Injunction Decision in Christie Pits Picketing Dispute

The City of Toronto recently obtained an injunction that prevented picketers at Christie Pits from obstructing a bug spraying of the garbage and standing water removal.  Here is the Court’s decision. Its useful to labour law students to understand how these injunctions work.
The trick in labour injunctions is for the employer to convince the court that the picketers are engaging in some sort of unlawful conduct, usually a tort, such as obstruction or nuisance, or causing injury to persons, that ‘irreparable harm’ will result if the injunction is not granted, and that that harm outweighs any harm to the picketers associated with the granting of the injunction.  In addition, in Ontario, Section 102 of the Courts of Justice Act requires that the police first be called, and that they be unable to prevent the obstruction or injury.
In this case, CUPE argued that it had not actually obstructed the truck and that, in any event, the requirement for the police to be unsuccessful in preventing the obstruction had not been met.  The Court disagreed.  It found that the union’s warning that the truck would not be permitted to cross the picket line was sufficient to warrant a finding of unlawful obstruction, since the driver shouldn’t have to provoke an escalation of hostilities by attempting to test the picketers’ will.  And the requirement of police involvement was met here, since the police had taken the position they would not take any action against the picketers without an injunction.
Having satisfied the Courts of Justice Act requirements, the Court then ruled that the other conditions for a labour injunction had been met:  the potential harm to the public of a pest infestation could not be adequately remedied later by compensation, and that harm outweighed the limited restriction on the union’s picketing rights here.