Katherine M. Roy

The appellant challenged the constitutional validity of s. 68 of Saskatchewan's Correctional Services Regulations, 2013, which sets a balance of probabilities as the applicable standard of proof in inmate disciplinary proceedings.

The majority held that the proceedings constitute an offence punishable by imprisonment within the meaning of s. 11 of the Charter because disciplinary segregation and loss of earned remission are functional forms of imprisonment, thereby overruling R. v. Shubley.

The majority further held that s. 68 infringes s. 11(d) of the Charter by permitting findings of guilt without proof beyond a reasonable doubt, and that this infringement is not saved by s. 1 because an obvious Charter-compliant alternative exists.

The dissent would have dismissed the appeal on the basis that Shubley remains good law and that neither the criminal in nature nor the true penal consequence prong of the Wigglesworth test is satisfied by Saskatchewan's inmate disciplinary proceedings.

In an insolvency appeal, the Court considered whether provincial farm-protection preconditions conflicted with the national receivership regime under the federal bankruptcy statute.

The majority held there was no operational conflict and no frustration of federal purpose, emphasizing a restrained paramountcy analysis and cooperative federalism.

The purpose of the federal receivership provision was read narrowly as creating a national appointment mechanism, not guaranteeing a uniformly rapid timeline free from provincial conditions.

The provincial 150-day process and mediation framework therefore remained operative when a secured creditor sought appointment of a receiver over farm-related assets.

A dissent would have found the provincial scheme frustrated federal objectives of timeliness, flexibility, and emergency responsiveness.

This constitutional labour appeal addressed whether a statutory prohibition on designated essential-services employees striking substantially interfered with meaningful collective bargaining under s. 2(d) of the Charter.

The Court held that the right to strike is an indispensable component of meaningful collective bargaining, and that the statutory scheme’s unilateral employer designations and lack of a meaningful impasse-resolution substitute rendered the infringement unjustified under s. 1.

The declaration of invalidity concerning the essential-services regime was suspended for one year.

The companion challenge to amendments governing union certification, decertification, and employer communications was dismissed.