Socioeconomic Status

The Supreme Court of Canada has issued its decision in Ontario (Attorney General) v. Fraser, finding that Ontario’s labour relations regime applicable to farm workers does not violate the Charter right to freedom of association or equality.  The CCLA is disappointed by this determination and concerned about the continuing difficulties faced by agricultural workers, many of whom are temporary foreign workers that face particular and unique challenges in demanding respect for their rights in the workplace.  In Fraser, a union and several factory farm employees challenged Ontario’s Agricultural Employees Protection Act, 2002 and the exclusion of agricultural workers from Ontario’s Labour Relations Act. They argued that the legislative scheme failed to effectively protect the rights of farm workers to organize and bargain collectively.

The CCLA intervened in the case to argue that the scheme did violate both ss. 2(d) and 15 of the Charter. In particular, the CCLA argued that section 2(d) of the Charter protects the rights of employees to bargain collectively.  It was argued that this right incorporates an enforceable duty to bargain in good faith; a mechanism for resolving impasses in bargaining; and a democratic process for employees to choose a representative and a requirement that employers respect the results of employees’ democratic choices.   The CCLA also argued, based on the particular vulnerability of agricultural workers and the fundamental importance of work in our society, that the exclusion of these workers from the ordinary labour relations scheme violated s. 15, the Charter’s equality guarantee.

In a decision on which the Supreme Court of Canada was split 8-1 in the result (with four different sets of reasons written by members of the Court), it found that the existing scheme did not violate s. 2(d), and that the evidence did not establish that the legislation made meaningful association, in order to achieve workplace goals, impossible.   The majority of the Court did, however, interpret provisions of the Agricultural Employees Protection Act, 2002, as imposing a duty on agricultural employers to consider employee representation in good faith.  It remains to be seen whether this interpretation will effectively protect the rights of workers.  The majority of the Supreme Court rejected the equality argument, finding that there was no substantive discrimination and that, since the regime for agricultural workers had not been sufficiently tested, the equality argument was premature.

Read a copy of the decision here.

Read CCLA’s factum in the case here.