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A system in crisis: Rebuilding the dwindling Crown Attorney’s Office
With more files, more complex files and less resources, not surprisingly, Crown Attorneys are burning out and quitting. The lack of sufficient lawyers, especially experienced lawyers, has led to crisis in many provinces. Associations representing Crown Attorneys in Alberta, Ontario, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia have recently sounded the alarm...
[ ...More ]Publication date : 2025-03-14
Crown attorneys call on Manitoba government to help address ‘dangerously heavy caseloads’
The Manitoba Association of Crown Attorneys (MACA) is calling on the provincial government to help reduce mounting workloads that it says are making it difficult for prosecutors to meet their professional responsibilities. grievance it filed in April 2023. It says the grievance it filed back in April 2023 regarding 'dangerously heavy caseloads' won't be heard by an arbitrator until October 2025.
[ ...More ]Publication date : 2025-01-10
Preparing RCMP body-cam evidence for court will be monumental task, prosecutor says
The RCMP is phasing-in the use of body-worn cameras across the country and expects 90 per cent of frontline members to be wearing them within a year. Shara Munn, president of the New Brunswick Crown Prosecutors Association, said while the body-camera evidence will be great to have, it will also mean a huge influx of work for prosecutors.
[ ...More ]Publication date : 2025-01-06
N.L. government invests in 18 new Crown attorneys amid severe staffing crunch
Newfoundland and Labrador Justice Minister Bernard Davis announced Wednesday afternoon that the provincial government is investing nearly $24 million to improve the province's justice system.... The investment comes after CBC News reported in numerous stories that Crown attorneys in the province were "suffocating" from overwhelming workloads and a critical staffing shortage.
[ ...More ]Publication date : 2024-11-14
Newfoundland to add more Crown prosecutors
Newfoundland and Labrador has agreed to hire more Crown lawyers following cries of a shortage of prosecutors in the province. The “multi-year investment” will include the hiring of 18 new Crown lawyers, according to a news release.
[ ...More ]Publication date : 2024-11-13
Critical shortage of Crown attorneys has ‘gone on way too long’ and is hurting public safety
The Canadian Association of Crown Counsel, an umbrella group for thousands of Crown attorneys and government lawyers across the country is calling for a big boost in the number of provincial prosecutors in Newfoundland and Labrador.
[ ...More ]Publication date : 2024-11-13
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The SQ on the side of lawyers
01-03-2017
According to Mr Luc Bruno, it is only a matter of time before the Crown attorneys mimic the SQ polic and go to court to get arbitration instead of just recommendations. -PHOTO LIBRARY OF THE SUN
These union demands will multiply because of the jurisprudence created by the Supreme Court. To fully understand what is happening, especially in the case of lawyers, we must go back 20 years to a decision on the status of judges.
Step One: In 1997, the Supreme Court ruled that it was inappropriate for judges to negotiate their salary directly with the state. As a result, independent committees have been given the responsibility of making decisions on their salaries and making recommendations. The government is not obliged to follow them, but it must justify its decision.
Step Two: Starting in the early 2000s, Crown Attorneys across the country argue that the nature of their work requires the same independence status and arbitration mechanism as judges. The Ontario government gives in first. In 2003, the Quebec government is still resisting. Instead of arbitration, it gives its Crown attorneys and lawyers the right to strike, even if they do not want it.
Third step: In 2011, Quebec Crown attorneys go on strike and boycott the Permanent Anti-Corruption Unit (UPAC). The pressures are enormous on the government. A special law puts an end to the strike, but the prosecutors obtain that their wage conditions are subject to a non-binding arbitration mechanism, as for the judges.
Step Four: Also on strike in 2011, lawyers have the same demand as prosecutors. But they settle with the government two months earlier than their colleagues in return for a letter of understanding to discuss their bargaining system. This discussion is not done.
Fifth step: In October 2016, the lawyers again strike and claim the same status as prosecutors, with one difference: they want binding arbitration, that is to say enforceable. Why this requirement? Because of a Supreme Court ruling in 2015 that invalidates a Saskatchewan essential services law. This ruling states that the law "substantially impedes the right to a genuine process of collective bargaining". The Court states that the right to strike "enjoys constitutional protection because of its crucial function". Two judges dissenting: Richard Wagner and Marshall Tothstein. They argue that the Court should not interfere in the delicate balance of labor relations established by elected officials.
This judgment is major. Deprived of the right to strike, as are the SQ police officers, or recalled by a special law such as jurists, the case is the same: the unions argue that their constitutional rights are being violated.
This, in their view, is the same kind of impediment to "a genuine process of collective bargaining" denounced by the Supreme Court in the case of Saskatchewan. This will be the basis of the legal battle that the state's lawyers now plan to take against the Quebec government.
Crown attorneys will follow
It's only a matter of time before Crown Attorneys imitate SQ police and go to court to get binding arbitration instead of simple recommendations, predicts lawyer Negotiator Luc Bruno . "Clearly, the path is drawn. They could easily, like the SQ police and other organizations such as peace officers, appeal to the Superior Court to invoke the unconstitutionality of their regime. "
Even the judges could theoretically bring such an appeal, according to Mr. Bruno, but he doubted that because the government finally respected the latest recommendations of the committee to advise him on their salary.
The legal negotiator also believes that a repeat of the nurses' strike, brought back to work by a special law under Lucien Bouchard, would take a different turn because of the Saskatchewan decision. "This is a case in point," he explains, "and the principle adopted by the Court is the balance in the negotiations. The government is an employer, and labor relations regimes must be built in such a way that there is a balance of power in the negotiations. It is from this perspective that the Court said in 2015 that even if you are a government, you can not get out the baton or the atomic bomb to end a negotiation. "
Mr. Bruno indicated that the Saskatchewan decision may also apply to the private sector if there is government intervention. In recent examples, he cites Acts 71 and 111, passed in 2015 and 2016 to end the conflicts between garage employees in the Saguenay and the Relais Nordik shipping company. He pointed out that in both cases, the special law provided for an arbitration mechanism in case of failure of mediation, which the government refused to its lawyers.
Mr. Bruno's remarks are echoed by the Canadian Association of Jurists, chaired by Halifax lawyer Rick Woodburn. "In Quebec, the government tells its lawyers that they can not be entitled to binding arbitration and it removes the right to strike. In our opinion, this is unconstitutional. "
Mr. Woodburn points out that the only exception allowed to the rule of law would be in the case of a government that faces "extreme budgetary constraints. But it can not last forever. And what we did in Quebec, in my opinion, is simply punitive. "
Finally, counsel states that Ontario, Nova Scotia and Manitoba have granted binding arbitration to their lawyers. In British Columbia, lawyers have a right to binding arbitration only for normative clauses. The government gives them 75% of the salary paid to provincial judges. According to him, the litigation of the Quebec jurists is on a direct way towards the Supreme Court.
