Jim Eglinski

[Criminal Code, May 2nd, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member mentioned quite a bit about the vacuum that may come about if this does not happen. I would like his opinion on what would happen if this House votes the bill down.

[Air Canada Public Participation Act, April 18th, 2016]

Madam Speaker, I understand that the member's background is in aviation. He talked about the downloading of costs to the airlines and to the public. It reminds me of security at most of our airports. The security costs are downloaded directly to the airlines and to the public that are travelling.

Does the member think that the whole regulation system needs to be looked at and changed? I feel that the global security at our airports should be a national requirement by government and the costs should not be put onto the general public or the airlines that are using those airports.

[Air Canada Public Participation Act, April 18th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I agree wholeheartedly with the hon. member.

I was flying from Edmonton to Ottawa last weekend, and I remember looking at an Air Canada brochure that talked about carbon pricing, a carbon tax, and using light food containers. I wonder what the member thinks about flying across the United States to Mexico and how much fuel would be used versus putting light food containers in Air Canada's aircraft to save on carbon taxes.

[Salute to Agriculture, April 15th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, last Saturday in Leslieville Community Centre in central Alberta, I had the privilege of attending the Rocky Mountain House Agricultural Society's annual “Salute to Agriculture” banquet. This event celebrated the achievements of local farmers in the area.

During the event, post-secondary education bursaries were given out. Miss Jadey Van der Vlis from Alhambra, Alberta, in her first year of education at Red Deer College, was one of the recipients. Later on, I was speaking with Jadey about her wishes to become a teacher and her future. During the conversation, she excitedly mentioned that she had been selected as a finalist in the Miss Ponoka Rodeo Queen competition. I have just learned that she was selected.

I congratulate Jadey for becoming the 2016 Ponoka Rodeo Queen and for winning a post-secondary education bursary. Well done, young lady.

[Situation in Indigenous Communities, April 12th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, the problem that we are talking about tonight has been around for a long time. I go back to my first week as a police officer in early 1968. I do not think I was on the job three days before I had my first suicide, and I have never seen them stop. They need to stop.

We need to work together with our aboriginal communities, and we need to do something now. There is a lot of discussion of what we are going to do with programs, but we need to do something now.

I ask my hon. friend if he could tell us some of the things that we could do immediately to look at the problem and try to resolve the situation that we are faced with today.

[Public Service Labour Relations Act, March 24th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I apologize. The member has a number of large communities in the Prince George area. In his travels throughout his riding, has he spoken to the community leaders regarding any concerns they might have with respect to the impact to the physical costs if the RCMP were to unionize?

[Public Service Labour Relations Act, March 24th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I noticed you mentioned Williams Lake. That was my first posting, and it was a busy community back—

[Public Service Labour Relations Act, March 24th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to serve and will keep serving. I will to try to make 50 years. I will see if I can do it.

There is dissension within the RCMP, and I hate to see it. It breaks my heart. However, there are two factions, and one faction of members wants to unionize, because they think they can make things a lot better for themselves and force the hand of management in the RCMP.

There was a DSSR program that I feel worked extremely well at one time. It was the envy of a lot of police forces, because government paid RCMP members to represent us. We voted for those people, and they represented us. They argued for us, worked on discipline matters, internal matters, promotional matters, and worked very effectively at one time on our pay. When they were very effective and government listened to them, we were at the top level of Canadian police forces. We did not say that we had to be number one; we just wanted to be at the top and be fair. However, things have gone downhill drastically.

Therefore, I support the bill if it will help my members in the field. I do not want to see an organization that I was so proud to serve for 35 years stay at the bottom. I want it up there and my members to be happy. When they are happy, they will serve their communities in a much better way than they do today.

[Public Service Labour Relations Act, March 24th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I did not quite get that whole question, but I will answer it in the best way I can.

There is no unanimous agreement within the RCMP on unionization. There is a group within the organization that wants to go that way; there is a group within the organization that wants to remain basically the way it is today. The DSSR system was a great negotiating tool for the RCMP. It worked extremely well until government started to intervene with the democratic process of enabling the DSSR reps to represent the members in the field in the appropriate ways.

[Public Service Labour Relations Act, March 24th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to Bill C-7, an act to amend the Public Service Labour Relations Act, the Public Service Labour Relations and Employment Board Act and other Acts and to provide for certain other measures.

I will be sharing my time with the member for the great riding of Foothills.

As a former member of the RCMP, I was proud to serve with Canada's national police force. I recall the first day that I joined the force and I recall my last day. All of my 35 years within that organization were great.

Like many thousands of other members from the 1960s and 1970s who joined Canada's traditional world-famous redcoats, I can attest that I did not join up for the $4,800 a year but for the pride in serving our great country in Canada's police force.

We went where the force wanted us to go, from sea to sea to sea. We were all proud to serve, and we gave much to the force in long hours with no overtime.

We got the job done with basic equipment by doing the job with pride. In those days, some of our cars did not have radios. We were notified by a light that was turned on over the community that we had to return to the detachment, and we did so because that was our job.

Things needed to change with the rapidly changing times of the 1970s. Better equipment, better communications, better working conditions, and better compensation were the issues facing us. This was accomplished by a unique program that came about in 1974. The RCMP senior command listened and made changes. One big change was the division staff relations representation system, known to the membership as the DSRR.

The DSRR's work moved our force to the forefront. We remained one of the top 10 police forces in Canada in relation to compensation and working conditions through the efforts and great work of the RCMP DSRR system. We needed to have a say with respect to promotions, discipline, and grievances, and the DSRR program protected and served our members through the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s up to this present day.

Today it appears to have lost some of its effectiveness in promoting working conditions, compensation, and so forth, for reasons I do not want to go into. Last year I was shocked when I examined the 2015 RCMP review of the force in comparison to other police forces in Canada. When I proudly served, we were always rated among the top five police forces in Canada. Last year the RCMP was ranked below 50 other police forces in Canada with respect to pay, compensation, limited-duration postings, etc.

Canada's internationally acclaimed police force should not be at the bottom of the pile. It should be at the top. My personal feeling is that the DSRR program worked well at one time and could work well again if all of the departments within government would work together for the betterment of our men and women in uniform. This also applies to the military, firefighters, and first responders. Our men and women in uniform protect Canadians from harm's way. They often risk their lives in serving their communities, their provinces, and their country.

Personally, I believe that the RCMP, Canada's international police force, should not be unionized. There are so many situations that might complicate how this great organization performs its policing roles in the future, and I could go on for quite some time explaining what I foresee as future problems. However, I want to switch hats for a moment.

I was formerly mayor of a northern British Columbia city. For most cities, the cost of policing is one of their biggest budgetary items. I would like to provide a comparison of policing costs, and I will use British Columbia as an example.

The first example is with respect to RCMP communities. For communities with a population of under 5,000, the province pays 70% and the federal government pays 30%. For communities with a population between 5,000 and 15,000, the municipality pays 70% and the federal government still pays 30%. For communities with a population of over 15,000, the municipality now pays 90% and the federal government pays 10%.

Second, a comparison done several years ago showed that unionized municipal police forces in 12 communities in B.C. had 2,262 police officers looking after roughly 1.2 million people, at a cost of $348 million. RCMP contract services in B.C. at the same time in 28 communities with a population of more than 15,000 had 2,692 police officers looking after 2,109,601 people, at a cost of $369,652,000, or $22 million more for doing twice the work.

In my opinion, if the RCMP is unionized, the cost to communities across Canada contracted to the RCMP for policing services will increase dramatically.

Our Conservative Party respects the Supreme Court decision that the RCMP officers are entitled to bargain collectively. However, I cannot support any legislation that denies employees, especially RCMP members, the right to vote in a secret ballot on whether to unionize. The court's first and fundamental tenet of the charter right is employees' choice, and that is not reflected in this bill.

We do not use a show of hands or a public petition in our democratic elections, nor should we do in the workplace. The RCMP risk their lives every day. The least we can do is to give them the democratic right to vote, free of all intimidation, on whether to unionize.

We support this legislation going to committee, where we will ask the government to amend it to explicitly allow RCMP members the right to vote by secret ballot on whether or not to unionize. The RCMP's collective rights under paragraph 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 should be conducted in a way that conforms with our democratic principles, namely, by secret ballot.

Bill C-7 would bring certain parts of the workplace relationship outside of the bill, certain elements through the grievance process, and certain elements of the workplace would not be subject to the collective bargaining relationship. That is important, due to the unique role, chain of command structure, and heritage of the RCMP as a police force.

I urge the minister to work alongside the commissioner of the RCMP to ensure the bargaining and the well-being of our people, in safeguarding the employees' wellness in uniform and afterwards.

In closing, I want to remind my colleagues that RCMP members risk their lives every day. The least we can do is to give them the democratic right to vote on whether or not to unionize, free of all intimidation.