Syndicat
Continued From Page 3
therefore null and void.
Finding that both the CRT
and a grievance arbitrator could
overturn a dismissal, order the
employee’s reinstatement or fix
indemnities and that the two
recourses had similar time limits,
he noted that s. 124 “does not
require the recourses to be per-
fectly identical; it requires them
to be equivalent, which they are. I
would therefore conclude that
grievance arbitration is an
equivalent recourse in this case
because of the way the ALS, as a
statute of public order, affects the
content of the agreement, and on
that basis I would find that the
arbitrator had jurisdiction.”
In a dissent supported by
Chief Justice Beverley McLach-
lin, Justices Ian Binnie and Mar-
shall Rothstein, Justice Marie
Deschamps contended that since
there was no rule conferring
exclusive jurisdiction to resolve
disputes between unionized
employees and their employers
on grievance arbitrators, it was
necessary in each case to inter-
pret the law and consider the
nature of the dispute to deter-
mine whether the arbitrator had
exclusive jurisdiction.
Justice Deschamps held that
the clauses of the collective
agreement limiting access to the
grievance procedure were not
contrary to public order, since
they did not deprive the employ-
ees of the protection provided for
in s. 124. “Limiting access to the
grievance procedure is not pro-
hibited by either the A.L.S. or the
[Quebec] Labour Code.”
Noting that the parties had
not generally incorporated the
standards established in the ALS
into the collective agreement, she
said the ALS has no provision
requiring a collective agreement
to make the grievance procedure
available for all the standards
established in the statute.
“Rather, the ALS establishes a
recourse for cases in which the
agreement does not provide for
one,” she wrote. Holding that
restrictions on the arbitration
procedure left the two employees
without an adequate remedial
procedure within the meaning of
s. 124, “the CRT is therefore the
appropriate forum to settle their
wrongful dismissal complaints.”
The decision was one of
three simultaneously released
by the court which dealt with
the same issue. The other two
resulted in a unanimous court,
with Justice Descahmp writing
concurring reasons.
In Syndicat des professeurs du
Cégep de Ste-Foy v. Quebec
(Attorney General), the judges
upheld a ruling by the Court of
Appeal that s. 124 of the ALS was
not implicitly incorporated in the
collective agreement.
Reasons: Syndicat de la fonction publique
du Québec v. Quebec (Attorney General),
[2010] S.C.J. No. 28; Syndicat des
professeurs du Cégep de Ste-Foy v. Quebec
(Attorney General), [2010] S.C.J. 29;
Syndicat des professeurs et des
professeures de l’Université du Québec a
Trois-Rivieres v. Université du Québec a
Trois-Rivieres, [2010] S.C.J. No. 30.
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