Unjust Dismissal under CLC Covers Dependant Contractors :

In an Adjudication under Part III of the Canada Labour Code entitled Dieter v Peepeekisis Cree First Nation ( unreported decision dated April 9, 2017) , Adjudicator Daniel Cameron had to determine whether or not a dependent contractor was considered a ” person ” under Section 240, which is the Unjust Dismissal part of the Code.

The term ” dependant contractor ” is found in Section 3 of the Code in Part I – Industrial Relations.

In that same section, a dependant contractor is included in the definition of “employee” for the purpose of Part I.

However there is no similar definition section under Part III, so the issue is whether a dependant contractor is also considered an employee under that section.

The adjudicator reviewed a number of previous unjust dismissal decisions, the Supreme Court decision in Wilson v Atomic Energy of Canada ( 9 2016 SCR 29) and a Hansard quote from 1978 when John Munroe , the Federal Minister of Labour introduced the Unjust Dismissal legislation .

He then concluded that as Mr. Dieter was a dependant contractor rather than a independent contractor, that he was covered by the Unjust Dismissal provisions and  thus awarded him the balance of his term under his fixed term contract, which came to 8 months or $30,000.

The decision of the Adjudicator was upheld by the Federal Court in 2018 FC 411, released April 16, 2018