The applicant sought judicial review of an Ontario Labour Relations Board decision affirming a compliance order that required the applicant to pay overtime to employees at its centralized sweet corn processing facility.
The Board had found that the facility was not a 'farm' and the work was not 'directly related to primary production' under the farm worker exemption in Regulation 285/01.
The Divisional Court held that the Board's decision was unreasonable because it disregarded uncontradicted expert and operational evidence, adopted an arbitrary interpretation that created absurd results, and failed to properly balance the protective purpose of the exemption.
The application was granted, the Board's decision was set aside, and the court declared that the farm worker exemption applied to the employees.
