L.A. Richmond

A provincially incorporated contractor providing construction services to federally regulated telecommunications companies sought to challenge a provincial labour relations board's certification of its construction technicians as a provincially regulated bargaining unit.

The contractor argued that its construction technicians performed work vital, essential, or integral to federal undertakings and should therefore be subject to federal labour jurisdiction.

The Court of Appeal reversed the Divisional Court's decision, holding that the presumption of provincial jurisdiction over labour relations was not displaced.

The court found that the federal undertaking (Rogers) was not dependent on the contractor's construction technicians, and that the proper focus in derivative jurisdiction analysis is whether the federal undertaking is dependent on the particular employees in question, not whether the work performed is generally important to the federal undertaking.

The applicant, a former member of the Labourers' Union, sought an order permitting him to make claims against the union's Benefit Trust or a return of his Dollar Bank Balance after being expelled for violating a dual union policy.

He also claimed the trustees breached their fiduciary duties.

The court dismissed the application, finding that the applicant ceased to be a beneficiary upon expulsion, had no right to a distribution of the notional dollar bank account, and that the trustees did not breach their fiduciary duties by adopting or enforcing the dual union policy.