Case information

None.

Case summaries are prepared by the Office of the Registrar of the Supreme Court of Canada (Law Branch). Please note that summaries are not provided to the Judges of the Court. They are placed on the Court file and website for information purposes only.

Courts - Res judicata - Final judgment in 2008 concerning use of employment insurance system premiums and surpluses - 2010 legislative amendment having effect of erasing balance in account - Constitutionality of erasing system reserve through accounting procedure challenged - Whether unions’ declaratory action had to be dismissed on ground of res judicata - Jobs and Economic Growth Act, S.C. 2010, c. 12, ss. 2195, 2196 - CSN et al. v. A.G. Canada, 2008 SCC 68.

In 1999, the Syndicat national des employés de l’aluminium d’Arvida and the CSN filed actions seeking to have various provisions of the 1996 Employment Insurance Act declared unconstitutional. At the time, the accumulated surpluses in the Account, whose use for general purposes was challenged, were estimated at more than $40 billion. In its 2008 decision in CSN, the Court declared the premium-setting mechanism used for 2002, 2003 and 2005 unconstitutional: during those years, premiums ceased to be a regulatory charge without being authorized by Parliament as taxes. In 2010, the Jobs and Economic Growth Act was passed. It had the effect, among other things, of closing the Employment Insurance Account retroactive to January 1, 2009 and creating a new account, the Employment Insurance Operating Account, without including therein the balance, which by then was over $57 billion. The CSN and the FTQ filed an action seeking to have that initiative declared unconstitutional. According to them, erasing the system reserve through an accounting procedure retroactively eliminated its administrative nature and made it inconsistent with s. 91(2A) of the Constitution Act, 1867. The Attorney General of Canada filed an exception to dismiss, arguing that the question raised by the unions in relation to the 2010 Act had in fact been decided by the Court in its 2008 judgment and that the stare decisis rule applied. He also relied on Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada v. A.G. Canada, 2012 SCC 71.