Mr. Speaker, I am a little bit surprised that the Conservatives have chosen this element of this piece of legislation to circle again and again as their main point of contention. I am surprised they did not focus on the piece that is excluded from this legislation and the imagined collective bargaining that would happen between the employees and employer, the RCMP, which excludes the right of members to bargain around things like sexual harassment and workplace safety and security of the members as they serve our community so diligently.
There is the unfortunate recent history and long history, unfortunately, of the RCMP with these massive court cases now being conducted by women who served in the RCMP, who went through sexual harassment in the workplace, and it was never rectified despite commissioner after commissioner and government after government saying this is important. It never happened. They had to take it to court.
Why would the Liberals then choose to exclude that specifically from the right to bargain around issues like sexual harassment and workplace safety for those who are serving our communities? No other collective bargaining in the country would exclude this. For heaven's sake, why would the Liberals want to do this for the members of the RCMP? It is just beyond me.
This is one of the reasons why many women join unions, so they can have sexual harassment enshrined in their collective rights to protect them, so that the employers cannot abuse those privileges that they have as an employer.