In a recent interest arbitration award that was convened for the
purposes of determining a labour dispute under the Hospital
Labour Disputes Arbitration Act, the Board found that a
stand-alone retirement home should most appropriately be
compared with a long term care facility.
During the course of collective bargaining, the Union and the
Employer were unable to resolve a number of issues because they
fundamentally disagreed as to the nature of the Employer’s
business.
Embassy West Senior Living (“Embassy West”) is a
retirement residence in Ottawa. Embassy West maintained that as a
retirement home, its first collective agreement with CUPE should be
aligned with retirement home collective bargaining norms. Embassy
West placed considerable weight on the fact that it was licensed
under the Retirement Homes Act, and that residents were
tenants who were subject to the Residential Tenancies Act.
As such, the Employer argued that the only comparators that the
Board
