(Canadian Press) – Ontario’s top court ruled Friday that rank and file RCMP officers cannot form a union.
The ruling in favour of the federal government upholds a section of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Regulations, which establishes a mechanism under which officers interact with management.
The mechanism – the staff relations representative program – came in response to the fact that RCMP officers are specifically exempt from the Public Service Relations Act under which most federal employees can form unions.
Several RCMP associations, which want to represent RCMP members in collective bargaining through traditional unions, argued the regulations violate their Charter right to freedom of association in the labour context.
In a ruling that overturned a lower court decision in favour of the associations, the Appeal Court disagreed.
“There is more than one conception of collective bargaining,” the Appeal Court ruling states.
“The Supreme Court has made it abundantly clear that (the Charter) does not guarantee any particular model of labour relations.”
In response, Ottawa argued the program affords employee participation in the decision-making process, and that the process is constitutionally sound.
The associations said because the program is merely consultative and management has the final say, the system could hardly be called collective bargaining.
The Appeal Court, however, said the associations had an “expansive concept” of the constitutionally guaranteed right to collective bargaining.
The Charter protection applies only to the right to make collective representations and to have those representations considered in good faith, the court found.
[Source]
An interesting court decision. One would have opined that freedom of association would trump aged regulations and practices (2d of the Charter). The decision notwithstanding, a provincially held authority does not guarantee protection against harassment or misconduct. There is substantial empirical evidence to the contrary from the disbanded drug squad in Toronto to the recent debacles in Vancouver that shows otherwise. Depending on the occasion, much is made of union protection for miscreants. More desirable to streamline and enforce strict procedures with independent outside scrutiny than simplistic calls for wholesale disbanding of any organization.
One more reason the force has to be dismantled and policing turned over to the provinces. Joe is right, there will be no protection for the harassed and bullied to those without union protection.
A dark day for democracy indeed. Perhaps we can reintroduce the rack, iron maiden and hobbling into all the “GOOD FAITH” we have been subjected to. Until such time the abuse, bullying, harassment (sexual & general) shall continue until morale improves!
“A man dies when he refuses to stand up for that which is right.”
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.