FPSLREB Decisions

The grievor grieved the employer’s decision to terminate him, alleging that it was disguised dismissal and discrimination, both based on his need to use medicinal cannabis at work. The employer raised a preliminary objection to the Board’s jurisdiction, based on two grounds. First, it argued that the doctrine of issue estoppel applied because the grievor’s allegations had been fully addressed in an earlier CHRC decision, which dismissed his complaint. In the alternative, it argued that the doctrine of abuse of process applied. The Board dismissed the objection. Applying the test in Danyluk v. Ainsworth Technologies, 2001 SCC 44, it found first that issue estoppel was not established because the CHRC’s decision was not a “judicial decision”. The CHRC is a screening agency – it does not exercise an adjudicative function that considers complaints on their merits. As for abuse of process, it was not established because the parties to the complaint and the grievances were not necessarily the same, and the questions before the Board were different from those before the CHRC. Further, unlike the CHRC, the Board is a quasi-judicial and independent third party that hears grievances on their merits using a much more rigorous adjudicative process.

Complaint dismissed.