Mr. Speaker, I rise to pursue a question I first asked prior to the federal budget regarding funding for the RCMP.
The RCMP cadet training academy, better known as the depot, is located in my riding of Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre. We are also home to F Division of the RCMP which serves as our provincial police force. Its head office is in my riding. Regina is very proud to be associated with the RCMP and many of the workers there are constituents of mine.
Over the past six months a number of them have approached me concerned about the future of the depot and the future of the force. NDP caucus colleagues from rural, northern and remote communities have also been raising concerns about a shortage of RCMP constables in their districts.
Last October training was suspended at the depot. RCMP budgets across the country were frozen, $10 million was redirected to B.C. and a $1 million study of management problems was ordered by the Treasury Board.
In a former life I worked as a management consultant advising businesses on various aspects of their operations. It is not a bad idea for an organization facing or coping with significant change and outside pressure to step back and analyse what it is doing and how it could be done better. Evaluation, auditing and medium to long term planning are vital for an organization that spends $1.1 billion annually with such a critically important mandate as the RCMP.
The RCMP staffing shortage is an urgent problem, one that is already documented and that management and the Liberal government need to fix now. We do not need to wait for an organizational audit to see that. I am told that fully one half of the 16,000 member force will be eligible for retirement in seven years. We already have a shortage of 400 constables in western Canada. Why have we not been spending every single day training their replacements?
The depot knows there is a problem. Chief Superintendent Harper Boucher said just last week in the newspaper: “Right now, right across the country, there's a demand for new members, so we're not meeting that need”.
Last week it was announced that the depot could resume training using shorter length courses starting in April. That is a start but it will not begin to fill the backlog if half the force is retired by 2006. I see the government has restored about a quarter of the funds it cut to the RCMP's budget. They had better invest some of it in training new constables as soon as possible.
I would also like to mention the persisting worries of the depot's civilian workers who are being scapegoated for RCMP management's overspending in B.C. and Alberta divisions and headquarters.
They have been told that RCMP management wants to bring in alternate service delivery, ASD, which is a new word for privatization as a so-called cost saving measure. Everyone knows that in Saskatchewan privatization means fewer jobs, lower pay, reduced services and higher costs to taxpayers.
The civilian workers asked to meet with the solicitor general when he was scheduled to attend the graduation ceremonies last week. The solicitor general later cancelled his plans to attend and referred them to his deputy. The deputy then cancelled.
I hope the solicitor general and his deputy are not afraid to meet with those workers. They have important information for him about why privatizing those services will not save the money management claims. I have met with those workers. They provide a professional, loyal and dedicated service to the depot and the force.
Fundamental decisions such as privatizing civilian services at the depot should not be made until after the KPMG management audit has been completed and after the employees have had their input. The solicitor general should put the drive to privatize on pause and consider the impact on the workers, their families and on the city of Regina. I wrote to him and to the President of the Treasury Board over a month ago asking them to do so. I look forward, as do my constituents, to a reply which hopefully will be coming shortly. It has been over a month now.
