Douglas John Wray

The applicant union sought judicial review of an Ontario Labour Relations Board decision dismissing its applications for certification, termination of the respondent union's bargaining rights under s. 66 of the Labour Relations Act, and allegations of unfair labour practices under s. 53.

The Board had found that the preconditions for s. 66 were not met because the respondent union was already certified and the agreement merely expanded pre-existing bargaining rights to a new facility.

The Divisional Court held that the Board's interpretation of the Act and its factual findings regarding majority support and lack of employer support were within its specialized expertise.

Finding the Board's decision was not patently unreasonable, the Court dismissed the application for judicial review.

The employee was convicted of sexually assaulting a young boy in the course of his employment as a recreation instructor.

The employer subsequently dismissed him.

The union grieved the dismissal.

At the arbitration, the arbitrator allowed the union to relitigate the employee's culpability, ultimately finding the employee innocent and ordering his reinstatement.

The Divisional Court quashed the arbitrator's decision.

On appeal, the Court of Appeal upheld the Divisional Court's ruling, holding that the arbitrator erred in law.

The Court found that permitting the relitigation of a final criminal conviction in a grievance arbitration, where the facts and issues are identical, violates the finality principle and constitutes an abuse of process.

The appellant appealed an order of the Divisional Court.

The appeal was heard together with a companion appeal involving the City of Toronto and the Canadian Union of Public Employees.

For the reasons provided in the companion appeal, the Court of Appeal dismissed this appeal with costs.

The appellant appealed a decision of the Ontario Court of Appeal which quashed an arbitration board's award.

The Court of Appeal held that the failure to give notice of the arbitration to two unions that could be significantly affected by the award constituted a denial of natural justice.

The Supreme Court of Canada agreed with this conclusion and dismissed the appeal, noting that fairness and natural justice require notice to those significantly affected.

The Court also clarified that an arbitrator cannot be granted jurisdiction over a jurisdictional dispute without statutory authority or the consent of all parties.

The union filed an application for certification before the Ontario Labour Relations Board relating to employees at the appellant's chicken hatchery.

The appellant argued the employees were agricultural workers excluded from the Labour Relations Act under s. 2(b).

The union gave notice it would challenge s. 2(b) under the Charter.

The Supreme Court of Canada held that an administrative tribunal with the power to decide questions of law has the concomitant power to determine whether that law is constitutionally valid under s. 52(1) of the Constitution Act, 1982.

The Board therefore had jurisdiction to rule on the constitutionality of s. 2(b) of its enabling statute.

Appeal concerning whether employees of an intraprovincial Alberta short line railway carrying grain to a national railway fell under federal or provincial labour jurisdiction.

The majority held the railway was neither itself an interprovincial undertaking nor sufficiently integrated with a core federal undertaking under the functional integration analysis from the labour jurisdiction jurisprudence.

Physical connection, commercial dependence, and participation in a federally regulated grain transport system were insufficient to constitutionalize the undertaking as federal.

The appeal was allowed, the constitutional question was answered in the negative, and provincial labour jurisdiction applied.