ACFO has signed on to a joint lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the government’s budget implementation legislation – legislation that gives the government the power to circumvent the collective bargaining process.
Throughout ACFO’s history, we’ve put our faith in the collective bargaining process. We’ve gone to the table in good faith; made our case to an employer who respects the professionalism and value of the FI Community; and emerged on the other side with fair deals.
In this round, we’ve continued to negotiate in good faith but we’ve seen the deck increasingly stacked against us. Successive legislation has been brought forward to hamper our ability to negotiate, despite a string of decisions at the Supreme Court that affirm our rights to assembly and collective bargaining.
We’re confident that, once again, the Court will be on our side.
It’s unfortunate that the government of the day is forcing us to spend time and money fighting against legislation that we all know is unconstitutional but the alternative is to be complacent in the erosion of the Charter rights of the FI Community. We owe it to our community to stand up and defend our rights.
The full text of the suit can be found here (English only).