Summary

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Summary

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Labour relations - Collective bargaining - Duty to bargain in good faith - Administrative law - Judicial review - Copyright - Canadian Artists and Producers Professional Relations Tribunal finding that National Gallery failed to bargain in good faith when it reversed its bargaining position and refused to negotiate minimum fees for right to use existing works - Whether Court of Appeal erred in reviewing Tribunal’s decision on a correctness standard - Whether Court of Appeal erred in finding that certified artists’ associations are precluded from bargaining minimum fees for use of existing works in scale agreements under Status of the Artist Act - Whether Court of Appeal erred in finding that Tribunal was unable to conclude that National Gallery bargained in bad faith, after it misinterpreted legislative scope of collective bargaining in Tribunal’s enabling legislation - Status of the Artist Act, S.C. 1992, c. 33 - Copyright Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. C-42.

The Canadian Artists and Producers Professional Relations Tribunal certified the appellants as the representative organizations for visual artists in Canada. In 2003, the appellants began negotiating with the National Gallery, and those negotiations covered the issue of minimum fees for the use of existing works. In 2007 the National Gallery was provided with a legal opinion whose ultimate conclusion was that it could legitimately refuse to discuss copyright issues with the appellants. It later presented a revised draft scale agreement to the appellants in which all references to the minimum fees for the use of existing works had been removed.

The appellants filed a complaint with the Tribunal, which found that the National Gallery failed to bargain in good faith when it reversed its bargaining position and refused to bargain minimum fees for the right to use existing works with the appellants after having done so for many months. The Federal Court of Appeal, in a majority judgment, allowed the National Gallery’s application for judicial review and set aside the Tribunal’s decision.

Lower Court Rulings