In York Region District School Board, a school principal searched a teacher’s work laptop and found private communications between that teacher and another. The communications were related to a workplace dispute. The principal read the personal, password-protected conversation and took screenshots of it, and the school board later used the material to displace the teachers. The teachers’ union filed a grievance and argued that the school board had violated the teachers’ rights to privacy. The arbitrator dismissed the grievance, and a Divisional Court majority upheld the arbitrator’s decision, but the Court of Appeal allowed the appeal and quashed the arbitrator’s award.
The BCCLA said the issue in York Region District School Board is whether the principal violated the teachers’ s. 8 Charter rights by searching their laptops. Fraser Harland, a lawyer at Olthuis van Ert is acting for the group on the intervention.
“The case is important for a number of reasons,” says Vibert Jack, litigation director at the BCCLA. The case deals with whether Charter-guaranteed privacy rights apply to employment relationships in the school setting or for any government workers. Jack says the case could have a broad impact.
The issue on which the BCCLA intervened is the judicial review of administrative decisions that infringe Charter rights. Courts use the framework set out in Doré v. Barreau du Québec, 2012 SCC 12 and Loyola High School v. Quebec (Attorney General), 2015 SCC 12. The BCCLA argued that the SCC must reconsider this framework in light of Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) v. Vavilov, 2019 SCC 65, to address the issues in York Region District School Board. The BCCLA submitted that, regardless of the decision-maker, reviewing courts should “employ the same framework on a standard of correctness” to ensure Canadians’ Charter rights receive consistent protection.
“That’s going to have very broad implications,” says Jack. “The administrative state is growing larger and larger. As our lives become more impacted by administrative tribunals and decision-makers, it’s very important that our Charter rights are protected in those contexts.”