Nova Scotia Government Introduces Public Services Sustainability (2015) Act

On the same day that the Nova Scotia government announced its projected deficit had ballooned to $241 million, it also introduced Bill 148, the Public Services Sustainability (2015) Act ("Act").

The stated purposes of the Act are to create a framework for public sector employee compensation plans by placing fiscal limits on increases to compensation, to authorize a portion of cost savings identified through collective bargaining, and to fund increases in compensation - all while encouraging meaningful collective bargaining processes.

In addition, the Act establishes a collective bargaining pattern for four-year public sector deals which impose wage increases at the following rates:

Year 1: 0%; Year 2: 0%; Year 3: 1%; and Year 4: 2%.

This pattern mirrors the one that the Province had been hoping to set through tentative deals established with Nova Scotia's teachers and the Province's largest union, the NSGEU. Unfortunately, Nova Scotia's 10,000 teachers rejected the tentative deal and the NSGEU refused to present it to their 7,600 civil service members.

Naturally, there is talk of constitutional challenges, but s. 28 of the Act says that neither an arbitrator nor the Nova Scotia Labour Board has jurisdiction to determine Bill 148's constitutional validity. Notably, the Act addresses requirements found in the Supreme Court of Canada's decision in Meredith v. Canada, 2015 SCC 2, which ruled that the federal government's right to limit wage increases in the 2009 Expenditure Restraint Act passed constitutional muster and did not offend the s. 2(d)...