Last summer, the federal government and the union representing RCMP members ratified an agreement to achieve a significant pay rise to nearly 20,000 members.
As of Friday, police officers – who account for more than half of RCMP officers – will reach $ 106,576 – a jump of $ 20,000 from April 2016.
The agreement also provides for retroactive wage increases to cover the period the two sides were negotiating.
Taneen Rudyk, vice president of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, said municipalities were not at the negotiating table and were now considering huge bills that – depending on the size of the municipality – could range from thousands of dollars to millions.
The cost of municipal or district RCMP service contracts – including wages and equipment – is shared between Ottawa and other levels of government.
“What we were advised to prepare for, estimated at about 2.5 percent a year, actually turned out to be much lower than the final deal of 23.7 percent over six years, which is a retroactive pay from 2017. And “We certainly can not do this kind of growth,” said Rudick, a consultant for the town of Vegreville, Alta, about an hour east of Edmonton.
Unlike other levels of government, municipalities can not have deficits.
“We have to make cuts in our services or else make some really difficult decisions with huge tax increases on our citizens,” Rudick said.
The Federation of Canadian Municipalities has asked the federal government to include money in next week’s budget to cover retroactive municipal spending related to the implementation of the new pay scale.
“We are certainly not talking about the caliber of policing or community support we are receiving from the RCMP and we are certainly not talking about whether or not they deserve this retroactive assistance,” Rudyk said.
Remuneration rates for an RCMP police officer, according to the collective agreement signed in August. (Secretariat of the Ministry of Finance)
“What we are talking about is the very real fact that we were not consulted, we were not at the negotiating table and the bill was given to us de facto. And that just does not work.”
Public Security Minister Marco Mendicino said the RCMP should offer fair compensation for hiring and retaining officers. He also hinted that talks are under way to address the additional costs for municipalities.
“The short answer is … yes,” he said Wednesday.
“We work very closely with municipalities as well as provincial governments that are outsourcing the RCMP as a police force.”
