Last month, Saskatchewan Queen’s Bench Court Justice Dennis Ball ruled the Public Services Essential Services Act unconstitutional. Bill 5 was passed early in the Sask. Party government’s first term and was intended to secure the provision of essential services in the public sector in the event of a strike.
Today, Justice Minister Don Morgan announced that the government would be appealing Ball’s ruling. According to the CBC report, the government’s appeal won’t focus on Ball’s finding that the Act itself was unconstitutional. Rather, the appeal will focus on a subsidiary aspect of Ball’s ruling where he determined that the right to strike was protected under s.2(d) of the Charter of Rights & Freedoms. The Freedom of Association clause had previously been used by the courts to enshrine collective bargaining as a Charter Right. But Ball was the first judge in Canada to extend s.2(d) beyond collective bargaining to include the right to strike.
If you want to read more on the legal nuances of the case, here’s a link to a post I did after Ball’s ruling on Bill 5 and 6 was released.
