S. Zachary Green

The applicants, representing various public sector unions, challenged the constitutionality of the Protecting a Sustainable Public Sector for Future Generations Act, 2019 (Bill 124), which limited wage increases for broader public sector employees to 1% per year for a three-year moderation period.

The court found that the Act substantially interfered with the applicants' right to freedom of association under s. 2(d) of the Charter by preventing meaningful collective bargaining over wages and other compensation-related issues.

The court dismissed the applicants' claims under s. 2(b) (freedom of expression) and s. 15 (equality rights).

The court further held that the infringement of s. 2(d) was not saved by s. 1 of the Charter, as the government failed to demonstrate a pressing and substantial objective or that the measure was minimally impairing.

The Act was declared void and of no effect.

The Ministry of Health appealed a Divisional Court decision dismissing its application for judicial review of Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario decisions.

The Tribunal had found that the Ministry engaged in systemic gender discrimination against Ontario midwives by abandoning equitable compensation principles established in 1993, leading to a significant compensation gap between midwives and community health clinic physicians.

The Court of Appeal affirmed that the standard of review for the Tribunal's decisions is reasonableness, even post-Vavilov.

The Court held that the Adjudicator's liability and remedy decisions were reasonable, as they revealed a rational chain of analysis supported by the evidence, and dismissed the appeal.

The applicants, operators of a restaurant, brought a constitutional challenge against the Reopening Ontario Act and its Step 3 Regulation, specifically targeting the masking and proof of vaccination requirements.

They argued these measures infringed their rights under sections 2, 7, 8, and 15 of the Charter.

The court dismissed the application, finding no infringement of the Charter rights, as the Charter does not protect purely economic interests or the right to operate a business free of regulation.

The court further held that even if there were an infringement, the public health measures were justified under section 1 of the Charter.

The applicant sought costs of $15,000 previously fixed by Kimmel J. relating to an injunction granted against the respondents for breaching COVID-19 public health orders.

The respondents argued they should be excused from paying costs as public interest litigants.

The court rejected this argument, finding that by choosing to disobey the law rather than challenge it directly, the respondents engaged in conduct harmful to the public interest.

The respondents were ordered to pay $15,000 in costs.

The applicant, an advocacy group for strippers, brought a judicial review application challenging COVID-19 regulations that temporarily closed strip clubs in Stage 2 and Stage 3 areas.

Before the application was heard, the impugned regulations were revoked and replaced, allowing strip clubs to operate with safety requirements.

The Divisional Court dismissed the application for mootness, declining to exercise its discretion to hear the case on the merits as the live controversy had ended and there was no cogent reason to depart from the general rule against hearing moot cases.

Following the dismissal of the respondents' motion for Charter damages due to procedural errors, the applicant sought costs for the hearing and for a prior hearing.

The respondents argued they were public interest litigants and no costs should be awarded.

The court rejected this argument, finding that public interest litigants are not entitled to cause wasted costs through basic procedural errors.

The court awarded the applicant $15,000 in partial indemnity costs for the recent hearing and deferred the prior costs pending a determination on the merits.

The respondents brought an interim motion seeking Charter damages and a declaration of invalidity regarding COVID-19 public health regulations that restricted their restaurant operations.

The court dismissed the motion on threshold jurisdictional grounds, finding that the respondents failed to commence an originating process claiming such relief and that their Notice of Motion was procedurally defective.

The court held it had no jurisdiction to grant final Charter damages on an interlocutory motion.

Following the dismissal of the moving party's motion to strike, the successful responding parties sought partial indemnity costs of $36,269.19.

The moving party argued for a maximum of $15,000.

The court considered the factors under Rule 57.01, noting the public interest nature of the litigation, the complexity of the constitutional issues, and the reasonable delegation of work among counsel.

The court found the requested amount fair and reasonable and awarded costs of $36,269.19 to the responding parties.

The appellant sought to certify a class proceeding against the Crown for failure to hold timely bail hearings, alleging negligence, breach of fiduciary duty, and Charter rights violations.

The motion judge dismissed certification.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding no cause of action in negligence (claims attacked core policy decisions), the fiduciary duty claim abandoned, and the Charter claims lacking common issues and not being a preferable procedure due to the need for individualized assessments.

The respondent (moving party) brought a motion for leave to appeal an earlier order.

The Divisional Court dismissed the motion for leave to appeal and awarded costs to the applicants (responding parties) in the agreed amount of $5,000.

The Court of Appeal for Ontario dismissed an appeal from the Divisional Court, which had found the Pay Equity Hearings Tribunal's decision unreasonable.

The case concerned the interpretation of the Pay Equity Act, specifically whether the statutory proxy method, used to establish pay equity in female-dominated workplaces, must also be used to maintain it.

The Tribunal had ruled that the proxy method was not required for maintenance, leading to an internal comparison method.

The Court of Appeal affirmed that the Tribunal's interpretation was unreasonable, as it ignored the Act's purpose, scheme, and wording, which necessitate an ongoing comparison to male (or deemed male) comparators to redress systemic gender discrimination.

The matter was remitted to the Tribunal to specify procedures for maintaining pay equity using the proxy method.

The applicant, an advocacy group for strippers, brought a preliminary motion for an order permitting the anonymization of affidavits to be sworn by strippers in support of an application for judicial review challenging COVID-19 regulations.

The applicant argued that publicly identifying the affiants would put their economic and family safety at risk due to the stigma associated with their occupation.

Applying the Dagenais/Mentuck test, the court found that the applicant established a serious risk to the administration of justice and that there was no reasonable alternative to the order.

The court granted the motion, allowing the use of non-identifying initials in publicly available documents, provided that the respondent and the court have access to the affiants' full names in a sealed record.

An individual found not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder in respect of sexual offences, and subsequently granted an absolute discharge by the provincial review board, challenged the provincial sex offender registry regime on equality grounds.

The majority held that the regime drew discriminatory distinctions on the basis of mental disability by denying those found not criminally responsible any opportunity for exemption or removal from the registry, in contrast to mechanisms available to those found guilty, and that the infringement was not justified under section 1.

The Court affirmed a tailored declaration of invalidity limited to those found not criminally responsible who had received an absolute discharge, suspended for twelve months, with the respondent granted an individual exemption from the suspension.

The concurring reasons of Rowe J. would have reaffirmed the Schachter framework for suspended declarations as grounded in rule-of-law considerations rather than adopting the majority's principled-discretion approach.

The partial dissent of Côté and Brown JJ. agreed on the section 15(1) breach and the suspension but would have grounded the suspension solely in the rule of law and declined to grant an individual exemption, which in their view exceeded the institutional competence of the Court and raised horizontal unfairness concerns.

The applicants, seven youths residing in Ontario, brought an application challenging Ontario's cancellation of the Climate Change Act and its newly-enacted greenhouse gas reduction target under the Cap and Trade Cancellation Act, 2018.

They alleged that the target violates their rights under sections 7 and 15 of the Charter.

Ontario brought a motion to strike the application under Rule 21, arguing it disclosed no reasonable cause of action, was not justiciable, was based on unprovable speculations, depended on positive obligations, and that the applicants lacked standing for future generations.

The court dismissed the motion to strike, finding that the target and plan are reviewable by the courts, the claims are capable of scientific proof, the matter is justiciable as it challenges specific government conduct, the issue of positive obligations should be decided on a full evidentiary record, and the applicants meet the test for public interest standing at this preliminary stage.

The Ministry of Health applied for judicial review of decisions by the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario finding that the Ministry engaged in systemic gender discrimination in setting compensation for midwives.

The Tribunal found that the Ministry had abandoned historical compensation principles that aligned midwives with community health centre physicians, leading to an inequitable compensation gap.

The Divisional Court dismissed the application, holding that the Tribunal's findings of adverse treatment and the connection to sex were reasonable.

The Court also upheld the Tribunal's remedial orders, which included a 20% retroactive compensation increase and $7,500 per eligible midwife for injury to dignity.

The applicant brought a motion to stay an individual exemption granted by the Ontario Court of Appeal, which had exempted the respondent from a 12-month suspension of a declaration of invalidity striking down sex offender registry provisions as unconstitutional in their application to persons found not criminally responsible by reason of mental disorder and granted an absolute discharge.

The applicant sought the stay pending disposition of a leave to appeal application.

The single judge found no special circumstances warranting re-examination of the Court of Appeal's prior refusal to grant the same stay.

The applicant also failed to establish a tenable case for irreparable harm, as the respondent's exemplary 17-year track record provided cogent evidence of minimal risk of reoffending, and there was no apparent reason to deprive the respondent of his s. 15(1) Charter right in the interim.

Motion dismissed without costs.

The appellant was found not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder (NCRMD) for sexual assault charges in 2002 and received an absolute discharge from the Ontario Review Board in 2003.

He challenged the constitutionality of Christopher's Law (Sex Offender Registry) and the Sex Offender Information Registration Act (SOIRA), which imposed mandatory lifetime sex offender registration and reporting requirements on him with no possibility of exemption.

The Court of Appeal found that while the legislation did not violate section 7 of the Charter (fundamental justice), it violated section 15(1) (equality rights) by discriminating against persons found NCRMD who received absolute discharges.

The court declared the provisions of no force or effect as applied to such persons, suspended the declaration for 12 months, but exempted the appellant from the suspension, ordering his removal from the registries.

The applicants, including the Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, brought applications for judicial review challenging the Ontario government's decision to withdraw the 2015 sex education curriculum and replace it with the 2010 curriculum.

They argued the directive infringed teachers' freedom of expression under s. 2(b) of the Charter, and students' rights under ss. 7 and 15(1) of the Charter.

The Divisional Court granted the applicants public interest standing but dismissed the applications on the merits.

The court found no infringement of s. 2(b) because teachers remained free to address topics from the 2015 curriculum, and no infringement of ss. 7 or 15(1) because the 2010 curriculum did not inherently deprive students of security of the person or substantively discriminate against protected groups.

The applicants filed human rights applications in 2009 alleging discrimination based on disability and sex regarding the refusal of public funding for in vitro fertilization (IVF) under O. Reg. 552.

In 2014, the parties settled the monetary claims, preserving the applicants' standing to seek non-monetary remedies.

In 2015, the impugned regulation was repealed and replaced with a new Fertility Program outside of OHIP.

The respondent moved to dismiss the 2009 applications for mootness.

The Tribunal found that while the applicants may have a live controversy regarding the new program, the amendments required to challenge it would constitute a new application.

The Tribunal concluded that the repeal of the 2009 regulation and the monetary settlement extinguished the live controversy of the original applications.

The Tribunal declined to exercise its discretion to hear the moot applications, dismissing them and noting that challenges to the new program must be brought in a new application.

O.P., suffering from end-stage glioblastoma, applied for a declaration that his planned physician-assisted death was permitted by law under the criteria established in Carter v. Canada (Attorney General), 2015 SCC 5.

The applicant argued that court authorization was not legally required but sought a declaratory order for practical reasons due to healthcare providers' concerns about civil, criminal, or disciplinary liability, and issues with the Coroners Act.

The court rejected the premise that physician-assisted death was permissible without court order pending federal legislation, asserting that judicial authorization remained a constitutional remedy under s. 24(1) of the Constitution Act, 1982 to ensure the rule of law and safeguard vulnerable persons.

The court ultimately granted an authorization order for physician-assisted death, finding that O.P. met all the Carter criteria, and provided ancillary relief regarding the Coroners Act and Family Law Act.