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Labour - Jurisdiction - Federal versus Provincial. East Coast Hydraulics & Machinery (2009) Limited v. International Longshoremen's Association, Local 1976
In East Coast Hydraulics & Machinery (2009) Limited v. International Longshoremen's Association, Local 1976 (Fed CA, 2025) the Federal Court of Appeal allowed a labour JR from a CIRB order that "certified the respondent as the bargaining agent for a group of persons employed by the applicant as longshoring workers", here "solely on jurisdictional grounds – that is, on the basis that the subject matter of the Order is within provincial jurisdiction":[4] The only question raised on this judicial review is whether the Board erred in taking jurisdiction and issuing the certification Order. The main provisions at issue are the divisions of federal and provincial powers in sections 91 and 92 of the Constitution Act, 1867. The question of jurisdiction is subject to correctness review: Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) v. Vavilov, 2019 SCC 65 at paras. 53, 55.
[5] The applicant did not have legal representation before the Board and the issue of jurisdiction was not raised by either party. In addition, the Board did not discuss jurisdiction in its brief Order granting certification. Rather, it appears that the Board assumed that because the workers were engaged in longshoring, the subject matter of the Order was within federal jurisdiction.
[6] In this Court, the applicant submits that the Board erred in taking jurisdiction since the labour relations of the longshoring employees fall within provincial jurisdiction: they are a severable group of employees working exclusively for fishing vessels, which do not constitute a federal undertaking. The respondent, on the other hand, submits that the Board made no error in issuing the Order and that the application should be dismissed.
[7] There are several significant judicial decisions which discuss the applicable legal framework. These include: Northern Telecom v. Communications Workers, 1979 CanLII 3 (SCC); Northern Telecom v. Communication Workers, 1983 CanLII 25 (SCC); Tessier Ltée v. Quebec (Commission de la santé et de la sécurité du travail), 2012 SCC 23 [Tessier], and Jim Pattison Enterprises Ltd. v. British Columbia (Workers’ Compensation Board), 2011 BCCA 35. Together they illustrate that the legal framework is complex and the determination of jurisdiction factually suffused.
[8] Based on these decisions, it is clear that labour relations in the longshoring industry do not always fall within federal jurisdiction. In Tessier, the Supreme Court of Canada instructed that "“a stevedoring work or undertaking will be subject to federal labour regulation if it is integral to a federal undertaking in a way that justifies imposing exceptional federal jurisdiction”": at para. 28. Accordingly, the Board should not have taken jurisdiction without considering these legal principles and erred in doing so.
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