Date: 20000118
Docket: A-395-97
| Coram: MARCEAU J.A. |
DESJARDINS J.A.
DÉCARY J.A.
Between:
SYNDICAT DES JOURNALISTES DE
RADIO-CANADA (CSN),
Applicant,
- and -
LA SOCIÉTÉ RADIO-CANADA,
Respondent.
Hearing held at Québec, Quebec on Tuesday, January 18, 2000
Judgment rendered at Québec, Quebec on Tuesday, January 18, 2000
REASONS FOR JUDGMENT BY: DÉCARY J.A.
Date: 20000118
Docket: A-395-97
| Coram: MARCEAU J.A. |
DESJARDINS J.A.
DÉCARY J.A.
Between:
SYNDICAT DES JOURNALISTES DE
RADIO-CANADA (CSN),
Applicant,
- and -
LA SOCIÉTÉ RADIO-CANADA,
Respondent.
REASONS FOR JUDGMENT OF THE COURT
(Delivered from the bench at Québec, Quebec
on January 18, 2000)
DÉCARY J.A.
[1] This appeal has to do with the interpretation of the Pension Benefits Standards Act, 1985, R.S.C. 1985 (2d Supp.), c. 32 ("the Act").
[2] The "contract" employees represented by the appellant union in these proceedings were declared ineligible for the pension plan of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation ("the Corporation") by the federal Superintendent of Financial Institutions ("the Superintendent"). The latter said that in his opinion the Act allowed the employer to offer a pension plan to certain classes of employees determined by the employer itself and that the Corporation"s contract employees did not fall into a class of employees to whom the plan was offered. Noël J., as he then was, dismissed the application for judicial review filed by the union from the Superintendent"s decision. The judgment of Noël J. is reported at (1997), 133 F.T.R. 50.
[3] In the case at bar the union would like "contract" employees who perform their duties pursuant to fixed-term contracts and are in principle assigned to current and public affairs programs to benefit from entitlement to the pension plan which the Corporation has long offered its "regular" employees, who are hired for indeterminate periods and are in principle assigned to newsrooms.
[4] The Corporation"s pension plan was duly approved by the Superintendent. In the very language used to define its ambit and scope, the plan clearly indicates that it applies to persons working for the Corporation in a position considered by the latter to be of a continuing nature and whom it has hired to perform services for an indefinite period. The union is not asking the Superintendent to revoke his approval of the plan. Instead, the union is asking the Superintendent to declare that despite its language the plan should be interpreted as applying to contract as well as regular employees so long as they are employees who, in the union"s view, meet the minimum requirements laid down by the Act. The Superintendent"s power to grant such a request was not questioned and for the purposes of the discussion, though without deciding the point, this Court will assume that the Superintendent has such a power.
[5] The disputed legislation does not impose any duty on an employer to offer an employee a pension plan. Instead, it defines " as the title actually indicates " the "standards" applicable to pension plans voluntarily created by an employer and at the outset it accepts " this is stated in s. 14(1) " that such plans may be offered only to "classes" of employees selected by the employer.
[6] A "class" is not defined in the Act. In the Court"s view, it is clear that word "class" refers to groupings of employees which an employer sees fit to make for internal administrative purposes, regardless of any question of a pension plan, and based for example on working conditions such as the initially specified length of the contract or the method of pay. Nothing in the Act suggests that Parliament intended to interfere with the employer"s right of control and, for example, as the appellant suggests, require it to define a class solely in terms of the nature of the duties performed by its employees.
[7] The union did not argue in the case at bar that the employer created a separate class for contract employees so as to deprive them of a pension plan and evade the Act. It also did not contend that the two classes in question were created on discriminatory grounds, such as sex (s. 27 of the Act covers this specific case) or the other grounds mentioned in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms or the Canadian Human Rights Act. The union did not argue that the Corporation could not for its internal administrative purposes create one class covering regular employees and another covering contract employees. In any case, the Union would hardly be in a position to object to this, since it was itself responsible for negotiating the collective agreement offering regular employees a pension plan and not offering one to contract employees. It is hard to see how there could be two classes for purposes of union bargaining but when a pension plan is in question, there must of necessity be only one.
[8] The Court cannot read into the Act what the union is suggesting the Act says. This would be to distort the legislation by adding rights or limitations which Parliament did not see fit to recognize or to make.
[9] As we have arrived at the conclusion that the Superintendent"s decision was correct in law, there is no need for the Court to discuss the standard of judicial review that the trial judge should have applied in the case at bar.
[10] The appeal will be dismissed with costs.
| Robert Décary J.A. |
Certified true translation
Bernard Olivier, LL. B.
| FEDERAL COURT OF APPEAL Date: 20000118 Docket: A-395-97 Between: SYNDICAT DES JOURNALISTES DE RADIO-CANADA (CSN), Applicant, - and - LA SOCIÉTÉ RADIO-CANADA, Respondent. REASONS FOR JUDGMENT |
FEDERAL COURT APPEAL DIVISION
NAMES OF COUNSEL AND SOLICITORS OF RECORD
| COURT FILE No.: A-395-97 |
| STYLE OF CAUSE: SYNDICAT DES JOURNALISTES DE |
RADIO-CANADA (CSN)
Applicant,
AND:
LA SOCIÉTÉ RADIO-CANADA,
Respondent.
PLACE OF HEARING: Québec, Quebec
| DATE OF HEARING: January 18, 2000 |
REASONS FOR JUDGMENT OF THE COURT BY: Décary J.A.
DATED: January 18, 2000
APPEARANCES:
| François Lamoureux for the applicant |
| Danièle Mayrand for the respondent |
SOLICITORS OF RECORD:
| SAUVÉ ET ROY for the applicant |
Montréal, Quebec
| DESJARDINS, DUCHARME, STEIN, for the respondent |
MONAST
Montréal, Quebec