Law Times - Newsmakers

8 December 2015 2015 Top Cases Busy year sees rulings on everything from assisted suicide to union rights BY DAVID DIAS THE RIGHTS AND OBLIGATIONS of public-sector work- ers are a lot clearer this year after a number of rulings that dealt with a host of touchy issues. Now, thanks to four rulings at the Supreme Court of Canada and the Federal Court of Appeal, RCMP officers are free to form unions; non-essential employees can strike; govern- ments can unilaterally freeze wages; and managers can dismiss employees without cause. Issues around mandatory minimum sen- tencing as well as conflicts of law and interest also weaved their way into the courts with the Supreme Court empowering judges to recog- nize foreign awards with no real connection to Canada. At the Ontario Superior Court, mean- while, a big law firm landed in hot water for allegedly advising one party while acting for its would-be opponent. Perhaps the biggest decision of the year — or at least the most impactful — dealt with the hugely emotional subject of assisted suicide. In a unanimous decision, the top court enshrined the right of patients suffering from incurable and intolerable diseases to seek medical help to end their lives. Here's a more detailed look at this year's big cases: Wilson v. Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. In a decision that upends 40 years of arbitral law, the Federal Court of Appeal ruled that em- ployers could terminate non-unionized, feder- ally regulated employees without cause as long as they give them proper notice and severance. e case, Wilson v. Atomic Energy of Canada, involved the termination of an employee, Joseph Wilson, who claims he lost his job for raising concerns about procurement practices. e employer offered Wilson six months of severance, but he refused to sign the release. He remained on the payroll until the severance period expired and then brought an arbitral motion under the Canada Labour Code alleging unjust dismissal. For the past 40 years, adjudicators have found that terminations of fed- eral employees required just cause. Justice David Stratas, however, put that notion to rest this year when he made it clear that common law principles applied to federally regulated employees. In Stratas' analysis of the code, he concluded that if Parliament had in- tended to implement a drastically different legal order in which common law principles played no role, "it would have said so in plain language." Wilson is appealing to the Supreme Court of Canada with a hearing scheduled for January 2016. Mounted Police Association of Ontario v. Canada (Attorney General); Meredith v. Canada (Attorney General); Saskatchewan Federation of Labour v. Saskatchewan Public-sector unions were big winners in January as the Supreme Court of Canada issued a trio of decisions that put limits on how governments use essential-services designations to prevent strikes and reaffirmed the freedom of all employees to form independent associations. In Mounted Police Association of Ontario, the court struck down an Ontario ruling that would have forced RCMP officers to bargain under the management-controlled staff relations representative program. e top court called the program a "human relations scheme" that failed to give RCMP officers the choice and independence that were core principles deemed necessary for true freedom of association. But the top court was quick to rebalance the scales, ruling in the com- panion case of Meredith that the insufficiency of the RCMP program didn't mean Ottawa would have to roll back wage cuts imposed under the 2009 Expenditure Restraint Act. Unilaterally imposed wage-restraint legislation is permissible, then, as long as the government applies it consistently. Just two weeks later, the Supreme Court turned to its own reasoning in Mounted Police Association of Ontario to strike down a lower-court ruling in Saskatchewan Federation of Labour v. Saskatchewan that had permit- ted broad use of the essential-services designation to prevent strikes in the public sector. e top court found that the province had imposed the designation on non-essential workers and, by prohibiting them from strike action, had violated their right to collective bargaining under freedom of association. Carter v. Canada (Attorney General) Assisted suicide will soon be legal across Canada thanks to a unanimous decision at the Supreme Court that grants dignity and autonomy to those with "grievous and irremediable" medical conditions under the right to security of the person. In its February decision in Carter, the court ruled on a case first

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