Until the recent Supreme Court of Canada decision in Mounted Police Association of Ontario v. Canada1 RCMP members were not permitted to unionize or engage in collective bargaining. They had been excluded from the regime governing labour relations for federal public service members. Consequently, they were non-unionized federal employees. The court held, however, in a 6-1 decision, that section 96 of the RCMP regulations infringed subsection 2(d) of the Charter. The court found that the infringement was not justified under section 1. If section 96 of the RCMP regulations had not been repealed prior to the decision it would have been declared to be of no force or effect. The court found that subsection 2(d) protects three classes of activities:
iv. The right to join with others and form associations;
v. The right to join with others in the pursuit of other constitutional rights; and
vi. The right to join with others to meet on more equal terms the power and strength of other groups or entities.
Thus, subsection 2(d) guarantees the right of employees to meaningfully associate in pursuit of collective workplace goals. This guarantee includes a right to collective bargaining. And, the court found the right to collective bargaining is one that guarantees a process rather than an outcome. The process of collective bargaining provides employees with a degree of choice and independence so as to enable them to determine their collective interests and meaningfully pursue them.
The above is the an excerpt of Patrick J Ducharme’s book, Canadian Criminal Procedure, available at Amazon or in bulk through MedicaLegal Publishing along with Criminal Trial Strategies.
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