Billions at stake as Ontario takes public sector workers to Court of Appeal

Billions of dollars are at stake as a three-day hearing at Ontario's highest court gets underway Tuesday over the province's controversial wage-limiting law for public sector workers.

Last November, a judge with the Superior Court of Justice struck down Bill 124, Protecting a Sustainable Public Sector for Future Generations Act, ruling it unconstitutional.

The province appealed.

There are some 780,000 broader public sector workers in Ontario, including teachers, nurses and most employees of the province. Bill 124 became law in 2019, limiting their wages to a one per cent raise per year over a three-year period.

The province's fiscal watchdog says the province owes public sector workers about $8.4 billion over five years if the law remains overturned. Ontario has already paid about $1 billion to workers who've recently gone to arbitration to reopen their contracts in wake of the ruling.

Premier Doug Ford would not directly comment on the province's decision to appeal the bill when asked Tuesday at a news conference in Ottawa, which was unrelated to the hearing.

"Our whole goal with Bill 124, I have to make sure that we respect the taxpayers but also make sure that the frontline workers are treated fairly and come up with common ground," Ford told reporters.

"Lets see what the courts say, and I'm sure I will have comments after a decision is made," he said when asked if the province will take its appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada if it loses.

In its factum filed with the Court of Appeal, the province said Justice Markus Koehnen made "fundamental legal errors."

The province says the law does not interfere with the collective rights to free and fair bargaining.

More than 10 groups fighting Bill 124 say that it does.

The province argues Koehnen erred by incorrectly applying the section of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms that allows for the freedom of association. That law governs the rights of groups, such as unions.

"He concluded that Bill 124 substantially interfered with the associational rights of employees based on the incorrect conclusion that the inability to achieve particular substantive outcomes is by itself a substantial interference with collective bargaining," provincial lawyers wrote.

"Accordingly, he failed to consider whether there was substantial interference with employees' ability to associate to pursue workplace goals effectively, or to their ability to participate in meaningful, good faith consultation and negotiation."