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Ontario public school boards are government; teachers hold s. 8 Charter privacy rights at work.
A school board principal accessed and photographed private communications stored on a cloud-based personal log that was open on a board-owned laptop.
The teachers' union grieved the resulting written reprimands, alleging a breach of privacy rights.
A labour arbitrator dismissed the grievance applying the arbitral balancing-of-interests framework without conducting a s. 8 Charter analysis.
The Supreme Court held unanimously that the Charter applies to Ontario public school boards under the first branch of the Eldridge framework, as public education is an inherently governmental function.
The majority held the arbitrator fatally erred by failing to apply the s. 8 framework, and quashed the award.
The concurring minority would have applied a reasonableness standard and found the arbitrator's reliance on the contents of the log to assess the biographical core was unreasonable.
The appeal was dismissed with costs.
Judicial review of Ontario's decision to replace the 2015 sex education curriculum dismissed; no Charter violations found.
The applicants, including the Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, brought applications for judicial review challenging the Ontario government's decision to withdraw the 2015 sex education curriculum and replace it with the 2010 curriculum.
They argued the directive infringed teachers' freedom of expression under s. 2(b) of the Charter, and students' rights under ss. 7 and 15(1) of the Charter.
The Divisional Court granted the applicants public interest standing but dismissed the applications on the merits.
The court found no infringement of s. 2(b) because teachers remained free to address topics from the 2015 curriculum, and no infringement of ss. 7 or 15(1) because the 2010 curriculum did not inherently deprive students of security of the person or substantively discriminate against protected groups.
Human rights application not time-barred; limitation period runs from effective date of termination, not notice date.
The respondent requested that the human rights application be dismissed for delay, arguing it was filed beyond the one-year time limit under s. 34 of the Human Rights Code.
The applicant received notice of termination on November 2 or 5, 2012, effective November 9, 2012, and filed the application on November 6, 2013.
The Tribunal held that the final act of discrimination in a dismissal is the effective date of termination, not the date notice is received.
Therefore, the application was filed within the one-year time limit and the respondent's request was denied.
