Brian Gottheil

The plaintiff brought a motion to set aside a registrar's order dismissing his wrongful dismissal action for delay.

The court applied the contextual test for setting aside administrative dismissals, balancing the explanation for delay, inadvertence, timeliness of the motion, and prejudice to the defendant.

Finding that the plaintiff adequately explained the delay, moved promptly to set aside the order, and that the defendant suffered no actual prejudice, the court granted the motion and set aside the dismissal order.

A proposed intervenor sought leave to participate extensively in a constitutional application challenging the Restoring Mail Delivery for Canadians Act, legislation enacted to end a postal workers’ strike.

The proposed intervenor requested rights to adduce evidence, cross‑examine witnesses, and make full submissions similar to the parties.

The court applied Rule 13.02 of the Rules of Civil Procedure and the governing intervention principles, including whether the intervenor would make a useful contribution without causing injustice to the existing parties.

The court held that the proposed evidence was largely argumentative and duplicative of arguments available to existing parties, particularly Canada Post and the Attorney General.

Finding the intervention would not assist the court and could expand the record unnecessarily, the motion was dismissed.