Hartley Morris Schwartz

The applicants, corporate retailers and their employees, were convicted of carrying on business on a proscribed holiday contrary to the Retail Business Holidays Act.

They sought leave to appeal to the Court of Appeal under s. 131 of the Provincial Offences Act, challenging the constitutionality of the Act under ss. 2(a) and 15 of the Charter.

The Court of Appeal granted leave to appeal, finding that the unique history of the legislation and the evolution of equality law left sufficient uncertainty regarding the Act's validity to warrant consideration by a full panel.

The Crown appealed a Divisional Court decision permitting the Ontario Federation of Anglers & Hunters to examine the Premier and the Minister of Natural Resources regarding the cancellation of the spring bear hunt.

The applicants alleged the Minister failed to exercise independent discretion and was improperly influenced by the Premier and political expediency.

The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal and quashed the summonses, holding that the motives for passing a regulation are irrelevant to its validity, and there was no justiciable issue or reasonable evidentiary basis to permit the examinations.

A motion to introduce fresh evidence was also dismissed.

The respondents were charged under the Occupational Health and Safety Act.

The Crown refused to disclose a Prosecution Approval Form, claiming solicitor-client privilege.

A justice of the peace found a Charter breach, ordered disclosure, and awarded costs against the Crown.

The Crown successfully applied to quash the costs order, arguing the provincial offences court was not a 'court of competent jurisdiction' under s. 24(1) of the Charter.

The Court of Appeal reversed this decision.

The Supreme Court of Canada dismissed the Crown's appeal, holding that a provincial offences court has the power to order costs against the Crown for a Charter breach based on a functional and structural approach to its jurisdiction.

The applicants brought a motion before a panel of the Divisional Court to set aside interlocutory orders made by a single judge in a pending judicial review application challenging the cancellation of the spring bear hunt.

The panel allowed the motion in part, permitting the applicants to examine the Premier and the Minister of Natural Resources under Rule 39.03 on the narrow issue of whether the Minister exercised independent discretion or was dictated to by the Premier.

The panel upheld the single judge's orders restricting the applicants to four expert witnesses and directing that the respondents' motion to strike portions of affidavits be heard by a single judge prior to the main application.

The applicant sought review of an Employment Standards Officer's refusal to issue an order for minimum wage and overtime pay.

The Officer had determined the applicant was a domestic servant and thus exempt from those provisions.

The Board found that the applicant, who cared for two young children for eleven hours a day, was employed as a nanny, not a domestic servant.

Applying a broad and generous interpretation to the legislation, the Board held that her extensive experience raising her own children and grandchildren satisfied the requirement of experience equivalent to formal training.

The appeal was allowed and the responding party was ordered to pay the agreed sum of $750.

Parents who, for religious reasons, sent their children to private Jewish and Christian schools challenged Ontario’s refusal to fund those schools and to extend school health support services to students attending them.

The appeal raised Charter claims under ss. 2(a) and 15(1), together with the constitutional significance of s. 93 of the Constitution Act, 1867 and s. 29 of the Charter.

The majority held that the non-funding of dissentient religious schools did not violate the appellants’ Charter rights, emphasizing the constitutional structure governing denominational school rights and the absence of any positive entitlement to state support for religious education.

The majority also held that the School Health Support Services Program was properly characterized as an education service linked to the public system and therefore did not infringe the Charter.

The appeal was dismissed, with partial dissents on the equality and school health support issues.

The corporate appellants, retail businesses, and their employees sought declarations that the Ontario Retail Business Holidays Act was unconstitutional, alleging it infringed freedom of religion and equality rights under the Charter.

The Supreme Court of Canada dismissed the appeals, holding that the appellants lacked standing.

The Court found that while there was a serious issue as to the Act's validity and the appellants were directly affected, there were other reasonable and effective ways to bring the issue before the court, as evidenced by their reliance on the evidentiary record of another case.

The Court also held that the appellants could not claim their own religious rights were violated without specific factual evidence.