Madam Speaker, my question for the member is about what I would call blue herrings, instead of red herrings, and the idea that the Supreme Court required a union. The Supreme Court decision does not require a union. It gives the RCMP members a choice of how they wish to be represented. It simply removed the prohibition on their being in a union. I know he said this is the only case where people are required to have a union, but they are not required by this decision to have a union.
All other police in Canada have chosen freely to have unions, so it seems to me there is a bit of a non-issue here about intimidation to join a union, when police across the country in all the other jurisdictions have joined unions of their own free will.
The second part of that is the idea of a secret ballot. What people are deciding is whether to join an organization or not. No one is required to join a union, even if the union exists and the fact that someone has joined or not joined a union is public. Ultimately, in police unions someone will know what decision a member has made anyway. The idea that somehow the secret ballot that applies in elections applies when members are signing up to be a member of a union or not, it is a completely different issue. I would ask the member for his comments.