Mr. Chairman, in most cases regional rates are the rates that permit equity in terms of the rewards for the work done. This is because the cost of living and market conditions vary in the various regions of the country.
This is so true that in a department like external affairs there are groups of countries defined according to cost of living, difficulty of being there, the element of nearness or being very far away, very isolated, and there are compensations for all of these factors.
In the RCMP there are cost of living adjustments for instance. Our regional rates adapt themselves much better to living conditions, the cost of living and local market conditions.
In the present negotiations we have reduced the number of regional rates from ten to seven. That was one of the difficult parts of the negotiations but we succeeded in getting agreement between employers and employees.