Ronald F. Caza

The respondents were entitled to costs of the appeal on a party and party basis.

The only outstanding issue was whether the Attorney General should be awarded costs of the cross-appeal on the section 15 issue, which the respondents had raised and lost.

The Court of Appeal awarded the respondents costs of the appeal against the Attorney General on a party and party basis, and awarded the Attorney General costs of the cross-appeal against the respondents on a party and party basis.

The appellants, dairy farmers, appealed a decision of the Director of Regulatory Compliance upholding six somatic cell count (SCC) test results in the penalty range, which ultimately led to their farm being shut off from shipping milk.

The appellants argued that the official test results were inaccurate and inconsistent with independent tests.

The Tribunal dismissed the appeal, finding that the high SCC scores were caused by a high incidence of Staph. aureus mastitis in the herd, combined with less than adequate management by the producers.

The Tribunal found no evidence of anomalies in the standard procedures used for sampling and testing the milk.

Appeal and cross-appeal arising from directions issued by a hospital restructuring body that would substantially reduce the services of Ontario's only francophone community hospital.

The Court of Appeal held that s. 16(3) of the Charter did not constitutionalize the institution's status and that s. 15 could not be used to supplement language rights not expressly conferred by the Charter.

However, the court held that the French Language Services Act had to be interpreted liberally and generously in light of the constitutional principle of respect for and protection of minorities, and that the impugned directions failed to respect that Act.

The court further held that, in exercising a public-interest discretion, the decision-maker was required to give serious weight and consideration to the institution's linguistic, cultural, and educational significance to the francophone minority.

Appeal and cross-appeal were dismissed, the quashing order was affirmed, and the matter was remitted for reconsideration.

The Health Services Restructuring Commission issued directions that would significantly reduce the services and teaching capacity of Hôpital Montfort, Ontario's only francophone general hospital.

The applicants sought judicial review, arguing the directions violated s. 15 of the Charter, administrative law principles, and the unwritten constitutional principle of the protection of minorities.

The Divisional Court dismissed the Charter and administrative law arguments but granted the application on constitutional grounds.

The Court held that the protection of minorities is a fundamental organizing principle of the Constitution, and the Commission failed to act according to law by ignoring the broader institutional role of Montfort in preserving the Franco-Ontarian minority culture.

The appellant appealed an arbitration decision that denied him income replacement benefits after September 25, 1995.

He argued that the arbitrator imposed an inappropriately high burden of proof due to his friendship with his employer and erred in defining his essential tasks by not considering planned expansions to the farm where he worked.

The Director's Delegate dismissed the appeal, finding that the arbitrator properly assessed the evidence and correctly determined that essential tasks must be based on the employment at the time of the accident, not speculative future plans.

No appeal expenses were awarded.

The appellant, a registered chicken producer, appealed a decision of the Chicken Farmers of Ontario (CFO) finding that it had produced and marketed 7,567 kilograms of chicken without quota, failed to report chicks placed, and failed to pay license fees.

The CFO had imposed a penalty reducing the appellant's future crop quota by five times the amount of the unreported chicken and assessed levies of $933.37.

The Tribunal heard conflicting evidence regarding whether the appellant had shipped illegal chicken to an abattoir.

The Tribunal found the evidence of the abattoir's bookkeeper and the redirected payment cheques to be credible, concluding that the appellant did ship the unreported chicken.

Finding no mitigating circumstances, the Tribunal upheld the CFO's findings and the five-fold penalty, dismissing the appeal.