Senate to rewrite union bill for Mounties
Update will broaden RCMP’s bargaining, grievance rights
OTTAWA— In another demonstration of senators flexing their law-making muscle, a Senate committee voted Tuesday to significantly amend an RCMP unionization bill.
Members of the Senate’s national security and defence committee voted unanimously to amend Bill C-7 in several ways to broaden the scope of bargaining talks, to allow a broader range of grievances to go before an arbitrator or a public service labour relations board and to ensure a secret ballot whenever a bargaining agent finally stands up to be certified.
It came the day after the RCMP’s commissioner, Bob Paulson, was grilled over his proposal to strip Mounties of the right to bargain for essential working conditions as they form the RCMP’s first union.
Paulson admitted it was senior RCMP managers who proposed listing a number of areas to be excluded from the bargaining table in order to be transparent “because we thought in this very acrimonious season of an RCMP union drive, there would be criticism that we were trying to pull a fast one.”
Bill C-7 originally excluded any negotiation over law enforcement techniques, transfers and appointments, performance appraisals, discharges or demotions, conduct including harassment, probation, basic requirements for carrying out a Mountie’s or reservist’s duties and the uniform or equipment provided to RCMP.
Those vying to certify as bargaining agents for the RCMP opposed the provisions as handcuffing their ability to negotiate meaningful protections for RCMP workers from the get-go. Several senators agreed. Sen. Colin Kenny, a former chair of the committee, moved an amendment to delete the clause “to provide for a more robust communication between the union that is to come and management.”
“We’ve taken a look at a range of other police services that do not have exclusions listed precisely like this,” Kenny said.
He said Paulson made a point of “telling us that these exclusions are superfluous, that he feels they’re covered elsewhere. If that’s the case, I don’t see any reason to keep them here in the bill other than they would severely inhibit a union in arbitration or in its normal course of operation.”
The bill is the Liberal government’s response to a 2015 ruling by the Supreme Court of Canada that said RCMP members have a right to an independent and meaningful collective bargaining process, including the right to form an association to represent them that is independent of management.