The appeal concerned a constitutional challenge to Ontario’s separate labour relations regime for agricultural workers.
The Court held that s. 2(d) of the Charter protects a meaningful process of collective action toward workplace goals, including employee representations that employers must consider in good faith, but does not constitutionalize any particular model of labour relations.
The majority interpreted the Agricultural Employees Protection Act, 2002 as implicitly requiring good faith consideration of employee representations and concluded that the claimants had not established that the statutory scheme made meaningful association effectively impossible.
The s. 15 challenge also failed because the record did not establish substantive discrimination, and the claim was premature.
