Employment Standards Compliance Order Appeal – Appeal of a review decision made by the Head of Compliance and Enforcement

• If you are an employer and you:
  • requested that the Head review a Compliance Order,
  • have received the Head’s Review Decision,
  • do not agree with the Review Decision, and
  • fewer than 15 calendar days have passed since you received the Review Decision,
• You can file an application to Appeal the Review Decision with the Canada Industrial Relations Board.   

• You have 15 calendar days from when you received the Review Decision to file an Application to Appeal with the Board. The Board may accept a late application.  When you file your application, you will need to also ask the Board for more time to file your application and tell it why your application is late. The Board will then decide whether to accept your application. You cannot ask for more time to file your application before you file your application.

• The employer who received the Compliance Order. 
• The Labour Program may be added as a respondent.
• The employee who originally complained to the Labour Program about compliance with minimum standards, if the Compliance Order was a result of a complaint by an employee. If so, the employee may be added as a respondent.
• The applicant and the respondent are sometimes referred to as the parties.
• The Industrial Relations Officer (IRO) – for more information on the role of the IRO, click here.   
• The decision maker appointed by the Chairperson to hear and decide the application.

• The Board will send a copy of your Application to Appeal to the Labour Program. The Board will ask the Labour Program to send it a copy of their file.
• The Board will send the employer who filed the application (the applicant), the Head, and any other parties named in the application (the respondent) a letter acknowledging receipt of the application.    
• If either of these parties has hired a representative, such as a lawyer, the letter will be sent to them. It is the representative’s obligation to keep the party that they represent up to date.

   

  The parties are responsible for filing their arguments and documents.  The IRO answers questions that the parties have and assists the parties to reach a settlement whenever possible.

• The letter will: 
  • contain a copy of the file that was received from the Labour Program
  • include a case file number
  • include a copy of all documents filed by the applicant
  • inform the parties of the name and contact information of the Board’s IRO who will assist the Board and the parties with the application.  
  • advise the person or organization that the application is against (the respondent): 
    • how much time they have to file a response to the application; and  
    • how much time the applicant will have to reply to any new facts and arguments raised by the respondent.

       

      The Board will give the parties, including the Labour Program, 15 calendar days to file additional information and documents.  It is not necessary to file information and documents that were included with the application or were in the file that the Labour Program sent to the Board.  The Board already has these documents. 

      The parties, including the Labour Program, will be given 10 calendar days to respond to the additional submissions of the other parties.

IMPORTANT: If you need more time to file submissions, you need to write to the Board and ask them for an extension. You need to tell the Board why you can’t meet the deadline. If the Board does not allow the extension, it may not consider documents that are filed after that date.

IMPORTANT: The response should clearly explain the respondent’s version of the facts to the Board and include any documents that they have which are relevant to the application that the applicant did not file. 

The applicant does not need to file a reply. It is only necessary when the respondent raises new facts or arguments in its response. If you decide not to file a reply, you must tell the Board that you will not be filing one. 

• Parties who file documents with the Board are participating in a public hearing. This means that the documents that are in the file are available to the public. 
• If a party is concerned about some of the information that they are filing with the Board being available to the public, that person can ask the Board to issue a confidentiality order. If the request is granted, the information that is protected will not be publicly available. For more information, you can refer to the Board’s Policy on Openness and Privacy or contact the Industrial Relations Officer responsible for your case. 

• The Board will notify you in writing of its decision.  
• The time that it takes the Board to issue a decision can vary depending on the complexity of the case. 
• All important decisions of the Board are published on the Decisions page. 
• You can consult the Board’s performance statistics for more information on the average time it takes the Board to issue a decision after an application is filed.

The Board’s decisions are final and can only be reviewed in very specific circumstances.

• If you believe that a Board decision is unreasonable, you can apply to the Federal Court of Appeal for judicial review; or  
• If you believe the Board has made a serious error and should correct its original decision, you can file an application for reconsideration.

In both cases, there is a strict 30 calendar day deadline to file your application from the date of the decision.   

Follow these links for more information on Applications for Reconsideration and Applications for Judicial Review.