referring to regular members?

[Nicola Di Iorio, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

I am referring to civilian members. The provisions were overturned and now they are not excluded. They will be subject to provisions that are different from the provisions governing you.

[Paul Dupuis]

Bill C-42 will give Treasury Board the power to incorporate them into the public service at a later date. This is something that means that Bill C-7 contains specific provisions with regard to civilian members. And we do not know what the government's intention is concerning our civilian members. In our opinion, this is something else that must be discussed at the bargaining table.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Thank you, Mr. Dupuis.

Now we'll continue with Mr. Eglinski for five minutes.

I think we'll be able to get two more in because we started a bit late.

[Jim Eglinski, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

I'm going to talk a little quickly.

The RCMP is a unique organization. I do have to differ with one of the witnesses. I still believe it's a paramilitary organization, and the members within the organization recognize the rank structure and it's very important to that organization. Most members who join the RCMP choose the RCMP because of the uniqueness to other police forces in Canada and around the world. You have an opportunity to police in large communities as a municipal police force, to specialize in special investigations and identification services, to become a pilot, to do international peacekeeping, to go to small, remote, rural communities.

You have a great diversification, and I don't believe we can lump them all together because each role is different and you choose to specialize within that organization, whether it's general duty policing or special investigations. You choose and you make a career and you can climb within the rank structure from a constable to a chief superintendent to a commissioner if you so choose and many have gone that route.

Brendan, I served 34 years on the force and when I left I served an additional eight years as a recruiting officer across British Columbia. Now, as a member of Parliament, I have eight or nine detachments in my area and I visit with my guys fairly regularly. They all know me, and I keep a fairly close liaison. I don't believe there's a strong feeling out there among the people I'm talking to in rural Alberta, and even to the members I'm talking to on the Hill, that they want a union. I don't believe it's a popular thing among them. I believe it's a movement by some within the organization.

Has a statistical count ever been done within the organization? What is your feeling on the fact that they have to become unionized because the courts have now told us that? What is your overall feeling on the overall picture of the force?

[Brendan McKenna]

Thank you.

I think part of this goes back to the fact that there have been consistent and significant efforts on the part of the organization to restrict the amount of information that members get. What you're suggesting—a lack of interest in unionization—I think a lot of that is being driven by some of the middle management, senior NCOs who have come up, starting at my vintage or maybe earlier, who feel it's disloyal to want to have a unionized organization.

When I got involved with the association movement and the founding of the association of British Columbia, I was considered a radical, almost a communist, that I was advocating against management and wanted to overthrow the force. In that time I've seen the Chicken Little scenario trotted out repeatedly about how we're all going to be in chaos if the members of the RCMP get parity with the police forces across the country who have input into their pay and pension and benefits and working conditions. Of course, it's a lot of palaver.

I think that the vast majority of members in the smaller places still exist in an environment whereby disagreeing or confronting your NCO in charge, if it's a small detachment of five or six or ten people, runs the risk—whether they run the risk or think they run the risk—of being singled out and not getting vacation when they want it or not getting courses or falling out of favour with the person who can directly impact their day-to-day living. That may be driving some of that.

I think that after the Supreme Court decision came out in January last year, the message from the commissioner's office and senior management was that members would be updated and they'd be provided with a lot of information. Virtually no information has been provided to anybody other than the edict that you couldn't use the information systems, you couldn't have any meetings in the workplace about anything to do with unionization.

It's such a big organization, you can never get everybody into a room. That's one of the reasons it's taken so long to get us to this point. In cities, any police force can get a significant number of members to some kind of a meeting, whereas the mounted police are spread out across the whole country. How could you ever get everybody in one place and if you do have them all in one place, who's looking after the country? You can't do it. You're only ever going to get small portions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Rob Oliphant]

Thank you, Mr. McKenna.

I love the variety within the membership of the RCMP. It's great.

Mr. Spengemann, I think this will be our last round, for five minutes.

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to thank you, sir, for appearing at this committee and for the services that you provide to our country.

Very briefly, I wanted first of all to reassure you the entire committee takes the well-being of our first responders very seriously. Speaking for the Liberal side of the committee, we have some serious concerns about clauses 40 and 42, and a feeling these provisions may be premature at this stage of the legislative process.

In the interest of time, I will ask this question only to Mr. McKenna. What is the current size of your membership?

[Brendan McKenna]

I'd love to give you that number, but I don't have it.

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Approximate, ballpark...?

[Brendan McKenna]

I couldn't tell you. I don't have that information. I'm not even close.

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Would you have a sense of what percentage of your membership would be women? Again, approximately.

[Brendan McKenna]

I don't have that information in front of me. I could get it for you later today.

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

How do you keep in touch with membership and how do you solicit their views on initiatives like Bill C-7?

[Brendan McKenna]

Much of it has been done through the MPPAC website and we have, of course, peoples' personal email addresses. For anybody who has joined the association movement, we have their personal emails and we distribute emails all the time.

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Would you say you received a fair cross-section of comments from across the membership in terms of diversity, gender, and geographic location? Or you haven't done the analysis—

[Brendan McKenna]

We haven't done that analysis.

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Okay. Would you say the RCMP currently has pay equity as a police force?

[Brendan McKenna]

Pay equity across the genders within the force?

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Yes.

[Brendan McKenna]

I would say probably, yes.

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Is that the policy of the force?

[Brendan McKenna]

I think it's a federal government policy. It's a Treasury Board policy.

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Your own mechanisms allow you to verify that's the case. You're satisfied that's pretty much where it needs to be.

[Brendan McKenna]

I think the Treasury Board policies don't discriminate. You don't decide one way or another. It's the same for everybody. It's the position and not the gender.