Supreme Court refuses to hear appeal of Quebec municipal pensions law

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The Supreme Court of Canada will not hear a challenge of a Quebec law that imposed a restructuring of defined benefit pension plans in the municipal sector.

The law, adopted in December 2014, imposed a restructuring while those defined benefit plans were facing significant deficits. It was immediately contested, both by unions and retirees’ associations. Unions saw this as an obstacle to freedom of association, which includes the right to collectively negotiate working conditions.

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In 2020, the Superior Court of Quebec partially granted the motions. It declared unconstitutional the provisions of the law relating to the suspension of the indexation of pensions of participants already retired. However, it rejected requests to have the other provisions of the law relating to active participants declared unconstitutional.

In May 2023, the Court of Appeal rejected the appeals. And the Supreme Court of Canada announced Thursday that it was rejecting requests for leave to appeal.

“We are happy for the victory of the retirees; we are very sad for our active (participants),” Roxane L’Abbée, municipal sector coordinator at the Canadian Union of Public Employees, said in an interview. CUPE, affiliated with the FTQ, represents the majority of unionized municipal employees in Quebec.

“This decision is the last milestone in an entire decade of protest that began with Bill 15 in 2014,” L’Abbée said.

The unions were frustrated that the law took precedence over the agreements that had been negotiated with employers.

“We have people who, very consciously, at the time, agreed to negotiate with employers to negotiate lower benefits, lower remuneration, to have a better retirement plan. Bill 15 flouted these signatures for us,” L’Abbée said.

The Fédération des employées et employés de services publics (FEESP), affiliated with the CSN, also represents affected municipal employees. “For the CSN, it remains imperative that any change in labour relations be made through proper negotiation between the parties. It is not because employers are running deficits or having financial difficulties that this authorizes them to act unilaterally. It is by taking the path of negotiation and not of imposition that we manage to find solutions for the parties,” CSN president Caroline Senneville said.

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