In Osprey Care v. HEU issued on March 1, 2011, Vice Chair Ritu Mahil of the BC LRB dismissed Osprey’s application for review of an arbitrator’s decision in which, in the course of imposing a first collective agreement under s.55 of the Code, Arbitrator Vince Ready made the collective agreement retroactive to February 24, 2010 and set out an expedited process by which certain outstanding grievances would be resolved.

In Dewell v. BC Public Service Agency  Vice Chair Adam dismissed a grievor’s application for review of the decision of a claims review committee that upheld cutting off her long term disability benefit. Under a number of BC public sector collective agreements (public service and health for example) medical disputes about long term disability are adjudicated by a panel of doctors. The LRB has ruled that such decisions fall within the definition of an arbitration which is reviewable under s.99 of the Code and the usual tests for review apply.

In McIntosh v Metro Aluminum Products and another issued by the BC Human Rights Tribunal to-day,  Tribunal member Enid Marion awarded a total of $30,000 in lost wages and damages to a woman who complained that her boss' unwanted sexual text messages caused her to quit her job. 

The complainant had a sexual relationship with Zbigniew Augustynowicz, the owner of the company where she was employed.  When she ended the affair he repeatedly sent her text messages that were sexual in nature and aggressive in tone. 

Progressive groups are lined up on either side of the ongoing court hearing in BC about the constitutionality of Canada’s anti-polygamy law. That is not surprising, as the issues are complex and the best outcome is not at all obvious.

What is Criminalized

The crime of polygamy may invoke the image of coerced marriages of multiple adolescent girls to older male church members in the town of Bountiful.
However, section 293 of the Criminal Code criminalizes a far wider range of domestic arrangements.

In Canada today there are two entirely different concepts of the criminal law and its function. These concepts reflect fundamentally divergent views of the nature and role of the state and of authority within society. The adherents of each of these concepts are incapable of comprehending the other: there is no space for meaningful debate of the issues, so totally different are the two domains.

To one side – let’s call it “Tough on Crime” – the function of criminal law is a balancing of accounts, a restoration of moral equilibrium.

Danny Williams’ announced retirement as Newfoundland Premier brought to mind my only encounter with him, which occurred in an unlikely setting.

Carmela and I were waiting in Barcelona Airport on Canada Day 2009, waiting for our flight to Madrid while on holiday. The Premier of Newfoundland, flanked by an aide, came along and sat in the waiting-area seat back-to-back with mine, and we soon struck up a lively conversation. He was meeting with the Spanish to talk about fishing.

“As I sat in the Chief Joe Mathias Hall and listened to the riveting accounts of the legacy of this deliberate policy of brutalization, I thought of my own sheltered childhood in a White suburb of Toronto, and of the portion of my weekly Sunday School collection donations at Thistletown United Church that helped finance the hideous abuse of other little children and their families.”

Today I attended a public education initiative sponsored by the Indian Residential School Survivors Society.