Mr. Speaker, I have a return to written question asked by Mr. Ramsay on October 20, 2004, regarding the costs related to wrongful dismissal suits.
First, I must emphasize that the decision to dismiss an employee is a serious one, taken only after careful consideration and as a result of the progressive discipline or performance management process. Employees at the North Slave Correctional Centre are part of the bargaining unit represented by the Union of Northern Workers. The Collective Agreement between the Government of the Northwest Territories and the UNW provides that employees who have been dismissed may have the merits of that decision reviewed by an arbitrator. This is known as the grievance arbitration process. As part of this, it has been a long-standing practice of the GNWT and the UNW to review dismissal and other grievances which are referred to arbitration, before they are heard by an arbitrator to determine whether a compromise can be reached between the parties. It is open to the parties to enter into settlement agreements at any time before an arbitrator has reached a final decision and it is not unusual for arbitrators to assist the parties in reaching agreements through mediation.
Settlement agreements are not considered an admission of fault by either the employee or the employer. Rather, they are compromises made by the parties without a legally binding determination on whether a dismissal is justified or wrongful. They are entered into in consideration of a number of factors, including, but not limited to, the costs of the arbitration, which are borne equally between the UNW and the government.
Mr. Speaker, where settlement agreements are reached without an arbitration hearing or decision, they typically include confidentiality provisions that are binding on all of the parties and that must be honoured scrupulously, both in letter and in spirit. In those cases that proceed to a formal hearing and a decision is made by the arbitrator, the results become public. However, in many cases the amount of the compensation, if any, awarded to an employee is frequently left to the parties to determine and is not included as part of the decision. The compensation information is typically not public, either because the parties have each agreed to keep it private or because of the provisions of the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act, or both.
The Financial Management Board Secretariat is able to track those matters referred to arbitration back to 1992. Since that time, nine matters alleging wrongful dismissal have been referred to arbitration by the UNW on behalf of employees working at what is now North Slave Correctional Centre. In none of these cases was a determination made by an arbitrator that the employee was wrongfully terminated by the GNWT. In five of these cases, the UNW withdrew the grievances without wage compensation for the affected employee, and there were no hearings. In two others, the parties reached agreements that included compensation for wages in lieu of notice without the necessity of a hearing on the discharges themselves.
The two remaining cases went to a hearing on the issue of whether discharge was appropriate in the circumstances. In one case, the arbitrator upheld the discharge and dismissed the grievance. In the other, the parties adjourned the hearing prior to its completion, and ultimately entered into confidential Minutes of Settlement dealing with, among other things, compensation for the employee.
In light of the fact that so few dismissal grievances arising out of YCC/NSCC have gone to arbitration or resulted in a formal and public decision on compensation for a particular employee, there is a significant risk that disclosure of the total amount of money paid out to settle dismissal grievances at YCC/NSCC would result in a breach of the confidentiality provisions of the settlement agreements. Therefore, Mr. Speaker, I am unable to provide further information on this matter. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.