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www.lawtimesnews.com Page 6 aPril 27, 2015 • Law Times COMMENT are politics at play in arbitration reform? ith recent government budgets showing the pub- lic sector continues to be in financial difficulty, the province could have made some headway on the issue in announcing its fiscal plan last week by moving on long-sought reforms to labour arbitration. As Law Times reported earlier this month, the Association of Mu- nicipalities of Ontario has been driving hard on the issue. It argues the system for dealing with labour relations disputes for emergency services employees such as fire, police, and paramedics is leaving municipalities in dire fiscal straights. While the province has repeat- edly said it's working on the issue, we've yet to see any results. The issue also surfaced in a recent interest arbitration award in- volving firefighters working for the City of Cambridge. After consid- ering the various criteria, including the employer's ability to pay, the current economic situation in Ontario, and a comparison between firefighters and other employees, panel chairman Larry Steinberg awarded the Cambridge employees wage increases of 2.7 per cent for 2013 and 2.79 per cent for 2014. That's hardly an excessive increase, but as city nominee Michael Rid- dell noted in his dissent, the award is "completely out of step" with other public sector settlements in Ontario. In particular, he noted another union had freely negotiated an agreement providing for no salary in- crease for certain employees in 2013 and 1.5 per cent in 2014. The concern, of course, is that when it comes to essential services workers like firefighters and police, the system makes it very difficult Decision against federal lawyer's election run sparks outrage in Ottawa federal government lawyer has lost her right to come back to her government job if she runs and loses in this fall's federal election. The Public Service Commission of Canada made the ruling last December. It has the public service, particularly federal lawyers, up in arms. Emilie Taman, a brilliant young law- yer with the Public Prosecution Service of Canada, is fighting back and taking her case to the Federal Court of Canada to overturn the ruling against her on the grounds it's a violation of her rights under the Constitution. Her union is backing her and is even supplying the lawyers for her. The commission has the final decision on who in the government can get time off to run in a federal election and who can return to their old job if they lose. Len MacKay, who heads the Association of Justice Counsel, says Taman's job advis- ing senior bureaucrats is in no way open to partisan bias. Her bosses make final deci- sions on cases, not her. Taman handles cases dealing with im- migration and refugee issues, the Fisheries Act, and Income Tax Act matters. Brian Saunders, who's Taman's boss as director of the Public Prosecution Service of Canada, said that going af- ter a party nomination would "undermine the indepen- dence" of his service. The commission accepted his thinking and said in its ruling that Taman's ability to come back and do her old job after the election might be "impaired or perceived to be impaired." Taman is no neophyte to the law. She graduated from law school in 2004 and has been a federal lawyer since 2008. Her mother is Louise Arbour, a for- mer justice of the Supreme Court who also served as chief prosecutor for the war crimes tribunals in Yugoslavia and Rwanda. Taman's husband, Michael Spratt, is a noted Ottawa defence lawyer. She has never been involved in a po- litical party, she says. She says she wants to run in Ottawa-Vanier but for now won't say for which party. We can guess, however. The incumbent in Ottawa-Vanier, a strong Liberal riding, is veteran Liberal MP Mauril Bélanger, who's running again. The Conservatives, meanwhile, don't have much of a chance in the riding. But the NDP has been holding back on a nomina- tion meeting, perhaps wait- ing for the outcome of Ta- man's court case. Wisely, Taman isn't tipping her hand right now. Unlike her, MacKay isn't holding back on anything. To him, it's plain the com- mission violated the Consti- tution in its ruling. Taman should have the same consti- tutional rights as any other Canadian citizen, he says. "It's spelled out right in the Constitution." MacKay says that when the commis- sion described what Taman does in her job, it could have been talking about any Canadian prosecutor as well any police officer. That's what made its ruling so frightening. "It would be tantamount to a blanket prohibition on federal pros- ecutors seeking elected office," he says. MacKay says it's so outrageous that the federal government will eventually have to rewrite the rules that deal with time off for elections for public servants who want to run. He has lined up two noted Ottawa lawyers, Janice Payne and Christopher Roo tham, to represent Taman. NDP justice critic Françoise Boivin, meanwhile, is furious. The suggestion offered by the commission ruling that former candidates can't make good, loy- al government lawyers after they come back infuriates her. "I nearly fell off my chair when I heard about this case," she says. It's "odious and insulting," she sug- gests, to say that a lawyer going back to a previous government job after a failed election bid will be biased. "Those two roles in society are so dif- ferent," she adds. "I am really upset." Boivin has been both a lawyer and an MP and she knows the difference. "I am really upset and I hope she wins her case in Federal Court . . . for all of us," she says. The union hopes to be able to get Taman's case into Federal Court before the fall election so she can at least have a chance to run for the nomination. LT uRichard Cleroux is a freelance reporter and columnist on Parliament Hill. His e- mail address is richardcleroux@rogers. com. ©2015 Thomson Reuters Canada Ltd. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reprinted or stored in a retrieval system without written per- mission. The opinions expressed in articles are not necessarily those of the publisher. 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One way to address the is- sue would be to refine the language in the applicable legislation to require arbitrators, as Riddell seemed to suggest should have been the case in the Cambridge matter, to focus more on settlements reached for oth- er employees working for the same employer. Given its current zeal for wage restraint, why hasn't the Ontario government acted? One reason may be the very active support the provincial Lib- erals got from firefighters during last year's elec- tion campaign. They certainly wouldn't welcome any changes that would end the automatic wage escalators the current system tends to put them on. The Liberals probably don't want to anger a key support group, which is too bad given the financial consequences for many public sector employers. — Glenn Kauth W The Hill Richard Cleroux A

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