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.
