Colleen June Bauman

The College of Family Physicians of Canada (CFPC) sought a court order validating its by-laws and articles, which had been amended over a decade without compliance with the Canada Not-for-profit Corporations Act (CNCA) due to erroneous legal advice.

The court found that the CFPC had failed to hold required separate class votes for membership changes, rendering its constating documents improperly enacted.

The Resident Doctors of Canada, while generally supporting the application, sought restoration of voting rights for family medicine residents.

The court held that section 288(4) of the CNCA provided broad remedial powers to validate the documents and to reclassify family medicine residents as voting members.

The application was granted, validating the CFPC’s by-laws and articles nunc pro tunc and restoring voting rights to family medicine residents.

The applicant hospital sought judicial review of a labour arbitrator's decision upholding grievances filed by the respondent union regarding statutory holiday premium pay for full-time employees.

The hospital argued the arbitrator unreasonably admitted past practice evidence and misinterpreted the clear language of the collective agreement.

The Divisional Court dismissed the application, finding the arbitrator reasonably treated the evidence as contextual factual matrix evidence rather than past practice.

The court further held that the arbitrator's interpretation of the collective agreement was transparent, intelligible, and justified within her specialized expertise.

The Ontario government appealed a decision finding that the Protecting a Sustainable Public Sector for Future Generations Act, 2019 (Bill 124), which imposed a 1% cap on compensation increases for broader public sector employees, violated the right to freedom of association under s. 2(d) of the Charter.

The Court of Appeal upheld the application judge's finding that the Act substantially interfered with the respondents' collective bargaining rights and was not saved by s. 1 of the Charter, as it was not minimally impairing and its deleterious effects outweighed its salutary effects.

However, the Court allowed the appeal in part to limit the declaration of invalidity to represented employees, as non-represented employees do not benefit from the same collective bargaining protections.

The applicants, representing various public sector unions, challenged the constitutionality of the Protecting a Sustainable Public Sector for Future Generations Act, 2019 (Bill 124), which limited wage increases for broader public sector employees to 1% per year for a three-year moderation period.

The court found that the Act substantially interfered with the applicants' right to freedom of association under s. 2(d) of the Charter by preventing meaningful collective bargaining over wages and other compensation-related issues.

The court dismissed the applicants' claims under s. 2(b) (freedom of expression) and s. 15 (equality rights).

The court further held that the infringement of s. 2(d) was not saved by s. 1 of the Charter, as the government failed to demonstrate a pressing and substantial objective or that the measure was minimally impairing.

The Act was declared void and of no effect.

The defendant brought a motion to strike the plaintiff's defamation claim against him on the basis that it disclosed no reasonable cause of action.

The plaintiff alleged the defendant republished a defamatory email by replying to the original sender and potentially blind copying others.

The court held that replying only to the sender does not constitute publication or republication in defamation law.

Furthermore, the plaintiff failed to plead material facts supporting the bald allegation that the email was blind copied to third parties.

The motion was granted and the claim against the defendant was struck without leave to amend.

The applicant fertility centre sought judicial review of an Ontario Labour Relations Board decision declaring that a 'health services integration' had occurred when the centre moved out of a hospital and hired some of the hospital's former unionized employees.

The Divisional Court applied the Dunsmuir framework to determine that the standard of review for the Board's interpretation of the Public Sector Labour Relations Transition Act, 1997 was reasonableness.

The Court dismissed the application, finding the Board's conclusion that the centre was an integrated component of the hospital and its decision to apply the Act were reasonable and supported by the evidence.