An attempt by the Sunshine Coast Regional District (SCRD) to get a regional allowance to subsidize RCMP staff has been met with an unexpected setback – the Mounties’ recently formed union.
Federal Treasury Board President Jean-Yves Duclos delivered the news in a letter included in the Jan. 16 agenda package for the SCRD’s policing and public safety committee. “While I recognize the challenges you face, it is important to note that since July 12, 2019, the National Police Federation (NPF) has been certified as the bargaining agent to represent the RCMP officers in collective bargaining. An allowance of this nature would need to be negotiated with the new union,” wrote Duclos, an MP for a Quebec City riding.
Sunshine Coast RCMP Staff Sgt. Poppy Hallam acknowledged it is “a very strange time for us,” and hadn’t considered how the union could “get in the way of us having these conversations with Treasury Board.”
She forwarded the letter to the NFP and her superiors, for their consideration.
“It’s tough because people like my superintendent, Chuck McDonald, would be the people directing these types of requests and overseeing them, but they are not part of the National Police Federation union, so how is that stuff moving forward?”
Collective bargaining for the union is expected to start in the spring, and cost of living provisions may be folded into those negotiations, said Hallam, which is why she sent the letter to the NFP. She said they acknowledged receipt of the letter and would discuss it.
In the meantime, the committee voted to forward the Duclos letter to West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky Country MP Patrick Weiler and Powell River-Sunshine Coast MLA Nicholas Simons.
SCRD chair Lori Pratt had written a letter to the federal Treasury Board last October, urging them to create “RCMP-specific regional allowances, as offered in Northern communities,” to “alleviate the current resourcing challenges in some high cost rural areas.”
Initially, the issue was raised at a policing committee last July after three off-Coast officers had declined offers of employment, saying they couldn’t afford it, Hallam said at the time.
The RCMP is still not fully staffed, but “we have every person identified for positions, we’re just waiting for people to arrive,” said Hallam, who expects all transfers to arrive by springtime.
