Howard Goldblatt

The Ontario College of Teachers brought discipline proceedings against a member for professional misconduct and incompetence related to the sexual abuse of multiple students.

The member had previously pleaded guilty to criminal charges of sexual assault.

Before the Discipline Committee, the member admitted to the facts, pleaded guilty to several allegations, and pleaded no contest to others.

The Committee accepted a joint submission on penalty, ordering the immediate revocation of the member's teaching certificate and the publication of his name in the College's official publication.

The employer raised preliminary objections regarding the Grievance Settlement Board's jurisdiction to make determinations about Orders-in-Council, classifications, and management/excluded employees in a policy grievance concerning the interpretation of a recognition clause.

The Board dismissed the preliminary objections as premature, finding that defining the scope of remedial authority at this stage would not narrow the evidence or shorten the proceedings.

The employer was invited to renew its jurisdictional arguments if and when the union seeks relief that may be beyond the Board's jurisdiction.

The applicant sought an order of mandamus to compel the respondent union's General Secretary to proceed with a complaints investigation.

The court assumed without deciding that the General Secretary's investigation was subject to judicial review.

However, the court dismissed the application because mandamus is an extraordinary remedy and the applicant had not exhausted other adequate remedies, specifically seeking reconsideration from the General Secretary.

Furthermore, the applicant failed to provide particulars of prejudice or evidence of bad faith, and the court noted it should be cautious in interfering with trade union affairs.

The City of Toronto appealed a Divisional Court order that quashed an arbitrator's decision.

The arbitrator had found that a new bargaining unit position was not covered by seniority rights protections in the collective agreement and fell under management rights.

The Court of Appeal agreed with the Divisional Court majority that the arbitrator's finding was patently unreasonable and dismissed the appeal.

The Minister of Labour appointed retired judges to chair compulsory arbitration boards for hospital and nursing home labour disputes under s. 6(5) of the Hospital Labour Disputes Arbitration Act.

The unions challenged the appointments, arguing the Minister was required to select arbitrators from a mutually agreed roster and that retired judges lacked labour relations expertise and independence.

The Supreme Court of Canada held that while the Minister was not restricted to a specific roster and retired judges as a class were not biased, the Minister's appointments were patently unreasonable because he expressly excluded the relevant criteria of labour relations expertise and broad acceptability within the labour relations community, which were essential to the legislative scheme.

In a complex policy grievance involving the history of collective bargaining and legislative history, the Grievance Settlement Board issued a detailed production order.

The parties were ordered to use their best efforts to locate and produce extensive documentation relating to the creation of bargaining units, classifications, and various agreements by a specified date.

The Board also ordered that no party would be permitted to rely on documents not produced by the deadline without consent or a convincing reason.

The applicant sought judicial review of decisions by the Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs Appeal Tribunal establishing a pricing formula for live chickens in Ontario and ordering the Ontario Farm Products Marketing Commission to amend its regulations to implement the formula.

Applying the pragmatic and functional approach, the Divisional Court determined the standard of review was reasonableness simpliciter.

The court held that the Tribunal had jurisdiction under the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs Act and the Farm Products Marketing Act to establish the pricing formula, fix the starting price, and direct the Commission to amend its regulations.

The application for judicial review was dismissed.

The applicant union sought judicial review of an Ontario Labour Relations Board decision granting a certification application by OPSEU for newly hired paramedics.

The applicant argued the paramedics were already bound by its existing collective agreement with the municipality.

The OLRB relied on extrinsic evidence to find the collective agreement's scope clause did not automatically include the paramedics.

The Divisional Court quashed the OLRB's decision, holding that the scope clause was unambiguous and the OLRB's reliance on extrinsic evidence to interpret it was patently unreasonable.

The applicant union sought judicial review of an arbitration decision that allowed the employer municipality to fill new positions using management rights clauses rather than seniority provisions from predecessor collective agreements following amalgamation.

The Divisional Court quashed the arbitrator's decision, finding it patently unreasonable to apply management rights while ignoring the seniority provisions to which those rights were subject under the statutorily mandated composite collective agreement.

Multiple consolidated appeals challenged the provincial system for allocating live chicken to Ontario processors under supply management.

The Tribunal conducted a de novo industry-wide policy hearing and substantially restructured the allocation regime by requiring confidential processor requests, use of aggregate processor demand within the national growth cap, stakeholder meetings where the cap is exceeded or national approval is refused, and a hybrid processor allocation model combining historic base with equal-percentage cuts to growth requests.

The Tribunal also imposed a 100% slaughter rule with penalties, created a capped new entrant program, excluded wholesale price from the live price formula, directed the development of a feed-chick-producer margin pricing formula and revised pricing grid, and ordered amendment of the export policy to remove the producer participation threshold.

The appeals resulted in detailed mandatory directions to the local board and the Commission on supply determination, processor allocation, pricing, category compliance, new entrants, and exports.

The employer City applied to the Board to determine whether certain platoon chiefs exercised managerial functions under section 54(2) of the Fire Protection and Prevention Act, despite having already designated them as managerial exclusions under section 54(4).

The Association objected, arguing the Board lacked jurisdiction to determine the status of designated individuals.

The Board agreed with the Association, finding that the Act provides two mutually exclusive routes for managerial exclusions.

Because the individuals were already conclusively deemed to be exercising managerial functions by virtue of the employer's designation, there was no 'question' for the Board to determine.

The application was permitted to proceed only with respect to non-designated persons.

The applicant employer applied to the Ontario Labour Relations Board under section 54(2) of the Fire Protection and Prevention Act for a declaration that Platoon Chiefs exercise managerial functions and should be excluded from the firefighters' bargaining unit.

The Board reviewed the duties of Platoon Chiefs, noting that while they supervise shifts and are the highest-ranking officers present 70% of the time, they lack the authority to materially affect the economic lives of the firefighters they supervise.

They do not hire, fire, or effectively recommend discipline.

The Board concluded that Platoon Chiefs do not exercise managerial functions and remain in the bargaining unit.

The applicant union sought a determination of the bargaining unit description following the amalgamation of several municipalities into the City of Hamilton.

The parties agreed the unit should include all firefighters as defined by the Fire Protection and Prevention Act.

However, the City requested a clarity note stating that duties of non-firefighters (managerial exclusions) shall be performed outside the bargaining unit, aiming to prevent the union from grieving the assignment of such work.

The Board declined to impose the clarity note, finding that doing so would improperly interfere with the union's right to enforce its collective agreement and bargain over the protection of bargaining unit work.

The Board defined the unit as agreed and remained seized of a separate issue regarding volunteer firefighters.

The Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs Appeal Tribunal issued a procedural order following a pre-hearing conference regarding an appeal by the Chicken Farmers of Ontario from a decision of the Farm Products Marketing Commission.

The Tribunal ordered that the appeal would proceed as a hearing de novo and consolidated several related appeals.

The order outlined the issues to be addressed, including total Ontario domestic supply determination, individual processor allocation, category requirements, price determination, and export policy.

The Tribunal also set deadlines for document disclosure and scheduled the hearing dates.

On an appeal from the dismissal of an application for judicial review, the court held that ministerial discretion under the Hospital Labour Disputes Arbitration Act remains reviewable for compliance with natural justice even where no Charter breach is pleaded.

The Minister's abandonment of the long-standing practice of selecting mutually acceptable labour arbitrators from the roster, and unilateral appointment of retired judges to chair compulsory hospital interest arbitrations, created a reasonable apprehension of bias and the appearance of interference with institutional independence and impartiality.

The court emphasized the essential-services context, the government's financial interest in the outcome, the labour-specific expertise required, and the lack of tenure and security for retired judges as ad hoc appointees.

The Minister also failed to meet the unions' legitimate expectations arising from representations that the existing appointment system would continue.

The appeal was allowed, declarations were granted, and the Minister was prohibited from making appointments outside the roster unless the appointee was mutually acceptable to the parties.

The appellant union appealed an inspector's decision finding that the City had complied with an earlier order regarding firefighter response protocols.

The union sought an interim order requiring the City to schedule two full-time firefighters at all times or instruct them not to respond to calls until two firefighters were on the vehicle.

The City raised a preliminary objection that the Board lacked jurisdiction to issue an interim order under s. 61(3.4) of the Occupational Health and Safety Act once a hearing had commenced.

The Board dismissed the preliminary objection, finding that the hearing and consultation processes are not mutually exclusive.

However, the Board dismissed the request for an interim order, concluding that the union failed to demonstrate compelling grounds to interfere with the inspector's decision or that the firefighters' health and safety would be jeopardized without the order, given the City's standard operating procedures for one-person crews.

The responding firefighter associations raised preliminary objections to the employers' applications for declarations of managerial status under section 54(2) of the Fire Protection and Prevention Act.

The associations argued that the employers must first exercise their statutory right to designate automatic exclusions under section 54(4) before applying to the Board.

The Hamilton association also argued that the application was barred or premature due to the pending municipal amalgamation.

The Board dismissed the objections, finding that the legislation does not require the employer to use its designations before applying to the Board, and that the pending amalgamation did not deprive the Board of jurisdiction to determine the composition of the existing bargaining unit.

The Chicken Farmers of Ontario appealed a decision of the Farm Products Marketing Commission regarding the allocation of live chicken to processors.

At a pre-hearing conference, the appellant requested that the hearing be bifurcated to deal with three preliminary jurisdictional issues—lack of notice, exceeding jurisdiction, and bias—before proceeding to the substantive merits.

Despite concerns from some participants about delay and duplication, the Tribunal ordered that the jurisdictional issues be heard first as questions of law, reserving the right to join them with the substantive hearing if material evidence becomes controversial.

The Board heard two appeals under section 61 of the Occupational Health and Safety Act regarding orders issued by an inspector concerning firefighter staffing.

The City withdrew its appeal after the inspector issued a subsequent decision finding the City in compliance.

The Board dismissed the City's appeal.

The Association maintained its appeal of the inspector's subsequent decision and requested an interim order regarding minimum staffing levels.

The Board established a timetable for written submissions on the interim order request and scheduled hearing dates for the Association's appeal.

Following the amalgamation of seven municipalities into the new City of Toronto, the Ontario Labour Relations Board was asked to determine the appropriate bargaining unit structures under the Public Sector Labour Relations Transition Act, 1997.

The Board eliminated a small craft unit of operating engineers at a landfill site, integrating them into the broader outside workers unit.

The Board rejected proposals to create a separate health department bargaining unit and a separate nurses' unit within the health department, finding that these employees were appropriately situated within the larger municipal inside workers unit.

However, the Board preserved the separate stand-alone bargaining unit for employees of the Toronto Parking Authority, noting its status as a distinct local board and successor employer under the legislation.