Our Toronto office is representing Waterloo Region in a judicial review application to the Ontario Divisional Court in which the Carpenters’ Union is challenging provisions of the Ontario Labour Relations Act (the Act) as an alleged violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (the Charter).

In June 2019, the Ontario legislature enacted amendments to the Act, which deemed certain broader public sector entities to be “non-construction employers” (NCEs) for the purposes of labour relations under the Act. The impact of the NCE provisions was to terminate existing construction trade union bargaining rights with respect to certain prescribed public sector entities. As a result, unless the entities opted out of the legislation, they were no longer bound to construction collective agreements, which generally contained onerous subcontracting provisions that had historically prevented them from tendering their public construction projects to non-union contractors.

The Carpenters’ Union brought a constitutional challenge to the Ontario Labour Relations Board (the Board), related to grievances it filed against three municipalities, arguing that the deemed provisions in the Act unjustifiably infringed the freedom of association guaranteed under section 2(d) of the Charter. The Board upheld the constitutionality of the NCE provisions and dismissed the Carpenters’ Union’s grievances.

The Carpenters’ Union has now sought judicial review of the Board’s decision and the matter will be heard before the Ontario Divisional Court in December 2022. The Attorney General is also an intervener in the proceedings.

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