Union did not enter a contract when it awarded life membership to a former member, court rules
The Ontario Superior Court of Justice has found that it lacked jurisdiction to adjudicate the applicant’s complaints arising from the termination of his life membership in a union, given that these matters of policy were deemed not justiciable.
The respondent in this case was the Customs and Immigration Union (CIU), a component union under the umbrella of the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC), certified bargaining agent of federal public service employees appointed to certain Canada Border Services Agency positions.
The applicant in this case served a single term as the CIU’s national president. In October 2003, the CIU’s national board of directors voted to award him a CIU life membership.
Life members could attend as guests of the CIU national convention but should sit away from the convention floor. Only the CIU’s regular members who paid dues had the right to participate in the union’s decision-making processes.
In January 2004, the applicant retired from his federal public service employment. He sued the CIU in connection with his pay during his term. His life membership was suspended in October 2005 and reinstated in October 2011 after he abandoned his lawsuit.
The applicant later wanted to nominate his son as a delegate to the national convention. In May 2017, the CIU’s headquarters branch president told the applicant that only regular members could participate in the selection process and could nominate delegates.
The applicant brought the matter to the CIU’s and PSAC’s national presidents and presented complaints against CIU and PSAC executives. He claimed that his life membership entitled him to nominate his son and to actively participate in meetings over decisions affecting regular members.
In April 2019, the CIU’s national president advised the applicant that the CIU’s board had voted to revoke or rescind his life membership.
In this application, the applicant asked the court to declare that the revocation of his life membership breached the CIU’s by-laws, to re-instate his status as a life member, and to order the CIU to adhere to the PSAC’s constitution and the CIU’s by-laws.
In Charette v. Customs and Immigration Union, 2025 ONSC 1719, the Superior Court of Justice of Ontario dismissed the application upon finding that it had no jurisdiction over this matter under case law.
The court left the unions to determine, as policy matters, what recognitions or awards they wanted to give to former members no longer employed and represented by the union and how much such members could participate in union governance.
The court noted that labour relations statutes, including the one applicable to labour relations in the federal public service, did not regulate CIU life membership. The court also noted that, according to the CIU, there were no economic benefits for life membership and no economic consequences associated with revoking such membership.
Next, the court ruled that the CIU did not enter a contract with the applicant when it gave him life membership. The court saw no objective evidence of offer and acceptance. The CIU’s board decided on its own to make the applicant a life member as a sign of respect and not as the result of a negotiated process, the court said.
The court added that life membership allowed the applicant to attend annual meetings if he wished as a “benefit” but had no relation to his employment since he retired more than 20 years ago, had no financial implications, imposed no obligations on the applicant, and required no payment of union dues from him.
