Author ORCID Identifier
Eric Tucker: 0000-0002-9958-4311
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
12-5-2025
Keywords
Canada; Labour Law; Constitutional Labour Rights; Underinclusive Legislation; Supreme Court of Canada
Abstract
In April 2024, the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) unanimously ruled that the exclusion of managerial employees from Quebec’s main statutory collective bargaining regime, combined with a failure to provide them with access to any other statutory labour rights, did not violate their constitutionally protected freedom of association. This decision raises many questions about the future of constitutional labour rights at the Supreme Court. In this brief comment I address what is arguably the biggest takeaway for workers such as the casino managers whose freedom of association is poorly or entirely unprotected by statutory rights: that despite the majority judgment’s conclusion that the same test is to be used to adjudicate Charter claims based on underinclusion as is used for claims of direct state interference, excluded workers will have to take their chances with a set of untested and unpromising legal claims within a regime of liberal voluntarism, as the Court now finds this regime compliant with Charter-protected freedom of association.
Repository Citation
Tucker, Eric, "Société des casinos du Québec inc. v. Association des cadres de la Société des casinos du Québec: The Supreme Court of Canada Gambles on Liberal Voluntarism to Provide Meaningful Access to Collective Bargaining" (2025). All Papers. 420.
https://digitalcommons.osgoode.yorku.ca/all_papers/420