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 top cop, Comm. Bob Paulson, was grilled over his proposal to strip Mounties of the right to bargain for essential working conditions as they form the first ever RCMP 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.”

At the same time, the Senate committee amended the bill to expressly recognize that the commissioner has management rights to direct the national police force.

Sen. Claude Carignan moved amendments that were also unanimously carried: to expressly provide for a secret ballot at a representation vote and to widen the bill’s limited right to grieve, to allow an arbitrator to interpret the RCMP Act and its powers, not just the provisions of a collective agreement.

The original Liberal bill proposed to limit grievances to a provision of a collective agreement or arbitral award. But now the bill would widen the right to grieve to include the “interpretation of a provision of a statute or regulation or of a direction or other instrument made or issued by the employer that deals with terms and conditions of employment.”

In theory, it could weaken the boosted powers that the RCMP commissioner received two years ago, under previous changes to the RCMP Act in Bill C-42, to be the decision-maker in harassment and other misconduct cases.

Carignan said it is important that an arbitrator have the power to interpret statutes, and not be simply limited to interpreting the collective agreement.

The bill is the Liberal government’s legislative 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. The decision led the RCMP to disband its in-house Staff Relations Representatives program.

“I think the senate recognized the importance of the Supreme Court of Canada decision in relation to this bill,” said Sen. Vern White, a former RCMP assistant commissioner and former Ottawa and Durham police chief. “The Supreme Court of Canada talked about a fair process between management and the bargaining agent. It was not felt with the exclusions in place there would be fair negotiations,” he said in an interview.

Sen. Larry Campbell, the independent senator and former Vancouver RCMP officer who sponsored the bill in the Senate, said, “We’re not taking anything away from the management and I believe we are effectively negating the need for another constitutional challenge on this.”

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In fact, the senate changes are a second big win for rank-and-file Mounties.

The Commons public safety committee had already amended the bill to drop another contentious proposal to direct Mounties’ workplace injuries to provincial compensation boards — a move the government said was simply about handing over claims to independent expert bodies, and not about saving money. However, the National Police Federation, founded out of the ashes of the now-defunct staff relations representative program, argued the move created a patchwork of care and benefits for a group of federal employees who deserved better.

Brian Sauvé, a co-founder of the National Police Federation, which is one of two groups seeking to certify as the national force’s bargaining agent, said in an interview Tuesday’s amendments were another big victory.

“It’s a win for the membership because now we are free and clear to negotiate terms and conditions of employment that are of concern to our membership. We’re not limited to what the commissioner wanted to discuss and what Treasury Board wanted to discuss, which was just pay and benefits.

“That’s the result of having the employee engagement after the fact instead of having employees involved in the drafting of the legislation. As the commissioner said yesterday (Monday), it was his senior management team, Treasury Board and public safety who put together this bill without any input from the employees.”

Sauvé said the bill still allows the RCMP commissioner the authority to manage the force as per the RCMP Act. “We’re fine with that.”

He said now, however, it will be possible to insert language into a collective agreement that will “provide for joint management-employee consultation committees and it will force the organization to have those committees and participate in those committees. Should they decide not to, then obviously it’s a violation of the collective and could be subject to a grievance and go through a labour board. And then you would have an arbitrator return a decision forcing the organization to give meaningful consultation to any of those issues.”

Paulson said Monday he was open to consultation, but Sauvé said, “I think that what you have to look at is the track record.”

“From what we’ve seen from the get-go, Bill C-7 was not drafted in good faith, it was not drafted with the membership in mind. It was not drafted with any employee engagement or consultation.”

He said the battle will soon move back to the Commons, after the Senate votes on its final, third reading, of the amended bill — expected as soon as Wednesday. “We hope we can encourage the MPs of the day to see the light and see the bill is better today than it was a week ago.”