Appeal from an Alberta labour reference concerning whether statutory prohibitions on strikes and lockouts, coupled with compulsory arbitration for public servants, hospital employees, firefighters, and police officers, infringed freedom of association under s. 2(d) of the Charter.
The majority held that s. 2(d) protects the freedom to associate but does not constitutionalize collective bargaining or the right to strike, and therefore the impugned provisions were not inconsistent with the Constitution Act, 1982.
The dissent would have held that s. 2(d) protected collective bargaining and strike activity, subject to s. 1, and that the impugned schemes were not justified except potentially for truly essential services.
The appeal was dismissed, with the constitutional questions answered against the appellants except that the final abstract exclusion question was not answered.
