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View cases - Stewart McKelvey

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process that satisfies this constitutional requirement. Under the AEPA, the right of employees’associations to make representations to their employers is set out in s. 5 and provides that theemployer shall listen to oral representations, and read written representations, and acknowledgehaving read them.The AEPA does not expressly refer to a requirement that the employer consideremployee representations in good faith; however, by implication, it includes such a requirement.2011 SCC 20 (CanLII)Any ambiguity in s. 5 should be resolved by interpreting it as imposing a duty on agriculturalemployers to consider employee representations in good faith, as a statute should be interpretedin a way that gives meaning and purpose to its provisions and Parliament and legislatures arepresumed to intend to comply with the Charter. There can only be one purpose for requiring theemployer to listen to or read employee representations — to assure that the employer will in factconsider the employee representations. No labour relations purpose is served merely by proforma listening or reading. To fulfill the purpose of reading or listening, the employer mustconsider the submission. Moreover, the employer must do so in good faith: consideration with aclosed mind would render listening or reading the submission pointless. Comments made in theLegislature during the debate on this legislation that the AEPA was not intended to extendcollective bargaining to agricultural workers may be understood as an affirmation that the Actdid not institute the dominant Wagner model of collective bargaining, or bring agriculturalworkers within the ambit of the LRA, not that the AEPA intended to deprive farm workers of theprotections of collective bargaining that s. 2(d) grants. The AEPA does not breach s. 2(d) of theCharter.

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