VANCOUVER — British Columbia's highest court has ruled the province did not violate teachers' charter rights, reversing two lower-court decisions in favour of a union that has fought for class size and composition clauses in its contracts.
Four of the five B.C. Appeal Court judges said the trial judge's latest finding that the province had failed to consult the union in good faith was based on legal and factual errors.
Two earlier rulings from the B.C. Supreme Court said the government infringed on teachers' rights when it removed their ability to bargain class size and composition with separate legislation in 2002 and in 2012.
"In our opinion, the legislation was constitutional," the high court judges said in the decision released Thursday. "Between the consultations and the collective bargaining leading up to the legislation, teachers were afforded a meaningful process in which to advance their collective aspirations. Their freedom of association was respected."
"In our opinion, the judge should not have assessed the substantive merit or objective reasonableness of the parties' negotiating positions. Courts are poorly equipped to make such assessments."
The B.C. Teachers Federation has the option to seek leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada, which has already heard previous cases involving the two sides.
Dissenting Judge Ian Donald wrote that the trial judge did not err in law or fact in finding that the province had failed to consult in good faith and that the legislation did infringe the charter.
The appeal court also released a separate, unanimous decision ensuring that confidential cabinet documents that were revealed in the most recent trial would be kept secret.
B.C. Supreme Court judge Susan Griffin had ruled that the union could share its written submissions with members, but the appeal court overturned that decision saying information from private government documents was included.
Griffin had pored over hundreds of pages of the confidential documents and concluded the government negotiated in bad faith and deliberately planned to provoke a strike in 2012.
The court first ruled the government had violated teachers' rights in a 2011 decision that restored the contract provisions that had been deleted nine years earlier.
The B.C. government passed legislation in 2012 that once again deleted the contract clauses and the teachers' union responded with another legal challenge, which led to a second decision in the union's favour in January 2014.
The province appealed and a hearing was held last October. In its written arguments, the province said it had bargained in good faith and that it has the right to set education policy.
The court case emerged as one of the main sticking points in last year's strike, which closed schools earlier in June and delayed the start of classes in September until the B.C. Teachers' Federation signed a six-year deal.
It included a clause that could reopen negotiations for class size and composition, but the high court decision makes that irrelevant.
