Court Won’t Order Minister of Labour to Prosecute Labour Code Violations

A union asked the court to order the Minister of Labour to prosecute Air Canada for allegedly violating the Canada Labour Code by, among other things, choosing someone to be the ‘competent person’ to investigate workplace violence who the union didn’t consider impartial. But the court refused, ruling that the law doesn’t permit a court to order the government to prosecute Code violations as such decisions are subject to prosecutorial discretion [CUPE, Air Canada Component v. Canada (Minister of Labour), [2012] FC 1484 (CanLII), Dec. 17, 2012].