Mr. Speaker, upon first glance Bill C-58 appears to be a rather innocuous bill. It is only two pages long with four amendments. It seems to be just a housecleaning measure.
The changes in this bill put into statute what has been in practice for years. Police officers within the RCMP have never viewed themselves as members of the public service within the meaning of the Public Service Staff Relations Act. They have a separate superannuation plan. They have a separate means of employee representation. They have a different body to review grievances and they have always considered themselves to be outside the regular public service.
Now we have a bill before us that puts this into statute. It is no big deal. It is really just confirming what is already a reality in one sense perhaps. However, one must look at what prompted the introduction of this bill.
It is not stated anywhere in the bill but acknowledged by the speaker before me, the hon. secretary of state. The motivation of this bill is a Federal Court appeal decision from March 10, 1994. In rendering its decision in Gingras v. the Queen in the right of Canada, the court concluded that the RCMP was included in the definition of the Public Service Staff Relations Act.
As such, it was required to pay the bilingual bonus that has been paid to the public service for years but had not been paid within the RCMP. Not only did the RCMP suddenly find itself having to pay the bilingual bonus, it was also required to pay a significant accumulation of bilingual back pay. This amount will run into millions of dollars.
Last year the RCMP spent $5.1 million on official languages, not including these retroactive bilingual bonus commitments.
Under the Gingras decision, the force will be required to pay all members who occupy positions that were designated as bilingual. In recent years the RCMP has not designated specific positions as being bilingual. Instead it has utilized the unit bilingual complement system.
Ironically, in its main estimates this year the RCMP stated that it was reinstating the bilingual position designation system in all bilingual divisions. These bilingual divisions include headquarters as well as A division, which is the national capital region, C division which is Quebec, J division in New Brunswick and O division in Ontario.
The force stated that it was required to reinstate the bilingual position designation to meet its obligations under the Official Languages Act, particularly as it relates to supervisory positions. The force does not mention how many of its positions are designated as bilingual but if it were to be 10 per cent of the non-civilian positions this would result in an additional expenditure of $1.3 million. If 25 per cent of the positions were to be designated as bilingual that would mean another $3.2 million.
Faced with this unexpected expenditure, the RCMP and government are looking for a way to get out of these payments. They had to look no further than the Gingras decision to find a way to get out of these payments.
It turned out that Mr. Gingras was a member of the RCMP security service in 1984. When that organization became the Canadian Security Intelligence Service he was transferred to CSIS. When it was created, CSIS was designated a separate employer. This means that CSIS employees do not have the Treasury Board as their employer and that the bilingualism bonus plan does not automatically apply to them. On August 7, 1984 Mr. Gingras' counsel asked the director of CSIS, Ted Finn, to recognize that Mr. Gingras was entitled to the bilingual bonus.
In a response dated March 5, 1985 Mr. Finn replied that he had decided to provide the bilingual bonus to employees in the administrative support category only and excluded the professional level position, including the one occupied by Mr. Gingras.
Mr. Finn justified his position by stating that Mr. Gingras did not qualify for the bilingual bonus in his previous position in the RCMP and he would not change that now that he was in CSIS.
In the Federal Court of Appeal ruling the justices found that the RCMP should have been paying the bonus all along. The court ruled that RCMP members were indeed public servants and that the RCMP was represented by the Treasury Board and thus the force was compelled to pay the bilingual bonus.
The RCMP was required to pay Mr. Gingras the bilingual bonus from November 28, 1980 when he first raised the issue until he transferred to CSIS on July 16, 1984. CSIS was required to pay Mr. Gingras the bilingual bonus from July 16, 1984 until March 5, 1985. Why March 5, 1985? Because that is the date that the director of CSIS decided that the bilingual bonus plan would only apply to CSIS employees in the administrative support category.
The court ruled that as a separate employer CSIS had the legal right not to pay the bilingual bonus. Once the director decreed that the service would not pay it to professional categories they legally could avoid paying it.
The court ruled that there were two required elements to avoid paying the bonus. First, the government agency must be a separate employer. Second, the agency must decide not to pay the bonus. Thus CSIS qualified on both points not to pay the bonus but the RCMP did not. Yet the RCMP decided that it would not pay the bonus.
Back in 1977 then Commissioner Bob Simmonds decreed that the bonus did not apply to the RCMP. While this comment was subsequently deemed to be an error in law, his reasoning for not seeking authority to pay the bonus was sound.
Commissioner Simmonds decided that the RCMP should not pay the bilingualism bonus on two grounds. First, other police forces in Canada did not pay bilingualism bonuses even in bilingual cities or provinces, and since the RCMP determined its benefit package in relation to the police universe it was not prepared to be the only police force to pay such bonuses.
Second, the commissioner went on to state that the payment of such a bonus would become a divisive element as it would create situations in which members of equal rank and responsibility working side by side could receive differing remuneration because one or several of them had either the good fortune to grow up in a milieu favourable to learning a second official language or have the equally good fortune to learn it at public expense.
This was sound logic in 1977 and it is still sound logic today. Why should the RCMP spend taxpayers' money to train some of its members in Canada's other official language and then turn around and financially reward them for having a second language? Then again, why should any government department spend taxpayers' money to train some of its employees in Canada's other official language and then reward them with $800 a year bonus?
The RCMP main estimates show that there are other rewards for being bilingual. As I mentioned earlier the RCMP stated that it is reinstating the bilingual position designation in all bilingual regions in order to meet its obligations under the Official Languages Act, particularly as it relates to supervisory positions. Since bilingualism is a required element to obtain a promotion to a supervisory position in a bilingual region then maybe that is sufficient reward for bilingualism.
Whatever the reason, the RCMP and the government have decided that they should not be paying the bilingualism bonus plan to its police officers. That is why today we are debating Bill C-58. The bill will give the RCMP the second requirement to avoid paying the bonus. By removing the RCMP from the Public Service Staff Relations Act the force will therefore be a separate employer. All it will have to do is have Commissioner Murray announce that it will not be paying the bonus and it will be legally exempt from doing so.
Well, almost. The force has decided not to remove its civilian employees from the Public Service Staff Relations Act. For whatever reason, the RCMP has decided that civilian employees, appointed or employed in accordance with section 10 of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Act, will still be covered by the PSSRA. There may be other reasons for treating them separately from the police officers within the RCMP, but it is clear the force will have to continue paying the bilingual bonus to these employees.
Current management seems to have forgotten the words of former Commissioner Simmonds who stated that payment of such a bonus would have a divisive effect on employees. Some may argue that the bonus is justified for civilian members because they are generally lower paid support staff. In the RCMP the 1,919 civilian employees of the force had an average salary of $46,178 per year. While Commissioner Simmonds' comment may have been made in reference to police officers within the force, the same divisive effect could occur among civilian employees.
Why should a civilian employee of the RCMP in a position that is designated as bilingual receive $800 more than an employee who is doing exactly the same job in a position that is not designated as bilingual? Why should we limit this to just bilingualism in the RCMP?
Consider the following comment: "This year approximately $50 million was once again spent without any assurance that the payment of such a sum was necessary to ensure Canadians of the availability of quality service in the official language of their choice. Given the present economic circumstances we are more than ever convinced that the bilingualism bonus should be eliminated gradually by negotiating with the parties concerned. In the interests of public finances as much as that of the official languages program, it is high time for the government to take the problem in hand".
If those words sound familiar, they are. They were spoken by the Commissioner of Official Languages in March of this year when he presented his annual report for 1993. While I take some exception with the commissioner's comments about eliminating the plan gradually, I fully agree with his recommendation that the government should turn its attention to this problem without delay.
The government should not have to resort to such sleight of hand legislation as Bill C-58. The RCMP should not be paying out millions of dollars in bilingual bonuses to regular members and special constables. Nor should the RCMP be paying the bilingual bonus to its civilian employees. Nor should any government department, agency or crown corporation be paying any of its employees the bonus. The government must come to terms with reality. That bonus must be dropped. When even the Commissioner of Official Languages is calling for its elimination it is time to drop the payments.
Bill C-58 seems like an innocuous bill. I am sure it was intended to be. The government certainly does not want to be seen as attacking any portion of the official languages program, but it intends to use the bill to circumvent it.
The time has come for the government to be straight with the Canadian public. It is time to scrap the entire bilingual bonus plan. We will support the bill because it takes a step toward eliminating the bonus, even if it has to take ten steps sideways to take one step forward.