Chairpersons Message
As the recently elected Chair of the Mounted Police Members’ Legal Fund (MPMLF), and on behalf of the Executive and Directors, I welcome you to our website. It is an honour and privilege to serve as one of your MPMLF Executives and I hope that you will find this site to be informative and helpful. I will post a more detailed statement in the future, but due to the urgency, I wish to post the following:
On February 18th, 2016, the Commissioner of the RCMP announced that your voluntary payroll Legal Fund dues deductions will stop effective March 30, 2016. We received notification of his decision about three hours before his email broadcast.
The Legal Fund Executive, Directors and Members are extremely disappointed that the Commissioner has decided to terminate members voluntary Legal Fund deductions at the end of March 2016. The Legal Fund had a long standing agreement with the Force, starting with Commissioner Philip Murray in 1996 and renewed with Commissioner William Elliott in 2008, regarding members voluntary payroll deductions. Members of the Legal Fund, approx. 16,500 at present, have relied on the Legal Fund to advance their interests and to be there for them when they have been disadvantaged, falsely accused and in some cases, treated with a lack of respect as a human being. Vulnerable and nowhere else to turn for assistance has been the testimony of many of the clients who have reached out for assistance because they enjoyed the benefits as a member of the Legal Fund.
Although the LF Executive had thought this was a possibility, we did not believe the Commissioner would act so quickly, nor did we believe he would do so without any consultation with the Executive of the LF.
That being said, we have been looking at other dues payment options and we have responded to the Commissioner, requesting he engage in some meaningful consultation on this matter with us before the March 30th deadline. As further developments arise, we will keep you informed.
Rest assured that no matter how this evolves, the LF is in good financial shape and does not plan on any deviation from our 18 year track record of assisting members. In early February, we confirmed our new Board of Directors and although the labour relations environment in the RCMP continues to evolve, the LF will continue to operate. Now is not the time to cancel your membership, in fact now is the time to add to our 16,500 members to afford all members of the RCMP the added benefits the LF has provided since 1998.
We are currently working with our Webmaster to allow our members the ability to log in and provide their personal email information so we can freely communicate.
So, stay tuned as we await a response from the Commissioner regarding his unilateral decision to stop voluntary payroll deductions as well as other options we are exploring such as online payment portals and direct deposit.
Sincerely,
Trevor Dinwoodie – Chair, MPMLF
February 19, 2016