Air Canada violated federal legislation by not conserving its upkeep centres in Montreal, Winnipeg and Mississauga operational throughout the collapse of Aveos a decade in the past, the Quebec Superior Court dominated Thursday in favour of hundreds of former workers.
“Air Canada didn’t take fairly severe steps to adjust to the legislation after the closure of Aveos,” wrote Judge Marie-Christine Hivon, who concluded that there was a “steady violation” of the legislation from March 2012 to June 2016.
Nearly 2,200 former workers are affected by the end result of the class-action lawsuit. The overwhelming majority of them had been primarily based in Montreal.
In a video message posted on his Facebook web page shortly after the ruling, Jean Poirier, the Aveos union consultant on the time of the corporate’s closure, mentioned he was “very, very moved.”
“We received! We received against Air Canada. We received the entire thing. David received against Goliath. A 14-year battle, buddies.”
He requested Air Canada shareholders, who might attraction the ruling, to start out “on a brand new foot” and settle the case.
In her 154-page choice, Judge Hivon ordered the airline to compensate workers for the loss of earnings and employment, in addition to for the loss of social advantages.
Air Canada will even should compensate the workers for “stress, questioning, lower in vanity, insecurity, emotions of injustice and loss of enjoyment in life.” It will even should pay particular person claims for many who suffered ethical damages akin to psychological issues, insomnia, household issues, divorce and suicide.
However, Judge Hivon discovered that the previous Aveos workers had not demonstrated that the collapse of Aveos was brought on by dangerous religion or wilful misconduct of Air Canada. She due to this fact dismissed the declare of $110 million in punitive damages.
In a written assertion, Air Canada mentioned it had “at all times acted in good religion on this case” and famous that the court docket concluded the corporate didn’t trigger Aveos’ collapse, rejecting the punitive damages.
As for the likelihood of interesting the judgment, the service mentioned it’ll think about it earlier than deciding on the following steps.
Under the Air Canada Public Participation Act, the corporate had an obligation to keep up its Montreal, Winnipeg and Mississagua centres, a activity it had contracted out to Aveos, which went bankrupt in March 2012. The federal authorities amended the legislation in June 2016 to ease this obligation.
The court docket was clear that the use of subcontracting didn’t launch Air Canada of its authorized obligations when the subcontractor ceased operations.
As nicely, the modification to the legislation was not retroactive and didn’t have the impact of clarifying the that means that the legislation had at all times had, opposite to the corporate’s argument.