OLDS — Red Deer-Mountain View Member of Parliament Earl Dreeshen has an idea on how to persuade the federal government to ease the burden on Olds and other municipalities facing big bills for RCMP costs as a result of a new agreement on back pay.
Last August, RCMP members accepted a six-year agreement that includes a 23.78 per cent pay increase for RCMP members.
Under that contract, which is retroactive to 2017, municipalities must make a one-time payment to RCMP members to cover pay increases from 2017 to 2021.
Coun. Heather Ryan raised the issue with Dreeshen when he made an appearance before town council earlier last month.
“With regards to the RCMP retro pay which is going to affect every municipality apparently, we don’t know exactly the total that we’re looking at, but I would like to see the federal government take responsibility for that,” Ryan said.
“They dragged their feet for five years on getting that done, and so this is sort of a downloading to municipalities.
“And at a time, like you just said, when everything else is going up exponentially, this is going to be a very costly thing for us to overcome. So I would like to see the federal government take on responsibility of covering that.”
Dreeshen said he and his fellow Conservative Party members have discussed the issue in caucus.
He suggested the federal government could divert at least some of the money it has earmarked for rapid COVID-19 tests to instead cover the increased costs for RCMP retro pay.
“I don’t know how many people are doing rapid tests at this particular point in time, but there was a contract let. So maybe there’s some other money that could be repurposed into some of the other priorities. That would be how I would politically push this thing,” Dreeshen said.
