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Prince George facing $6.5M bill for RCMP retroactive pay

Funding to cover the cost of the federally-negotiated contract wasn’t included in the 2023 federal budget.
RCMP detachment
The City of Prince George will be required to pay an estimated $6.5 million in retroactive pay to local RCMP officers, following the release of the federal budget this week.

The City of Prince George will have to pay an estimated $6.5 million in retroactive pay to local RCMP members, following the release of the federal budget this week.

The Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) had called on the federal government to cover the cost of retroactive pay for local governments, after RCMP members across the country ratified a six-year labour contract in August 2021. The contract includes a 23.78 per cent pay increase and is retroactive to 2017, with municipalities required to cover the one-time back pay cost.

“Municipalities have been crystal clear,” FCM president Taneen Rudyk said in a statement released on Wednesday. “Local governments were not at the table for these negotiations. And while cost estimates were provided to some municipalities, these turned out to be far below the final agreement’s increase over six years, with retroactive pay going back to 2017.”

In 2022, municipalities were given a temporary reprieve from paying the back pay by the federal government.

Municipalities were warned about the potential one-time cost, and the City of Prince George had allocated $4 million into a reserve to pay the back pay by the time the contract was ratified.

The federal government should absorb the entire back pay cost, Rudyk said.

“The federal government’s refusal to absorb these costs – which were essentially negotiated with municipal money but not with municipal input – is not acceptable,” Rudyk said. “Municipal councils will be forced to make incredibly tough decisions, such as making cuts to essential services or passing the bill along to residents, at a time when Canadians’ concerns about local safety and the cost of living are already rising.”

- With files from Mark Nielsen