Case information

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Administrative law - Judicial review - Labour relations - Arbitration - Dismissal - Fraud - Relationship of trust - Whether Court of Appeal erred in law in intruding on arbitrator’s field of jurisdiction and thereby creating rule, applicable in arbitration cases, that grievance arbitrator may not find continuing relationship of trust between employer and employee where fraud is committed and then recurs.

The employee concerned worked for the Respondent Commission as an occupational health and safety prevention inspector. He was highly autonomous in managing his work, since he was often out of the office. He had considerable authority, including the power to issue statements of offence under the Act respecting occupational health and safety. The system for reimbursing his expenses and billing his overtime was based wholly on trust, since the employer had only very limited control over claims. In March 2002, the employee was suspended without pay for 10 days for filing falsified travel expense accounts. He was told that he would be dismissed if he did so again. In October 2003, on having him tailed, the employer discovered that he had started filing incorrect expense accounts again. He was dismissed on the ground that he had been dishonest in falsifying travel expense accounts and claiming overtime he had not worked, that his actions were exacerbated by the fact that they were a repetition of behaviour for which he knew the consequences, that he had admitted the allegations against him without providing any explanation for his misconduct, that such conduct was inconsistent with his duties as an inspector and was a serious breach of his duty of honesty and, finally, that the relationship of trust had been permanently destroyed. The Applicant union contested the dismissal by filing a grievance, which was allowed in part. The arbitrator overturned the dismissal, substituted an 18-month suspension and ordered that the employee be reinstated in his job without compensation.