Mr. Speaker, the government has predicated its entire decision to legislate unionization of the RCMP on a Supreme Court decision, and has relied on the labour relations model that was established by Justice Ivan Rand, the author of the famous Rand formula.
I presume the President of the Treasury Board supports the Rand formula. He nodded, so I take that as a yes.
The formula comes from a ruling in the late 1940s, in which the justice said:
...unguarded power cannot be trusted and the maintenance of social balance demands that the use or exercise of power be subject to controls. Politically this resides in alert public opinion and the secret ballot.
Mr. Justice Ivan Rand understood the essential nature of a secret ballot for democratic decision-making. Why will the government not extend that right to RCMP members?