William Robinson

The applicant sought judicial review of decisions by the Ontario Labour Relations Board dismissing his appeal of a Ministry of Labour Field Visit Report for delay and denying reconsideration.

The applicant had filed his appeal approximately 17 months after the 30-day statutory deadline.

The Divisional Court dismissed the application, finding that the Board provided procedural fairness and reasonably concluded that the applicant failed to provide a cogent explanation for the delay.

The court also denied the applicant's request to introduce fresh evidence.

The self-represented applicant sought judicial review of the OLRB's refusal to extend the time to appeal an inspector's order under the Occupational Health and Safety Act.

Pending the hearing, the applicant brought a motion for a stay of the OLRB's orders, to admit fresh evidence, and to deliver a Notice of Constitutional Question.

The court dismissed the request for a stay, noting that staying a refusal to extend time has no practical effect.

The court deferred the issue of fresh evidence to the panel hearing the application.

The request to deliver a Notice of Constitutional Question was dismissed because the Divisional Court lacks jurisdiction to hear general Charter and human rights complaints in this judicial review proceeding.

A municipality contracted with a constructor to repair a water main and dispatched quality control inspectors to the project site.

A pedestrian was fatally struck by construction equipment at an intersection where required safety measures — a fence and signallers — were absent.

The municipality was charged as an employer under the Occupational Health and Safety Act for failing to ensure that prescribed regulatory measures were carried out in the workplace.

On equal division, the Supreme Court of Canada dismissed the appeal, with the majority holding that proof of control over workers or the workplace is not required to establish the actus reus of the employer's duty under s. 25(1)(c); control is relevant only to the due diligence defence.

The dissent would have either remitted the matter or restored the acquittals on the basis that regulatory measures apply only to work within the employer's sphere of control.

The applicant sought judicial review of an Ontario Labour Relations Board decision affirming a compliance order that required the applicant to pay overtime to employees at its centralized sweet corn processing facility.

The Board had found that the facility was not a 'farm' and the work was not 'directly related to primary production' under the farm worker exemption in Regulation 285/01.

The Divisional Court held that the Board's decision was unreasonable because it disregarded uncontradicted expert and operational evidence, adopted an arbitrary interpretation that created absurd results, and failed to properly balance the protective purpose of the exemption.

The application was granted, the Board's decision was set aside, and the court declared that the farm worker exemption applied to the employees.