By: Jennifer Koshan

PDF Version: The Supreme Court’s New Constitutional Decisions and the Rights of Farm Workers in Alberta

Cases Commented On: Mounted Police Association of Ontario v Canada (Attorney General), 2015 SCC 1 (CanLII); Meredith v Canada (Attorney General), 2015 SCC 2 (CanLII); Saskatchewan Federation of Labour v Saskatchewan, 2015 SCC 4 (CanLII); Carter v Canada (Attorney General), 2015 SCC 5 (CanLII)

As I was saying to my constitutional law students the other day, the first few weeks of 2015 have been remarkable for the sheer number of Charter decisions released by the Supreme Court of Canada, including several that have overturned previous decisions in important ways. Of the eight SCC decisions released to date in 2015, five are major Charter rulings. Several of these decisions have implications for a project on the rights of farm workers that I worked on with a group of constitutional clinical students in the winter of 2014. The students’ posts on the constitutionality of excluding farm workers from labour and employment legislation are available here, here, here and here. In this post, I will outline the impact these recent Charter decisions have on the students’ arguments. In a nutshell, they make the claims of farm workers for legislative protection even stronger, refuting the argument of Premier Jim Prentice that we need “more research and debate” before taking action on these unconstitutional exclusions.

Continue reading →

By: Graham Martinelli and Andrew Lau

PDF Version: Challenging the Farm Work Exclusions in the Employment Standards Code

Legislation Commented On: Employment Standards Code, RSA 2000, c E-9

Editor’s Note

This is the fourth and final post in the series written by students in Law 696: Constitutional Clinical in the winter term of 2014. For the other posts see here, here and here.).

Introduction

In 2014, an adolescent (ages 12-14) working in the food industry in Alberta is restricted from participating in any work involving a deep fryer in a kitchen because deep fryers are deemed to be too unsafe for adolescents to operate (Employment Standards Regulations, Alta Reg 14/1997, s. 51(a)). Regardless of the task engaged in, adolescents working in the food industry must be accompanied by an adult older than 18 years old whenever they work (Employment Standards Regulations, s. 53(3)(b)). Yet, if that same child, or their younger sibling, worked on a farm instead of in a kitchen there would be no similar restrictions on the conditions of their employment. Farm children of any age younger than 15 can operate dangerous heavy equipment without adult supervision, and the laws of Alberta do almost nothing to regulate this scenario.

Continue reading →

By: Nelson Medeiros and Robin McIntyre

PDF Version: The Constitutionality of the Exclusion of Farm Industries under the Alberta Workers’ Compensation Act

Legislation Commented On: Workers’ Compensation Act, RSA 2000 c W-15

As part of the Constitutional Clinical Law class at the University of Calgary, we studied the constitutionality of the exclusion of farm workers from four statutes in Alberta; the Occupational Health and Safety Act, RSA 2000 c O-2 [OHSA], Labour Relations Code [LSC], RSA 200 c L-1, Employment Standards Code, RSA 2000 c E-9 [ESC], and the Workers’ Compensation Act, RSA 2000 c W-15 [WCA]. With respect to the WCA, we developed arguments as to why the exemption of the agricultural industries from mandatory inclusion under the Workers’ Compensation Act violates s. 7 and s. 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms [Charter].  For earlier posts on the constitutionality of the OHSA and LRC see here and here. Continue reading →