Mark Contini

The applicant union sought judicial review of four Ontario Labour Relations Board decisions that required it to enter into a collective agreement with the respondent employer following a final offer vote under s. 42(1) of the Labour Relations Act, 1995.

The union had refused to sign the agreement, arguing it would break a pattern agreement applicable to the non-ICI construction sector.

The Divisional Court found the Board's decisions unreasonable, holding that the Act does not require a union to object to a final offer vote at the outset, and that the Board unreasonably excluded the existence of a pattern agreement as a justification for refusing to sign.

The application was allowed and the matter remitted to a different panel of the Board.

EllisDon applied for judicial review of an Ontario Labour Relations Board decision that admitted a photocopy of a 1958 working agreement and found the unions were estopped from enforcing it for only two years.

The Divisional Court held that the OLRB erred in law by admitting the document as a business record or ancient document without assessing its reliability.

Furthermore, the Court found that the OLRB's decision to limit the estoppel to two years was unreasonable, as EllisDon had permanently lost the opportunity to seek a legislative solution.

The Court quashed the OLRB's decision and dismissed the unions' grievances, ruling the estoppel must be permanent.

The appeal concerned whether a labour arbitrator had exclusive jurisdiction to determine an employee’s entitlement to long term disability benefits payable under an insurance policy maintained pursuant to a collective agreement.

The court held that recent jurisprudence, including Pilon, did not extend arbitral jurisdiction to a dispute between an employee and an insurer over policy benefits where the issue was the insurer’s liability under the policy.

The arbitrator also erred in joining the insurer as a party defendant where no dispute properly implicating the insurer was before him.

The appeal was dismissed and the Divisional Court’s order quashing the award was upheld.