Pay Equity Hearings Tribunal
PEHT Case No: 3421-15-PE Pay Equity Office, Applicant v South West Community Care Access Centre, Respondent
PEHT Case No: 3422-15-PE Pay Equity Office, Applicant v North East Community Care Access Centre, Respondent
PEHT Case No: 3423-15-PE Pay Equity Office, Applicant v Waterloo Wellington Community Care Access Centre, Respondent
PEHT Case No: 3424-15-PE Pay Equity Office, Applicant v Central Community Care Access Centre, Respondent
PEHT Case No: 3425-15-PE Pay Equity Office, Applicant v Central East Community Care Access Centre, Respondent
PEHT Case No: 3426-15-PE Pay Equity Office, Applicant v Erie St. Clair Community Care Access Centre, Respondent
PEHT Case No: 3427-15-PE Pay Equity Office, Applicant v North Simcoe Muskoka Community Care Access Centre, Respondent
PEHT Case No: 3428-15-PE Pay Equity Office, Applicant v North West Community Care Access Centre, Respondent
PEHT Case No: 3429-15-PE Pay Equity Office, Applicant v Hamilton Niagara Haldimand Brant Community Care Access Centre, Respondent
PEHT Case No: 3430-15-PE Pay Equity Office, Applicant v South East Community Care Access Centre, Respondent
BEFORE: M. David Ross, Chair
DECISION OF THE TRIBUNAL: July 11, 2022
Decision
These ten applications are enforcement orders were filed by the Pay Equity Office. These "enforcement applications" were filed in 2016. They were held in abeyance pending the resolution of the corresponding challenges to the same orders filed by the Ontario Nurses Association ("ONA") pursuant to the Tribunal's decision dated April 13, 2016.
Section 4.2(1) of the Statutory Powers Procedure Act permits a panel of one to determine this matter.
In the Tribunal's April 13, 2016 decision, it held:
ONA has requested by letter that the Enforcement Applications be dismissed or adjourned sine die until the Objecting Applications have been disposed of, and that the parties be relieved of the obligation of filing Responses to the Enforcement Applications. While ONA has provided the Office with a copy of its letter, that letter does not set out the basis on which it objects to the Orders nor has ONA delivered a copy of the Enforcement Applications to the Office. I think the Office is entitled to verify from its own review of the Objecting Application the basis for ONA’s requests dealt with in this decision. Since all of the Objecting Applications are substantially similar, and since the Office is not a party to them, it shall be sufficient for ONA to deliver one of them to the Office, and I hereby direct it to do so.
The Tribunal’s usual practice in these circumstances is to hold an application for enforcement of an order in abeyance pending the disposition of an application that goes to the merits of the order. That is the appropriate approach here as well. Consequently, ONA and the CCACs are relieved of the obligation to file responses to the Enforcement Applications until such time as the Tribunal may direct them to do so.
The merits of the "Objecting Applications" have been decided by the Tribunal, and its decision was upheld at judicial review and leave to appeal to the Court of Appeal was dismissed.
Accordingly, the Pay Equity Office shall have until July 25, 2022, to advise the Tribunal if they desire to continue to pursue these applications. If the Tribunal does not receive the Pay Equity Office's response by this date, they will be deemed to be abandoned.
"M. David Ross" M. David Ross, Chair