During a strike by its unionized stage technicians, the Société de la Place des Arts de Montréal (SPA) decided to cease providing technical services to its tenants, requiring the tenants to hire their own technicians.
The union obtained an injunction from the Superior Court, upheld by the Court of Appeal, preventing the SPA from allowing tenants to use their own technicians, on the basis that this violated the anti-strikebreaking provisions of s. 109.1(b) of the Labour Code.
The Supreme Court of Canada allowed the appeal and vacated the injunction, holding that the SPA had genuinely abandoned the technical services part of its business and was not 'utilizing' the services of persons employed by another employer within the meaning of the Code.
