Roundup: Two rulings and a report for the Mounties

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The RCMP were in the centre of the spotlight yesterday, with two Supreme Court judgements and a fact-finding report on the Moncton shootings all having been released. Regarding the former, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the ban on RCMP from collectively bargaining was unconstitutional, which opens the door for them to form a recognised police association (though they seem to be shying away from a full-blown union). This ruling has further reaching consequences as it also resolved some of the problems in the existing jurisprudence around freedom of association, which has been in a fairly bad state for the past four years or so since a previous decision introduced a great deal of confusion into the law. The second decision related to a challenge of the government’s wage rollbacks imposed on the Force in 2009 in the wake of the global financial crisis, but the RCMP lost that challenge because of the fairly narrow way in which it was constructed and argued. As for the Moncton report, much of it focuses on the lack of training and slow roll-out of new carbines, confusion among communications and problems related to body armour, many of which are problems that date back to the Mayerthorpe massacre of four Mounties. Where these two stories intersect, beyond the RCMP issue itself, is that police association members are saying that they could have addressed some of these problems and had timelines established as part of a collective bargaining process, which of course they don’t have.

Good reads:

  • After criticising the Parliamentary Budget Officer’s numbers about the shipbuilding contract, the government announced they were allocating more money for the Arctic Offshore Patrol Ships, and that they should begin cutting steel by this fall. You know – in time for the election. (More details here, and analysis here).
  • The NDP satellite office fiasco is set to re-ignite as attempts at settlement negotiations have apparently failed.
  • The changes to Parliament Hill security are expected to be in place by April.
  • Thomas Mulcair is apparently blaming Target’s series of bad business decisions that led to their pulling out of Canada on Stephen Harper. No, really. How, pray tell, could the government have helped Target create well-paying permanent jobs? Anyone?
  • Kady O’Malley digs into the elections filings from the recent by-elections, and notes the Liberals are catching up with fundraising and spending.
  • Ishmael Daro writes a cheeky explainer about the early election of 2015, while Andrew Coyne bemoans the fact that all of the pointless speculation points to our expectation that the government will ignore its own laws.

Odds and ends:

Thomas Mulcair worries that the government will politicize the national security file. Gosh, you think?

PMO doesn’t seem too concerned that Patrick Brown is missing a lot of votes as he runs for Ontario PC leadership. Brown named one of the property rights crowd in the PC caucus to act as his campaign co-chair.

Kevin Vickers is getting a not insubstantial pay raise in his new job of Ambassador to Ireland as compared to being Sergeant-at-Arms.

Bill Casey is apparently not a shoo-in for the Liberal nomination in Cumberland–Colchester.