Erin O'Toole

[Public Service Labour Relations Act, March 22nd, 2016]

Madam Speaker, I thank my friend who I know is passionate about the subject. However, it concerns me greatly that he would suggest that the Government of Canada would act in an untoward manner against some of its own people. I am sure he can pluck a few Public Service Labour Relations Board decisions showing an employer trying to resist unionization. We are talking about the government. That is why his colleague was at this briefing. That is why the officials said that the normal course for certification in the public realm is by secret ballot.

What I find interesting is that these decisions have shown that the old Wagner model is wearing out, and the very fact of exclusivity for a union is now at risk. As a labour lawyer himself, the member should look at that. What is nice about Bill C-7 is that the government recognized the unique nature of the RCMP. Therefore, the traditional public sector unions cannot just move in and try and unionize this workforce; rather, it has to be a unique bargaining agent looking at the needs of the workforce. That is where labour law is going. It is looking at the unique needs of the workplace and the people at the front lines. Therefore, we respect the fact that Bill C-7 has tried to get that balance right.

Its one major omission is the secret ballot right that most public sector employees have enjoyed, which the Supreme Court has indicated is fundamental. I truly hope that the government realizes this oversight in Bill C-7 and moves to correct it. Then we would have something important for our men and women in uniform that could move quickly through this place.

[Public Service Labour Relations Act, March 22nd, 2016]

Madam Speaker, in fact, I am suggesting to the House and to my colleague that that is what the Supreme Court has required. With employee choice being the most fundamental element of this charter right, the true way to provide employee choice with respect to unionization and the bargaining unit itself is the secret ballot.

I keep finding myself referencing Liberal leaders in the House, usually to show how the new Liberal government is quite different from the past. We have had the secret ballot in Canada since Alexander Mackenzie, a little known prime minister. He was a Liberal prime minister in 1874. This has been a fundamental tenet of our parliamentary democracy and, in fact, my friend who asked this question was at the briefing with her officials yesterday, when one of the senior officials said that literally every certification vote in the public service has been by secret ballot.

Now that we have established it as a fundamental tenet, let us have it reflected in Bill C-7. As I said, if the Liberals support the Conservative amendment to this, we may see this bill pass speedily through the House, particularly with the court deadline of April. I would like to see the government move on this and see that happen.

[Public Service Labour Relations Act, March 22nd, 2016]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to rise today in this debate on Bill C-7 and to be the first speaker on behalf of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition on this important subject.

All parties in this place respect the important role played by the RCMP/GRC, our Mounties, and not just for the iconic image they represent around the world and the subsequent acknowledgement of Canadians as a people who respect one another and enjoy peace, order, and good government. We acknowledge, and we have paid homage in this House, when some of our front-line men and women have risked their lives and in fact given their lives in recent years in Alberta and Moncton, serving Canada and protecting the society we all enjoy.

The Conservative Party, when we were in government, followed the court case of the Mounted Police Association of Ontario very closely as it made its way through the courts. We are here today because of a decision of the Supreme Court of Canada that came down last year and provided an opportunity for the government to respond.

The previous government had been looking at the Supreme Court decision, consulting, meeting with senior leadership within the RCMP, and hearing from front-line members. Then there was the transition, and the same issue was faced by the new Liberal government, which asked for a bit of an extension in January. The court has given the government until April to come up with a framework for labour relations and bargaining for members of the RCMP that meets the spirit and intent of the Supreme Court decision in the Mounted Police Association of Ontario versus Canada.

I am here today as the official opposition public safety critic. I will be speaking just before or alongside my colleague, who is responsible for Treasury Board, and certainly the impact of Supreme Court decision has a dual aspect. It solidifies and elucidates the right to collective bargaining that the Supreme Court has given members of the RCMP, as their exclusion from the Public Service Labour Relations Act was declared unconstitutional and in violation of section 2(d) of the charter, the right to association.

However, there certainly will be economic ramifications of that as well. That is the second aspect of the decision, and that is why the opposition will lead off with both public safety and Treasury Board critics speaking.

As the public safety critic, having heard from Commissioner Paulson just yesterday and having already had the opportunity to have him before the public safety committee in this new Parliament, I want to begin my remarks by thanking the front-line men and women of our RCMP. They are charged with a very important role in our country, given the breadth and size of our country and the fact that large portions of rural Canada would not have policing services were it not for the men and women of the RCMP.

This conversation on this subject, while it deals with labour relations and ultimately will have an impact on the fiscal framework for Canada, must begin by acknowledgement on all sides of this House of the tremendous respect we have for the RCMP. There are 28,461 regular force members of the RCMP, not including auxiliaries, whom we all know and see in communities across the country. They also play a very critical role, particularly for large events and things like that in our communities across the country.

Let us put that in perspective for a moment. That number of 28,000 or so members of Canada's police force is significant when we compare it to the next-largest police force in Canada, the Ontario Provincial Police, with about 6,100 uniformed members, and the largest municipal police service, also in Ontario, the Toronto Police Service, with 7,900 members.

The Supreme Court, and really the court case launched by the association in Ontario, recognized that alongside its municipal and provincial comrades in arms, Canada's largest police force needed the ability to have effective collective bargaining in the same way that its provincial and municipal cousins did. The Supreme Court has given some guidance on that and this has led us here to Bill C-7 today.

However, Canada's largest police force, our national police force, does attract a significant expense of the Government of Canada for salaries, a $1.6 billion commitment to public safety, to front-line policing across the country. Only time will tell, but all parties acknowledge that the impact of the Supreme Court decision and the changing of the bargaining arrangement, or in simple terms the unionization of the RCMP, will have a significant impact upon the fiscal framework for Canada.

I say that mere hours before the budget is to be brought forward by the new government. I hope it approaches Bill C-7 and its implementation with a little more caution than it appears it has approached this budget, particularly when it comes to operational spending, most of which is made up of salaries. The pressure is on that, particularly once reference bargaining between the large municipal and provincial forces begins. We need to ensure our front-line officers get what they deserve, the support they deserve, the salary, remuneration, benefits, health care, and support for mental health. We need to ensure we look at the well-being of our front-line officers, not just in the context of salaries but in how we take care of them both while they are serving and after, particularly if they leave with a service-related injury.

In my far too brief time, unfortunately, as minister of veterans affairs, I had the honour of interacting quite regularly with the RCMP and its members. As the government knows, and as its new minister well knows, the ill and injured of the RCMP are provided for and their support is administered through Veterans Affairs Canada. We have certainly seen how in recent years the health and wellness support, particularly for mental injuries from service, has dramatically come into the modern era, and we are very proud of that. I know the new government will continue that important work. Our public safety committee right now is studying operational stress injuries, post-traumatic stress disorder for our front-line responders.

The interesting things we have learned over the last generation from our veterans and from our Canadian Armed Forces are now being shared with our RCMP and with municipal and provincial police forces. In fact, the document of the Canadian Armed Forces, “Road to Mental Readiness”, a wellness document for mental health, is now really the touchstone for first responder uniformed personnel serving in Canada. That needs to be a very important part of this discussion, as does the implementation of what comes from Bill C-7.

As the member of Parliament for Durham, I also need to once again thank the men and women of RCMP detachment Bowmanville, in my community, who are part of the Toronto East, the “O” detachment of the RCMP, which is not as widely seen in Ontario because we have the OPP. This detachment for the Toronto GTA East is very important. Like in so many communities, when the men and women hang up their uniform after their shift, these same people are often the coaches at the hockey rinks and the soccer fields, and become the backbone of our communities.

I want to salute the RCMP members in my own detachment and speak for a minute about the other eight provinces.

Quebec and Ontario have provincial police forces, but many parts of Canada would not have the important underpinning of public safety were it not for the men and women of the RCMP, particularly rural areas where often that member will be the first and sole response to an incident. In recent years, the RCMP's ability to work with parts of rural Canada, first nation leadership, and first nation police forces, has truly been remarkable. That needs to also be part of the framework that becomes the new collective bargaining approach for our RCMP.

Bill C-7 is the result of the government's response to the Supreme Court of Canada's decision in the Mounted Police Association of Ontario v. Canada. Specifically, it looked at whether the staff relations representative program within the RCMP met the test of giving the freedom of association to members of the RCMP guaranteed by the charter. One of the members of our caucus, who is a proud retired RCMP officer, knows that the staff relations representative program did try to act as that conduit between the workforce and management in the sense of a bargaining agent.

As a result of the creation of that staff relations program, going back to the 1970s, the RCMP was excluded from the Public Sector Labour Relations Act. It was specifically excluded in legislation. That exclusion, alongside an analysis of the staff representative program, was what the Supreme Court ultimately looked at. Its finding was that the staff relations program did not meet the standard it expected under section 2(d) of the charter providing the men and women of the RCMP with the freedom of association.

It is interesting and important to note that the decision of the Supreme Court did not say to just strike out those sections of the PSLRA, the Public Safety Labour Relations Act, and treat the RCMP like any other public service. The analysis of the Supreme Court decision is quite illustrative, particularly with our modern labour law, which is starting to move away from the traditional Wagner model that we inherited from 1930s labour relations in the United States.

What did the court actually say in this decision? We see parts of that reflected in Bill C-7, but we have concerns of another nature. The court said that section 2(d) guaranteed meaningful collective bargaining, meaningful representation, but it broke that down further and said that meaningful collective bargaining and meaningful representation had two parts. The first part was employee choice; there must be choice. With respect to the second part to provide that meaningful standard, there needed to be sufficient independence from management. This is really where the old model within the RCMP failed in the eyes of the court. The court felt the staff relations program was not seen to be independent enough from management. It was seen more as a human resources tool and not an agent for bargaining and protecting the collective rights of the employees. That is an important distinction to make. Had the staff relations program been a little more independent, this may have survived the Supreme Court's analysis.

The Supreme Court specifically said, “freedom of association under s. 2(d) is that the guarantee will not necessarily protect all associational activity.” The arrangement must not “substantially interfere”, and that is a later quote it used and is the standard, with the employees' rights to that bargaining, their choice, and the independence.

Bill C-7 does reflect that and would bring certain parts of the workplace relationship outside of the bill. I respect the fact the government has acknowledged that part of the decision. Certain elements through the grievance process and certain elements of the workplace would not be subject to the collective bargaining relationship. That is important, given the unique role and the chain of command structure and heritage of the RCMP as a police force. The government appears to have acknowledged that in Bill C-7.

What is absent entirely from Bill C-7 is that first element of the Supreme Court's decision, which is that meaningful collective bargaining and the meaningful right to association under the charter must have as its first principle employee choice.

In fact, I heard my friend from Spadina—Fort York earlier talk about the front-line members of the RCMP and say, “If they choose”. That is what the Supreme Court of Canada put as the fundamental construct to this relationship, employee choice.

However, what is absent in Bill C-7 is a codification of that employee choice which, in our modern democracy, requires a secret ballot vote. The members of the RCMP whose collective rights under section 2(b) of the charter can be exercised by their employee choice at the first instance, saying whether they want an association or not, and that vote to be conducted in a way that conforms with our democratic principles should be by secret ballot.

Why is that interesting? Because of the order paper we have two bills before Parliament. We are in the early days, so leaving out private members' business, I think we are up to Bills C-7 or C-8. Bill C-4 expresses the government's clear intention that secret ballot should not be a fundamental underpinning of the choice employees have on whether to belong to a union.

I have not heard the parliamentary secretary, my friend, in his remarks explain that omission. I hope to hear that addressed somewhere in the debate on Bill C-7, because it does drive an interesting omission on the part of the government.

The Supreme Court of Canada said that the first pillar to meaningful right of association was employee choice, but that is not codified in Bill C-7. Therefore, I think we will see the opposition, learning from the Supreme Court, ensuring that employee choice and secret ballot is directly a part of Bill C-7. We hope, with the government members being mindful of the court decision, it will agree to amend the bill to reflect that. If they do, it is our intention to work with the Liberals on it.

The previous government, as I said, was looking at the impact of the Supreme Court decision and how we could guarantee this charter right for our men and women of the RCMP, alongside ensuring that their important structure, chain of command and the important duties and risks inherent in policing are respected and not diminished, and public safety is not impacted through the course of what might be regular Wagner model union construct.

What is interesting is that this decision, along with the Fraser Health decision, has shown a gradual departure in labour law from traditional Canadian law. In fact, years ago, when Justice Rosalie Abella was on the Ontario Labour Relations Board, there was a balance between these arbitration-type boards, quasi-judicial bodies, the law and the legislature. Now that legislatures are intervening more in labour law and now that this charter right is developing with respect to association, it is changing the old model, and the courts have acknowledged that.

In fact, some of the best labour minds in the country, including some friends of mine with whom I used to practise law, including Brian Burkett and John Craig, have written on the move away from the Wagner model. What does that mean? It means the exclusivity of a union guaranteed by the Wagner model may indeed be a thing of the past, and that it is quite acceptable for provisions of what the police do to be excluded from collective bargaining. In fact, the court has said that the Wagner model itself is not the constitutional right. It is the meaningful right to collective bargaining and an agent that is constitutionally protected.

As I said, with the fundamental charter right that led to this decision, the two-part test, the first part is employee choice. Therefore, the government should have that reflected in Bill C-7: employee choice on who their agent should be, on their priorities, as well employee choice on whether they are unionized. That should be by secret ballot, which Canada has had since 1874. If the government acknowledges and amends this, it may see some unanimity in this place, and I would like to see that.

[March 21st, 2016]

Madam Speaker, I will use those seconds judiciously by first thanking the member for Calgary Midnapore. There has probably been no greater champion in the last decade-plus in this Parliament for freedoms of all kinds, and it is appreciated.

I think he has nailed it. The Prime Minister does not seem to understand that at the basic level the refugee and migrant crisis has a fundamental religious intolerance motif. If we do not promote a long-term strategy to address that, we are only going to see more dislocation, more violence.

While I have quoted former Liberal leaders in the House, I do not do that because I have joined the party; it is because they are moving the party. I think a lot of their own members who campaigned, as he said, in favour of this office, are now embarrassed that they are going to eliminate or dilute it.

[March 21st, 2016]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my friend, the member for Mount Royal for his interjection. Certainly it seems that he respects the work being done by Ambassador Bennett. What he does not realize is that the comments from his colleagues show a willingness to dilute the mandate, if not eliminate it entirely. When we are talking of a modest $5-million budget and a focus on religious intolerance, which is at the centre of the migration crisis around the world, this should be a focused mandate. It is only on its third or so year of operation.

In the quote I gave from Michael Ignatieff at the beginning, the previous leader of their party supported this office, and at the same time that the then member and current member for Ottawa South says it was not needed because Canada has a charter.

We do have a charter, and I showed how religious freedom and respect for tolerance is part of our charter. However, our charter does not have application around the world. Yet, the fight for religious rights and freedoms associated with faith and the practice of it is fundamental, which is why Ambassador Bennett and his team's mandate cannot be diluted. It should be supported. If the government wants to do more through trade or international development on institution building and other things, it can do that concurrently.

[March 21st, 2016]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate my neighbour from Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock for his remarks today, and my colleagues for bringing this important debate to the floor of the House of Commons.

Here we are within 140 or so days of a new government, and we are already fearing the elimination of something that should be a unifier, not just for Parliament but for Canadians. Yet, we brought this debate to the floor of the House of Commons because we feel that the Office of Religious Freedom and Ambassador Bennett are at risk of cancellation or at least dilution of their mandate, which is clear from some of the remarks of the government today in this debate.

Why should it be something that unifies the House? I will share with my colleagues a quote from a prominent Canadian upon news of the creation of this office. He said at the time in relation to this office, “We think an initiative like this is the kind of thing that ought to have the support of all sides in politics.” He went on to add that “[t]he defence of religious freedom is unconditional. It applies to all religious groups.... So I think a stout and courageous defence of religious freedom overseas is a good thing for Canada.”

Do members know who said that? It was the previous leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, Michael Ignatieff. That was his comment with respect to the then Conservative proposal about the creation of this important office. I agree with him.

Now, I have found in these short 140 days of the current Parliament that I am quoting a lot of Liberal leaders. In relation to the withdrawal of the ISIL mission, I quoted King, Pearson, John Manley, and Lloyd Axworthy.

I am fearing that my friends, particularly my friend from Calgary Midnapore, may be questioning my bona fides as a Conservative, especially today in quoting Michael Ignatieff. However, I do that for a reason. It is because the current Liberal government under the Prime Minister is changing the Liberal Party of Canada. I do not think enough Canadians see how quickly he is doing that. The comments from Michael Ignatieff on the creation of this office demonstrate that in spades. The previous leader of the Liberals defended the creation of this important office, this important position, and the fight for religious freedom and tolerance around the world. The current leader would eliminate the position or fundamentally change it within 150 days. That should concern Canadians. That should concern people who voted for this new government.

In fact, in Mr. Ignatieff's remarks in response to his support for the creation of this office, he mentioned, and many of my friends have mentioned, that these groups have been persecuted abroad, for years and in some cases centuries. He mentioned the Coptic Christians in Egypt. He mentioned members of the Bahá’i faith in Iran, Jews, and Christians. He mentioned China, where the rights of religious freedom are heavily restricted. Therefore, the previous Liberal leader supported the creation of this office, and it is sad that we have to bring a debate to the floor today. After just a few years, but in an exceptional mandate, Ambassador Bennett has received international recognition for his thoughtful and important interventions on this fundamental freedom.

I am going to use the next few minutes of my remarks to remind my colleagues how, as Canadians, we have this important office and an ambassador promoting religious freedom and tolerance around the world. It is a natural extension of Canadian values. What sunnier ways could there be than to preserve the freedom of worship for millions around the world? That is an essential Canadian value.

It brought to mind John Diefenbaker's speech on the night before he reconvened a special session of Parliament in 1960 on Canada Day, which was then Dominion Day.

On June 30, 1960, John Diefenbaker addressed Canadians because he intended the following day, in a special session, to introduce the Bill of Rights. In respect to religious freedom and rights to be protected and enshrined in the Bill of Rights, he said:

The experiences of many countries whose citizens have flocked to our shores in recent years...make it clear that we cannot take for granted the continuance and maintenance of those rights and freedoms.

The next day the Bill of Rights was introduced to the Parliament of the time. It was subsequently passed, and the Canadian Bill of Rights, subsection 1(c), protected the freedom of religion. It was then later enshrined in the Constitution Act of 1982, our Charter, as a fundamental freedom under subsection 2(a).

The Conservative's Bill of Rights from the Diefenbaker government, and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms under the Trudeau government, secured religious freedom as a fundamental pillar of the rights and freedoms that we enjoy here, and the values we therefore promote and protect abroad.

However, this office, and the position that Ambassador Bennett fills, is not a new extension of this position internationally. We had the Bill of Rights and the Charter, but in 1981, we were a signatory to the UN declaration on the elimination of all forms of religious intolerance. In fact, that UN section said that religious freedom must be fully respected and guaranteed around the world.

We were a 1951 signatory to the convention on the status of refugees. This is where I feel the hypocrisy of the new government is no more evident than by its successful integration of a Syrian refugee effort. We have complimented the government on doing it on a revised timeline to ensure the success of these new members of our family. Why are they in Canada? I would suggest, because it is hard to get data from the government, that almost all of them were fleeing religious persecution, or certainly a vast majority were. The government was good to extend the welcome and protection of religious freedom here, but it wants to eliminate our agent who is trying to promote that value abroad. I cannot square that circle.

It is a bit like its position on ISIL: We know the dislocation and threats of violence to so many people and we will help them if they come here, but we do not want to address the issues on the ground, whether it is a direct threat to life and security or it is the promotion of religious tolerance, which is usually at the root of this strife and out-migration.

It is important for us to recognize, again, that this is an area where in the past there has not been much white space between the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party. Despite some of the rhetoric at times, our record as Conservatives was actually better at helping the vulnerable.

Let us look at refugees on the government-assisted side. In the last two years of the Chrétien-Martin government, there were 7,400 refugees in each of 2004 and 2005. In the last two years of the Conservative government, there were 7,600 and 9,400 government-assisted refugees. The story is the same with private sponsorship, with about 3,000 in the previous years of the last Liberal administration. There were 5,000 and almost 10,000 private sponsorships in the last years of the Conservative government.

I am illustrating that, because one of the persecutions we allow refugees to find refuge in Canada from is religious intolerance. This is a circumstance where the work of Ambassador Bennett's committee that he helped spearhead on an international basis, with over 20 countries involved, promoting religious tolerance, understanding, and the ability for people to practise their faith in their country, is about protecting them where they live.

Why would we not both offer refuge for those who come here but promote refuge in their country? I hope they will stand up for this important office.

[Citizenship Act, March 10th, 2016]

Madam Speaker, this morning I talked about this being a policy choice, equating the moral blameworthiness of taking away citizenship for fraud, for immoral acts committed abroad, but now removing it for committing such acts at home for three narrow provisions.

Could the hon. member, as a lawyer talk, about this as a public policy choice? Treason was a ground for revocation under three Liberal prime ministers. That policy choice has not been explained. Could the member comment?

[Citizenship Act, March 10th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for that question because it does address some of my remarks. I have said that if we are talking citizenship they have not wanted to talk the moral rationale or the statistics leading to Bill C-6. However, in my remarks I did discuss that there are 52 countries, including India, that do not permit dual citizenship, and there cannot be a stateless person at law.

Citizenship has with it a number of rights and responsibilities that flow both ways. As I said, some scholars describe citizenship as a right to have rights or, in our case, additional rights like the right to vote to elect that member.

What we need to have when we talk about these things is a rational discussion about why the former Conservative government really just returned to the 1966 position of having treason as a ground for revocation. Mackenzie King probably brought it in; I should have done that research. This is a rational discussion we have to have, and I think most new citizens, when we talk about these narrow grounds, agree with it to preserve the sanctity of that citizenship.

[Citizenship Act, March 10th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my friend's narrowing in on the critical part of my argument here in the House, about the moral blameworthiness of conduct that would lead to a response from the state. That is essentially what criminal law is, whether one is incarcerated, fined, or whatever. That is the state pronouncing on the moral blameworthiness of conduct.

What I find striking, and the member raised it, is that a lot of people are fleeing countries where inhumane acts might occur, and we want to make sure that the perpetrators of those acts cannot come here fraudulently.

I am suggesting to the House that it is a perverse position to say that someone who comes here to do the same thing is not equally as blameworthy. I have to reiterate that since 1867, we are only talking about 30 or so cases this may apply to. The slippery slope and some of hyperbole we have heard from the government on this is simply not supported by the facts.

I am hoping that in our debate here, we start to hear some of those facts and some of that moral reasoning.

[Citizenship Act, March 10th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, the member is confusing my comments here today and why I feel that the narrow addition of revocation measures for crimes against the state, and my defence of that on a principled basis, is different from recognizing our parliamentary democracy.

The government has a right to bring Bill C-6 forward, but it is my role as a parliamentarian in the opposition to ask it for more of an explanation than a hashtag or some sort of an electioneering slogan. The Liberals have not explained that difference, and I will not reiterate it.

We should recognize that almost all European countries have revocation of citizenship for a variety of reasons, including treason and on public safety grounds. This is not abnormal. In fact, France is basically going the same way, recognizing this new phenomenon that needs to be addressed, where someone could arrive with malice in their heart to conduct an act against the French state. On the narrow grounds we are talking about, it is something that should be examined, as many European countries have done.