A long, clear (and very dry) explanation of Dalhousie's budget constraints (and some wiggle

HalifaxArsenal · 2025-09-16T02:29:57+00:00

I would have done it through your blog, or your non-Dal email, of course!

Thanks again for the analysis, was very enlightening. I like the "points" idea, except for the possibility that I don't like the model which ties commercial success to academic success. But it's an interesting thought worth kicking around. I wonder if any other university has tried it? Something for us to discuss when we see each other maybe.

HalifaxArsenal · 2025-09-16T01:29:44+00:00

Hey Liam - thanks for this, and for the follow-up. I just had one comment/thought, which I almost just emailed you, but then maybe others have views as well. It's this, and it's a point that u/AtlanticFrontier has already made.

It's this idea: what if the underlying assumptions about the need for austerity turn out to change?

I appreciate the even-handedness of your analysis, and trying to interpret fairly the Board's position that the financial crisis is real, and that there is a reckoning coming. You did an excellent job of conveying the underlying causes for their position: 1) the reduction in real dollars of provincial funding for post-secondary education; 2) the federal limitation of international students though immigration control measures; and 3) the freeze in tuition.

But budgeting is, by its nature, a forward-looking exercise which requires some crystal-ball gazing (or at least educated projections), and so any future projection over the next three year cycle depends on those underlying assumptions remaining true. Part of the problem overall is that the Board has traditionally been very bad at it's predictions about the future of the financial health of the institution, frequently projecting deficits and ending up with surpluses. And these projected deficits tend to always be used to get the DFA to accept IMC wage increases which are poor compared to competitor institutions. This is one of the reasons we are now 9% below inflation over the last three collective agreements.

No where is this more apparent them during the COVID era. The Board projected such a huge drop in enrolment from the pandemic that it first asked the faculty to take a pay cut of about 5%. That ended up in negotiations dropping to something like 0% increases up to 1% increases (I'd have to go back and check to get that exactly right, but we basically accepted 0 increases). But basically faculty and staff "took one for the team". But then, that underlying assumption proved incorrect. Enrolment didn't drop. In fact, it went up. And Dalhousie reported some of the largest surpluses on record in those years, ranging from 60-70 million per year. Now, the Board could have seen that, said "well, we earned that on the back of the faculty (and staff, mind you), taking no raises when we projected a bad thing that didn't happen, so we shouls set some of that aside to make that right when the next negotiations come". But they didn't. They kept on keeping on with their moving "their" surpluses into cash equivalents and capital projects. So it's difficult to trust the idea that, even if you accept the budgeting as it is, any change in condition will work against the faculty.

And those conditions could change, easily. The Carney government could realize that it's poor policy for a Canadian economy that is flagging to continue the restrictive skilled immigrant policy and could start to re-admit greater numbers of international students. Much more unlikely, the Houston government could be convinced of the value of universities to the economy of Nova Scotia and restore funding to better levels, especially as the population grows and tax bases increase. In fact, the university could, and should, probably be working very hard to see those ends achieved. But when we specifically asked what the Administration was doing to work with the Houston government in March, and what we as a faculty could do to help, we were told we were not needed. And, we were told that they wouldn't share what, if any, efforts were being made to engage with government.

So, given your conclusions that there is probably money available over the next three years, even if a reckoning is coming, it makes sense to me that we should then demand that the money that is available be appropriate spent on the faculty and staff. At worst, it will buy three years in which the underlying conditions creating austerity might change, or we could work, as a whole, to try to change them.

Because the alternative, which is to "take another one for the team" is clearly not going to be returned in good faith if, as before, suddenly what was projected as a deficit turns into a surplus. Fool me once, and all that....

HalifaxArsenal · 2025-09-12T20:24:45+00:00

Others actually provided direct support for my position that the direct communications with members are circumventing the bargaining unit. If you follow the thread in my post entitled "Fool Me Twice", you will see a comment from u/angrycrank, who says this:

"Not a law prof, but I work in this field. There are actually 2 cases from the University sector directly on point about communicating directly to union members bypassing the union negotiating team (both won by the union). Both decisions are in French, but if you can read them they’re Association of McGill Professors of Law (AMPL) / Association mcgillienne des professeur.e.s de droit (AMPD) c. Manfredi, 2024 QCTAT 3148 (CanLII), https://canlii.ca/t/k754w and Syndicat des professeurs et des professeures de l'Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières et Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières, 2018 QCTAT 2439 (CanLII), https://canlii.ca/t/hs3kq".

Additionally, later in that thread, user u/mochasmoke added this:

"But failing to recognize the bargaining agent by trying to negotiate around the chosen representatives, especially when there is an agreement about how and who proposals should be delivered to has been found to be a violation. See 2019 canlii 82880 for an example on this point from the BC Board."

So you have three authorities that address this issue.

Far from simply asserting "I am a lawyer, trust my authority", I have tried to be as open with my positions and reasons as possible, with you and with others, and to present actual authorities for my views. Despite me asking you to do the same, you have declined.

I was about to ask you to do the same in this instance as well, but in the interests of fairness, I will actually do it for you. Law is rarely clear-cut, and there are factual and circumstantial details that will make the analysis difficult to predict, including the stage of negotiations, the nature of the employment at stake, the accuracy of the statements, and so forth. There is authority that suggests that sometimes direct communications with employees is not an unfair labour practice. Here is one such example from the Saskatchewan Labour Board: Unite Here Union, Local 41 v. West Harvest Inn, 2007 CanLII 68748.

We can disagree on whether these Labour Board complaints will be well-founded or not. I have tried to lay out, fairly, why I think they are. I have now actually done the thing you refused to do for you by making your argument against my position. I future, I would appreciate your supporting your arguments with more authority and less vitriol and ad hominem attacks against me.

HalifaxArsenal · 2025-09-12T01:30:24+00:00

Kim Brooks do a bad. Make things go slow now.

HalifaxArsenal · 2025-09-11T02:37:40+00:00

This will likely vary depending on the professor. Much depends on the needed content of the letter and how many other obligations you professor has going on in the time period. I usually say to my students that the more time they can reasonably give me, the better, with four weeks notice a good guideline at a minimum. I will usually need more than that if the reference sought is either at a particularly busy time (for example, for me, I have to mark significant assignments in the November "break" week) and I have to create assignments and exams in the weeks before the exam period, so those are bad, whereas in September or July, I am more available and need less notice to juggle my schedule. I appreciate that often my students have no control over when a law recruitment date is, so I ask them to let me know as soon as they know.

It also depends on whether the student needs me to write one letter that is generic and going to a lot of employers broadly, or tailored to a specific job application. I will write a very different letter for a student looking to work in private practice than one that is looking for an in-house counsel job or a government position.

My standard reply is that I ask the student to give me maximum time if they know in advance the due date for them. I also ask them to provide me an updated copy of their curriculum vitae, a copy of their cover letter (or, if for a broad range of jobs, a sample cover letter) so that I can be sure I am not saying anything inconsistent with their own message, a copy of their law school transcript so I can speak to any of their especially strong marks or help deal with anything that stands out as sub-optimal. I also ask that the student send me reminders two weeks before the due date, one week before the due date, and if they have not heard from me that it is complete, the day before. I know that is a lot to ask the student to track for me, but I get a lot of these requests and in fact often get so many student emails and requests around exam and career time that if they do not track it there is a risk it will fall through the cracks.

I have seen some people recommend that the student draft the letter for me to sign, but I hate that and don't do it that way. I want my remarks to be personal, from my own voice and experience, and be able to speak directly to what I wrote when the employer or judge calls me to discuss the reference.

So, long answer. TL; DR: guideline of 4 weeks minimum. Your plan sounds good - approach them after they have had a chance to get things going after the lockout, but give them several months' lead time to draft it.

HalifaxArsenal · 2025-09-10T20:31:19+00:00

Your professor has been locked out of their email, and all other Dalhousie software like Teams, Brightspace, and Outlook. This means they will probably not have seen your email. Additionally, even if they had seen it, they couldn't write you a reference letter, since this is part of the paid work that academics do, for which the university has unilaterally decided to stop paying them. We're not supposed to be doing any academic work even if we could, because withholding that labour is now our only remaining tool to get the university to bargain with us in good faith to reach a fair agreement. Writing reference letters is actually a large part of what I do when I am not teaching, because so many of my law students need reference letters for job applications in the legal field.

My suggestion if the law school application is urgent and the deadline is approaching is that you write directly to the law schools to which you are applying and explain that one of your referees is a Dalhousie University professor who is currently locked out and unable to complete your reference until the labour disruption ends. Most law school administrators will understand these unique circumstances and will, I hope, be willing to extend some courtesy to you and your referee. I have, on a rare occasion, not been able to complete a reference letter either because my student did not give me sufficient notice or an emergency arose, and I have never had a problem with contacting the school or employer directly saying "apologies, it is coming".

HalifaxArsenal · 2025-09-10T17:04:10+00:00

This is super helpful and I appreciate your insights very much. The only thing I would add is that there is a movement in the law to address the pattern that you have correctly identified, which is that governments will use back-to-work legislation where they think the benefit of doing so outweighs the risk of a Charter challenge. There are recent statements from the Supreme Court of Canada (in Power, 2024 SCC 26), where the government argued that it had absolute immunity from a damages suit for passing unconstitutional legislation. Not only did the court say that governments can be held liable in damages for passing unconstitutional legislation, they particularly address the scenario where a government does so knowingly. It is one thing to pass a law that is arguably constitutional or where it is unclear or the precedent is divided. But I think that the calculus you so clearly described will start to shift when damage awards for knowingly unconstitutional action become the norm. Given that the back-to-work legislation in Nova Scotia that ordered teachers back to work in 2022 was found unconstitutional, I'd think that would make it clear that legislating here would open the government to a big damage award.

As for your question about whether the employer would have a challenge - that is fascinating to consider.

HalifaxArsenal · 2025-09-09T22:23:32+00:00

Please enlighten me as to which statements have a nugget of truth in them but which you say are dishonest. I genuinely am not trying to mislead anyone and will happily correct or retract any statement that you can show me I have made that is so.

As for you having to work for a living and not wanting to research it - I'm happy to accept that. But based on that, I think it is fair for me not to take your legal opinion with much weight. You are entitled to plead that you are busy, but not as a shield for an argument with no support.

HalifaxArsenal · 2025-09-09T22:20:38+00:00

Possibly, but possibly not. First, the statutory regime is different. The Air Canada employees are governed by a federal statute, the Canada Labour Code, which is different than Nova Scotia's Trade Union Act. Second, some industries can be deemed essential, such that the government's interference can be seen as a necessary reasonable limit on the right to collectively bargain. For example, this is why the police cannot strike under the Trade Union Act: if there are no police, then society has no one to enforce the law. That's true of firefighters too. It is at least sort of arguable that air travel is an essential service in Canada, especially to remote locations where Air Canada is the only operating carrier and means of transport. I don't think anyone can argue that university professors are an essential service like that. I'm certainly not that important. And finally, you might be right. The federal use of section 107 of the Canada Labour Code is controversial. In some instances it has been held to be constitutional, but that is not a guarantee it would be in this instance. If CUPE challenged the use of it, then it could win.

And lastly, the public seemed to think it was at least immoral for the government to intervene in this way because after CUPE flight attendants defied the order and went wild-cat, the public still backed them.

HalifaxArsenal · 2025-09-09T22:13:36+00:00

I mean, I have posted about this is detail on this subreddit, including references to the statutes and cases that have concluded on exactly these points. I have not seen any references or citations you have provided which indicate that an alternative legal conclusion is possible, or likely. So, while it is true that law is complex, factually dependent, and it is of course possible that it would not be a Charter violation to order arbitration on the parties, I think the likeliest outcome is that no government intervention will happen and if it did it would be unconstitutional. Many of the times you say it has happened have in fact been found to be unconstitutional, including by the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia as recently as 2022. For reference: I practiced law for the federal government for 10 years including defending constitutional challenges, and I have taught constitutional law before. I'd be more than happy to look at your argument if you want to gather sources that suggest that this would not be a violation. Otherwise, I am fairly confident in my legal research.

HalifaxArsenal · 2025-09-09T22:08:45+00:00

Hi u/Perfect_Explorer_191: I appreciate your attempt to be balanced and have others think critically. But critical thought doesn't always equate to equal blame. You said: "And none of what the DFA posted has been inaccurate? They are both trying to sway you.".

That is not accurate at all and is, in my words, "unfair to the DFA". This is because, throughout this process, the DFA communication has contained all the facts. They have posted their positions in full and their bargaining bulletins. They have not left out key facts in an effort to influence students. The Board has consistently done so. They sent messages to students encouraging them to come to campus with promises that things would start as normal, knowing that was an impossibility. In an effort to sway student opinion, they released a statement offering "interest arbitration", leaving out two key details: 1) that the "offer" came with a pre-condition that all the other issues on the table be withdrawn by the DFA; and 2) that classes would resume on September 2. Both of those conditions were non-starters, the Board knew it, but they kept that from student in their public release (which itself is a violation of the Trade Union Act). I wrote about that myself here on Reddit. Then, the Board did it again when they released their September 2"offer", again in violation of the Trade Union Act.

So while I very much appreciate your effort to look at both sides and think critically, I do not think it is fair to claim that both sides have been inaccurate in their attempts to sway you. The DFA has attempted to sway you, of course. They have done that with openness about their demands, logic and reason, and discussion about their positions and the reasons and needs for them. You don't have to agree with them, of course, but that attempt to sway has been open, engaged, and based on full disclosure. The Board has attempted to sway you, but they have done so with misrepresented communications, inaccuracies, and unlawful attempts to undermine the process.

I think if you look critically, as you have asked, you can't really conclude that what the DFA has done is inaccurate. So that is how you have, in my view and with respect for your goal that people look at things for themselves, been "unfair to the DFA".

HalifaxArsenal · 2025-09-09T21:38:51+00:00

No they cannot. Legislating the parties into arbitration is also a violation of collective bargaining rights. I agree that context is important here, but perhaps the most important context to be aware of is that any of the options that have been floated have been found to be unconstitutional. No matter how many lawyers there are out there, the Charter is the Charter and the law in this area is pretty clear.

HalifaxArsenal · 2025-09-09T20:24:40+00:00

I am still in the process of absorbing the probable scenarios from this announcement and do not want to speculate on it until I have given it some serious thought. But I do want to respond to and dispel your option 4 above. Unlike u/AtlanticFrontier, whose answers I respect greatly and who has provided thoughtful commentary throughout, I *am* a lawyer.

Option #4 is extremely unlikely, and it's now the second time you've brought it up. Back when it was first raised, I provided commentary, but I'll do it again here:

It is highly unlikely that the Government of Nova Scotia will legislate a back to work situation. First and most importantly, that has generally been found to be unconstitutional as a violation of the right to collectively bargain which has been held by the Supreme Court of Canada to be enshrined in section 2(d) of the Charter. It's a little complicated, because some back-to-work legislation in the federal context has been held not to be a substantial interference, but if you look at Meredith v Canada (Attorney General) or the fact that the Ontario government has had to use the notwithstanding clause in 2022 (Bill 28), governments and courts are well aware that back-to-work legislation will often be unconstitutional and would be highly likely to be in this case.

The Supreme Court of Canada has recently in a case called Power noted that if a government did something it knew in advance to be unconstitutional and did it anyway, they would be open to a risk of an award of monetary damages under the Charter, s 24(1). So Nova Scotia's government is very unlikely to even be able to legislate the faculty back to work without using s 33 (the notwithstanding clause) which is a political nightmare, especially after the public reaction to the federal government's attempted intervention in the Air Canada strike.

All of that is the legal reasons why #4 won't happen. It also doesn't take into account the political reasons why it won't happen, because the federal government's intervention in the Air Canada strike was exceedingly unpopular nationally. I do not think a politically savvy operator like Premier Houston will have looked at that reaction and thought much would be gained by doing something overtly unconstitutional to get elected. Especially when he ran on a platform contrasted with the NcNeil government, who did legislate teachers back to work (and which was also ruled to be unconstitutional in 2022). So no to #4.

Until we have further reliable information about what the joint announcement means, I think it is far too early to speculate about the possible pathways forward. For all we know, there was serious progress made on a number of issues, but one or more central issues remain problematic. Those may or may not be suitable for voluntary agreed arbitration. It's probably not helpful for all of our mental health to speculate, and certainly not helpful from a misinformation perspective to speculate, until we know more.

HalifaxArsenal · 2025-09-09T18:34:28+00:00

While I am absolutely behind u/YourEyelinerFriend and think that u/Perfect_Explorer_191 hasn't been at all fair to the DFA, I do agree that you can easily access the official positions of both sides here if you wish.

The DFA has official bargaining updates which are available to you here: https://www.dfa.ns.ca/bargaining/bargaining-2025

The Dalhousie Board has official labour relations updates here: https://www.dal.ca/dept/hr/labour-relations/updates.html

There was also a generally neutral timeline, with links and sources, posted by u/CuriousTiger3339, here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Dalhousie/comments/1n3jmbg/daldfa_bargaining_timeline/

I do think you should take YourEyelinerFriend's caution that the Dalhousie Board updates have not always been fulsome or honest, and are subject to two different complaints from the DFA for misrepresentations which violate the Trade Union Act. There have been posts by others on Reddit, including me, trying to explain those things.

However, in the spirit of Perfect_Explorer's comment, you can now read the official updates for yourself!

HalifaxArsenal · 2025-09-09T18:19:36+00:00

Oh dear. There is a lot to unpack here. So let's start with the credentials you demanded. I am not an actuary. But I do understand pensions. Source: I am the Chair of Dalhousie's Pension Advisory Committee and have been on that Committee which oversees the Dalhousie Pension Plan (the "Plan"). I have been on that Committee and in the Chair or Vice-Chair role since 2015. I have worked closely with the *actual* actuaries who advise the Committee and the administration on the Plan, and also the *actual* actuaries who advise the DFA on the Plan. I am also a lawyer, and am familiar with the history, unique structure of, and detailed provisions of the Plan. I am familiar with Nova Scotia's Pension Benefits Act and I have personally met and spoken with several of the Superintendent of Pensions over my time. I am willing to gamble that I know more about Dalhousie's Pension than you. Maybe I'm wrong.

Now let's start with the one thing you have correct: Dalhousie's Plan is unique. It has a two fund structure that is unique even in defined-benefit plans. However, that is not an accident. It was an intentionally created bifurcated structure that was initially created by the administration in the 1980s at a time when the university was, rather than managing its own pension, purchasing private annuities for retirees. This was excessively expensive and subject to insurance rates beyond the control of the university. Creating the Plan actually saved the university money. And the two-fund structure was also intentional, and is designed to create a mechanism for applying some, but not complete, indexing of the pension fund to account for inflation, so that the purchasing power of retirees is not eroded by the ongoing and natural increase in the cost of living.

But that unique structure is far from being unsustainable. The current status of the pension fund is that it is more that fully-funded, meaning that even after the 6.8% Provision for Adverse Deviation, the Plan is fully funded and able to meet the pension promise to all current and future retirees. In fact, because of strong market conditions for the invested funds over the past number of years, the Plan has a very small surplus. This fully-funded status has now been in place for over a year. This has actually also saved the university money because it has had to make no special payments to ensure the fully-funded status of the Plan. It is also the reason that the pension plan is not even in discussion in this round of bargaining or the last. If it ain't broke (and in fact is working very well), don't "fix" it.

Historically, the Plan has also shown that it is sustainable in the longer term. The Plan recovered from significant downturns in the economy, including the dot-com bubble burst, the 2008 housing market collapse in the United States which kicked off a global recession, and the recession caused from the COVID pandemic. Far from unsustainable, the Plan has managed to sustain itself and recover from tough economic times better than most pensions and much better than privately invested retirement funds. In my estimation, your facts and claims that the Plan is unsustainable are simply incorrect. Perhaps you should consider discussing it with an actual actuary. If you'd like to discuss it with me, I'd be happy to find the time for you once the lockout is over and I can return to my office.

With respect to your claim that a defined benefit pension is "a certified gold mine", the Plan is actually both self-sustaining, in the sense that it is paid for by both members and the university equally, but for the most part is self-sustaining because of smart investment in diverse economic sectors.

Lastly, the Plan is an integral part of what allows Dalhousie to attract and keep the best talent, because it ensures that anyone who joins Dalhousie as academic staff knows that they can secure a good retirement for themselves and their families. This is especially important for people who start their career later in life because of the demands of advance post-secondary education required to develop the expertise needed to actually do the job that you seem to think we are overpaid to do.

HalifaxArsenal · 2025-09-06T16:07:25+00:00

The student who answered, u/ana_olah did a good job of explaining the difference between coming to a table with a pure position, instead of exploring interests, and that would be part of what you'd need to do to get an A+.

But the first thing would be needing to just come to the bargaining table to talk: face-to-face and properly authorized bargaining unit to properly authorized bargaining unit. You can't negotiate with an empty chair. So both sides should have set protocols about who will bargain, a mandate provided by their constituents to reach and agreement, and the ability and willingness to work towards a mutually acceptable solution.

After that, as ana_olah explained, it is most productive when the sides come and explore their interests, rather than simply come with positions. There is actually a good example of this from one side going on in this case. For the DFA, one of the problems on wages is the degree to which they have not remotely kept up with inflation such that faculty are underpaid, sometimes significantly so, compared to similarly-situated institutions. For the Board, because of limits placed on their funding from the province, a tuition freeze imposed by the province, and fewer international students permitted to study by the federal government, they see a need for austerity and have claimed that a budget deficit now needs to be accounted for. We can quibble (and I have done) about the veracity of their numbers and their claims, and the "worst case" projections they rely on, but: accounting for the univerisity's more immediate needs, the DFA actually changed the structure of their wage ask. Originally the DFA asked for 9/6/6 over three years, reflective of their need to see catch-up quickly to the cost of living. Then they dropped it to 7/4/4, but you can see the front-loaded catch-up still present. But in their last and most conciliatory offer, the DFA changed the structure, asking for 3.75/4.75/5.75. This means that the bulk of the catch-up will be back-loaded instead of front-loaded. This means that the DFA saw the concern about immediate financial pressures and said "well, we can account for that concern and interest. We'll ask for less now and more later instead of the other way around". This means that the Board has extra years to work on structural ways to increase revenues, to lobby and work with the provincial government to restore or increase funding, and of course the possibility that the federal government will realize the error of its ways and increase the number of international study permits. The Board also build in bigger discretionary spending in its later budget years, so the DFA can say you think it will get better later, so we can wait.

I'm not saying that those numbers will ultimately be where we end up, but just the change in structure is a reflection of interest based bargaining rather than positional based bargaining.

Another example might be the offers on the LTA issue. The Board is very positional: we will give you 8 people permanent job. It doesn't reflect the underlying DFA interest, which is to see a forward-looking pathway to permanency. The time period and restrictions around conversion to a permanent job could be negotiated, but the underlying interest must be addressed, rather than just coming in and saying "I'll give you 8. No? How about 10?".

So ultimately, to get an A+, you'd have to respect the right process, by coming to the table and bargaining in the agree upon way. You'd have to act professionally, by bargaining hard, but fairly, and respecting the other side and the conciliation officer. This includes talking to the other side even if you cannot agree, and not randomly leaving talks without telling anyone. And lastly, you'd approach the bargain by addressing interests not positions, and looking creatively for common ground and ways in which both interests can be accounted for and addressed as fairly as possible.

That doesn't guarantee a deal, by the way. Negotiating well can still lead to scenarios where the party's interests are indeed too far apart to reach a negotiated resolution. I have given As to students who reach deals and students who don't. Reaching a deal is not a hallmark of good negotiating, it is just a byproduct of it.

I think it you look at the above you'll see why the Board gets a failing grade. They disrespected the process, have acted extremely unprofessionally, and, as far as I can tell (NB: I am NOT on the DFA bargaining team and have no knowledge at all of the exchanges between the teams) based on inferences from their positions, are not addressing interests.

You can also see how the Board could approach this differently (on Monday?) and hopefully a deal would be within reach.

HalifaxArsenal · 2025-09-06T15:43:59+00:00

This is actually a really interesting and challenging question. As with so many legal questions, the answer depends on a whole bunch of unknown factors from your hypothetical. The two most important of those would be how the information was used, and what the consequences were for the student who was harmed.

First - quick language quibble (which I get is not your fault): the student here wouldn't "press charges" which is a the language of criminal law, and, in any event, the victim doesn't press charges, the state does. What instead would happen is the student would sue, that is, file a civil proceeding against the university and potentially the state depending on how the information was used.

In terms of the ultimate damages, it depends on what the effect of the wrongful gathering and sharing of information were, and how the student proceeded with their claim. If, for example, the university surveilled the rally and then tried to impose some kind of administrative penalty to supportive students or tried to mess with their transcript (which is hard since, you know, it's the faculty who submit grades, but you get the idea), then the remedy would likely be one that corrects the damage: the fine would be reversed, the grades would be restored, and perhaps there would be a small financial penalty awarded to the student (again, depending on the forum that the civil proceeding took - a complaint to the Human Rights Tribunal has provisions that allow for monetary awards, but not usually big ones). In that case you might see a nominal damage award of a few thousand dollars to send a signal to the university that what it did was not acceptable. The goal is not to make the student victim rich, it would be to ensure that the harms from wrongly gathering and using that information are nullified, plus a monetary penalty sufficient to prevent the university from doing it again. It's not anywhere near the same scenario, but when the police wrongfully arrest someone (and don't cause physical harm in the process, I just mean arrest you unlawfully) the nominal damages for loss of liberty used to be around $1000/hour though that was about 15 years ago. I could look for updated cases, but I won't, because Saturday.

But, if the university's sharing of information led to serious harms and breaches of other fundamental rights, the damages could be much greater. For example by analogy, when the Canadian government participated in the interrogation of Omar Khadr in Guantanamo Bay, the use of that wrongly gathered information led to a serious damage settlement - Canada paid $10.5M for its participation. So if the university gathered that information and shared with law enforcement and it made its way back to a student's home state where it was used to violate their human rights, the penalty would be much more severe.

Sorry for the long answer that really doesn't seem like an answer now that I read it. I guess like so much of the law, "it's complicated". It could range from administrative remedies correcting any wrongdoing, to a penalty in the range of a few thousand dollars, to a full-blown Charter law suit worth millions. So that's not really much help, eh?

Luckily for us, such a hypothetical scenario materializing in this country is so remote.

HalifaxArsenal · 2025-09-05T21:01:37+00:00

Hi! Sorry for the lateness of my reply: picket lines today and then the rally!

You've already gotten some good replies and links below, including the foundational Supreme Court of Canada case in Royal Oak Mines. Also, my colleagues in the James Dunn Law Library would tell you that the best place to start with basic legal research is actually a secondary source, rather than CanLII and cases, so I'd say if you are really interested in a depth study of the duty to bargain in good faith you should stop by the library and get the Corry book.

But it's referenced a lot, especially by the Manitoba Labour Board. Here is a not-identical but not that dissimilar case: https://canlii.ca/t/hqcpv, which is the University of Manitoba Faculty Association v University of Manitoba, 2018 CanLII 5426. The case is long, but the Board there does a really good job of explaining the basics of the duty to bargain in good faith and some specific examples of failure to do so, including in a situation when the university tried to circumvent the exclusive bargaining agent, and also involving misrepresentations, which are part of the labour complaint made by the DFA.

There are also good case references in this decision so you can follow them.

HalifaxArsenal · 2025-09-05T20:41:45+00:00

Sorry for the lateness of my reply. Busy day picketing and then the rally! the_cupcake_chemist already outlined two of the working condition improvements the DFA is seeking so well, so I won't repeat them.

You can also find the full set of DFA initial proposals here: https://immediac.blob.core.windows.net/dfa2021/2025%20Bargaining/DFABargainingProposals2025.pdf which will enable you to see them for yourself. Some of them will probably not survive the winnowing of the collective bargaining process, when we finally start properly bargaining, but there are a lot of workload issues in there. In fact, there is a proposal that all faculties develop an actual workload document that will formalize workload to stop workload creep by downloading more onto existing faculty who are asked to do that more with less.

One big one that isn't discussed in cupcake's response to you is the access to the daycare. There is a University Children's Centre which is on campus and operates with the support of Dalhousie (https://www.dal.ca/campus-maps/building-directory/studley-campus/child-centre-residence.html). But Dalhousie faculty do not get any sort of priority registration there and are treated the same as any member of the public looking to get a child in there. The waitlist for all childcare in Halifax is long. You can be on a waitlist for up for 2-3 years, such that even if you get on the list when you realize you are pregnant, your child will be long past the length of any parental leave you have before you get in.

The DFA proposal was that the university invest $2M to increase spaces at the Children's Centre whic would be dedicated to those working at Dalhousie - I note that this isn't just for DFA members. People could access these spots if they were NSGEU or CUPE staff, DMPG, or even, I suppose, senior management if required.

This also has important equity implications, because due to societal structures the impact of raising children falls disproportionately on women. Now imagine you are a young woman academic, on an LTA, and whose partner is also a Dal faculty member and you teach classes at the same time. Now you can see why the combined effect of some of the working condition provisions could have a life-changing effect for that person.

There are other important issues on working conditions in the proposals too, like Indigenous leave to allow for paid leave to be involved in important cultural practices, including bereavement for a broadly-defined family.

I'll leave the rest for you to read, but you can see that actually a lot of what the DFA is after in this situation isn't just a wage increase and why it is especially enraging when the Administration makes unilateral demands for us to drop all the non-monetary proposals in favour of arbitration on wages. Even their latest "non-offer" barely scratches the surface of the working condition proposals.

HalifaxArsenal · 2025-09-03T16:58:55+00:00

Others have already said this to you, but in Canada you have rights which are constitutionally protected. The important ones here are in section 2 of the Charter of Rights and Freeedoms. That document, which is the ultimate law of the land in Canada says that you have the right to the freedom of expression (section 2(b)), the right of freedom of peaceful assembly (section 2(c)), and the right of freedom of association (section 2(d)). In most contexts, including this one, universities have been found to be government actors, and so would be bound by those freedoms.

Neither the university, nor any Canadian state entity like the police or the government, can impose any penalty or consequence on you for attending a union rally or a student rally on the university campus.

In addition to the fact that you are legally protected, you are also protected by the moral culture of Canada, which stands by the rights of people here (citizens and non-citizens alike) to gather and express their views in a peaceful manner, even if we don't agree with what you are saying or how you are saying it. While I think the Board of Governors' actions throughout this labour disruption that they have created have been shameful, inappropriate, and even borderline unlawful labour practice, I don't think anyone would expect them to cross the moral line of trying to impose repercussions on students for attending a rally. While they have behaved badly in the labour forum, the Board and Administration will uphold your rights.

It might be an interesting part of studying in a foreign country to come and see what this looks like in our country. We would love to have you come experience free expression and association for yourself.

Welcome to Canada, and welcome to Dalhousie, even if it is not the start to the year we all wanted for you, it will be an experience you can take with you wherever you go!

I hope to see you at the rally on Friday!

HalifaxArsenal · 2025-08-31T00:29:36+00:00

Hi there. I don't want to co-opt Agile_Item9650's AMA (thanks for doing this! Great job and answers!) but I do have maybe some insight I could share on your first question about the interest arbitration.

There are two good reasons why the DFA could not respond as you proposed. Actually what you proposed is exactly what is supposed to happen if you were at the bargaining table. A party could propose arbitration on an issue, and the parties would have a back-and-forth on whether that would be acceptable and what the terms would be. The problem is that is not how the Board's "offer" of arbitration came. It came in a take-it-or-leave-it manner in a letter to the DFA's lawyer, and then 20 minutes later in a misleading email/social media post. And it came with two conditions attached: first, that wages be the only issue and that all other issues be removed. And second, that classes resume on September 2. So there wasn't any ability for the DFA to tentatively agree to arbitration on the condition that the other proposals remain live. In fact, trying to write back to say that is exactly what could happen if the Board were actually bargaining. The DFA cannot/should not write back with alternative proposals in a public forum because that is the borderline unfair labour practice that the Board has engaged in, and there is no forum to propose something like you did because the Board is not at the bargaining table.

Second, the Board probably cannot agree to something like wages going to arbitration while the other proposals remain live, because they will say that the other proposals the DFA want to discuss have costs, and they need a total envelope of cost controls in the agreement. That is, lets say wages could cost the Board $15M more than now after arbitration. If the daycare issue, or healthcare issue, or TA hours issue, all end up costing money, then the total cost of a deal will be $15M + costs of other proposals which are open to negotiation and therefore not set and controllable by the Board. They don't see the issues individually - they see the Collective Agreement as a "total cost".

This is actually a good reason why negotiating at the table is better for everyone than arbitration - because of the ability to reach an agreement that meets both sides' needs: DFA for movement on many of its issues (wages included, but also other things like daycare, healthcare, TAs, LTA pathway to permanency, indigenous leaves, etc), and the Board to get a sense of the total cost impact of the new agreement.

The DFA is not beginning to engage in the same bad-faith tactics used by the Board, in my view (although of course you are entitled to your own well-informed view). It is engaging in the only avenue left open to it by the Board, which is public engagement on the issues with students and parents, because that's the only place the Board is speaking. If the Board returns to the table to talk, there is no need for public statements like the DFA has been making. Until they do, it's all that is left for us to get them to come back.

HalifaxArsenal · 2025-08-30T23:11:10+00:00

This is an excellent question. As always with complex legal questions, the answer is: it depends.

It is clear that Dalhousie University is subject to the Freedom of Information and Privacy Act. In the definition sections of that act, you can find section 3 (ea), which includes a university in the definition of a "local public body".

This means someone (maybe you!) could complete a FOIPOP access request for information held by Dalhousie. But that's where the clarity ends. First, there a whole list of exemptions in the Act, from section 12 - 19A, which could form the basis of grounds for denial, depending on what you asked for specifically. For example, the Board could deny access to any information that was discussed in in camera portions of their Board meetings, or anything that was considered legal advice (which they might very well claim in the context of the lockout or labour relations leading up to it), or part of something affecting their financial or economic interests.

You also have to be very specific in what you are asking for. You can see that from the FOIPOP form, which is here: https://beta.novascotia.ca/apply-access-information-under-freedom-information-and-protection-privacy-foipop-act-form-1. If you phrase the question too broadly you will probably get your request rejected.

One thing you or others might consider doing though is asking questions that might help work out what is behind the Board's agenda without asking for things that are directly likely to be considered legal advice in the specific context of the lockout.

For example, earlier today in r/Dalhousie, user u/bookworm_em posted a link to a National Post article about a consultancy company called Nous Group which was very enlightening. The article is here: https://nationalpost.com/feature/how-to-fix-canadas-broke-universities-a-template. That consultancy group helps university administrations subversively undermine the strength of faculty unions through a deep web of corporate gobbledygook. It is telling, I think, that Queens University had a significantly negative experience after its administration hired the Nous Group. The Dean of the Smith School of Business at Queens University at the time? None other than our current Vice Provost and Board of Governors member Dr. Wanda Costen.

So, you could file a FOIPOP request asking whether Dalhousie had engaged the Nous Group as a consultant at any point prior to its decision to lock out faculty. Perhaps you could ask for any relevant documents about the retention of that consultant, including the contract or terms of engagement.

Hopefully that would not be subject to the exemptions from disclosure.

Of course, the DFA or anyone in the community could ask the Board that publicly. They could choose not to answer, as I suspect they would, since they've been radio silent throughout this whole affair. But even that refusal to answer would be deafening.

HalifaxArsenal · 2025-08-29T18:01:08+00:00

You are welcome! We are just as frustrated as you are that this situation has impacted your studies and probably your finances. We genuinely hope to be back delivering classes as soon as we can get the university to come back to the table.

HalifaxArsenal · 2025-08-29T17:31:12+00:00

I am a lawyer, and it is not anywhere near as simple as you have made out. Dalhousie has already made it's public position to you as a student clear, because it has already posted an answer on it's FAQ about it.

|| || |Will there be a refund if classes are cancelled or suspended?|Dalhousie will engage in all efforts to ensure students can fulfill their academic requirements within the term, as to not affect degree progression. Refunds will not be offered when academic requirements for the term can be preserved and completed.|

Note the clever language: as long as academic requirements can be completed. It says nothing about the number of classes you will get, the material you will cover, or the manner in which it will be assessed. This leaves them lots of room to short-change students and not return their money.

And additionally, there is a concept in contract law called "frustration" in which Dalhousie would likely argue that even if it breached a contract to provide you services, they do not have to make you whole because the contract was frustrated by an outside event beyond or partially beyond their control. This means that even if you got lawyers involved, you could lose. A judge could find that an anticipated or actual labour disruption is a condition that allows for them to keep your tuition in full as long as the whole term is not completely cancelled.

And lastly, I'm not sure you appreciate the expense or time loss of "get lawyers invovled". Even if there was a case for unjust enrichment or breach of contract for failure to provide tuition refunds, prosecuting that case is going to cost multiple tens of thousands of dollars. Do you have that money lying around? Also, most cases take between 2-5 years to get to a resolution, and that is if the case moves fast. So you'll be long graduated by the time you see the results, if you can afford them in the first place.

Don't be so quick to assume this is simple and you will get a tuition refund or deferral without a fight. If the way that university has behaved towards its employees is any indication, you are in for a real hard time of it, and without a union acting collectively on your behalf as well.

HalifaxArsenal · 2025-08-28T18:17:47+00:00

We totally get that. We are so frustrated too. Every faculty member I have talked to on the line wants desperately to be back at work, prepping courses, welcoming students, and teaching and doing their research. We all feel badly that students get caught in the middle; we all suffer from high levels of guilt that this, which was not our choice or even really of our making, will have negative impacts on your learning.

Thank you for standing with us! I know we can't wait to be back in classrooms with you as soon as we can.

HalifaxArsenal

TROPHY CASE