Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• Application concerned whether the Court should, under Rule 2.10 of the Alberta Rules of Court, grant the Association of Academic Staff of the University of Alberta (AASUA) status to intervene in Dr. Hume’s appeal regarding an alleged concurrent legal relationship with Alberta Health Services and Alberta Precision Laboratories Inc. (AHS/APL).

• The Court found that the decision of the Applications Judge, if upheld, would have a significant impact on AASUA, particularly because it implies AASUA could have represented Dr. Hume in disputes arising from her clinical relationship with AHS/APL despite AHS/APL not being a party to the AASUA–GUA Collective Agreement.

• Evidence filed by AASUA described the structure of dual-role academic clinicians, including concurrent academic appointments with the Governors of the University of Alberta (GUA) and separate legal relationships with third-party clinical entities, as well as Collective Agreement provisions and funding arrangements that treat clinical disputes as outside the Collective Agreement.

• The Court held that AASUA could provide important information and perspective on the scope and limitations of its rights and obligations under the Collective Agreement, the treatment of academic clinicians with concurrent arrangements, and the dispute-resolution mechanisms that apply to such relationships.

• Concerns that AASUA’s intervention would duplicate arguments, cause prejudice, delay the appeal, or improperly widen the issues were rejected; the Court found AASUA’s participation would be confined to the jurisdictional and “genuine issue requiring trial” questions and would not transform the proceeding into a political arena.

• AASUA was granted leave to intervene in the appeal, with authority to file written argument and additional affidavit evidence and to make oral submissions, on the basis that it would bear its own costs for the intervention application and that any other costs issues would be left to the justice hearing the appeal.

Factual and procedural background

Dr. Stacey Hume is a molecular geneticist who was in an employment relationship with the University of Alberta from April 2005 to November 2022. She held a “contingent appointment,” a professorial appointment partially funded by a third party, under which her employment with the University was contingent on salary support from Capital Health and its successor, Alberta Health Services (AHS). During this period, she was a professor in the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, Department of Medical Genetics, and she also provided clinical services to patients of AHS and Alberta Precision Laboratories Ltd (APL), a wholly owned subsidiary of AHS that delivers laboratory services through various facilities and laboratories. Her salary combined remuneration from the Governors of the University of Alberta (GUA) for her work as a professor and remuneration by AHS (paid through the GUA) for clinical services to AHS patients.

On November 22, 2021, the Chair of the Department of Medical Genetics gave Dr. Hume 12 months’ notice that her contingent appointment would end effective November 30, 2022. Between April 13, 2021 and October 18, 2022, AASUA investigated her circumstances, as later pleaded in her Statement of Claim against AHS/APL, and the potential viability of a grievance on her behalf under the AASUA–GUA Collective Agreement. AASUA concluded that the essential character of the dispute did not arise out of the Collective Agreement but out of Dr. Hume’s relationship as a clinician serving AHS/APL.

In April 2022, Dr. Hume commenced an action against AHS/APL, asserting that with respect to the clinical services she performed in the laboratory she was an employee or dependent contractor of AHS/APL. In July 2022, AHS/APL brought a third-party claim against the University, asserting that only the University could be liable for employment-related obligations owed to Dr. Hume because the University was her only employer.

Two applications proceeded before an Applications Judge on September 19, 2024, without notice to AASUA. AHS applied under Rule 7.3 for summary dismissal of Dr. Hume’s claim seeking damages on the premise that she was an employee or dependent contractor of AHS/APL. The University applied under Rule 3.68 to strike AHS/APL’s third-party claim, which sought to divert liability to the University for any claims arising from Dr. Hume’s employment. The Applications Judge granted the first application, finding no merit to Dr. Hume’s claim that she was an employee or dependent contractor of AHS/APL, and struck the third-party claim on the basis that there was no way for the University to have ultimate liability to Dr. Hume because any employment-related issues were governed by the Collective Agreement and thus outside the Court’s jurisdiction. Dr. Hume appealed the decision granting summary dismissal of her claim against AHS/APL; the decision striking the third-party claim was not appealed. An appeal is scheduled to be heard on September 10, 2026.

The appeal issue and competing characterizations of the legal relationships

The main issue to be determined on appeal is whether there is a genuine issue requiring trial on Dr. Hume’s claim that a separate legal relationship (as employee, dependent contractor, or independent contractor) exists between her and AHS/APL that is concurrent with her employment by the GUA as an academic staff member under the Collective Agreement.

On this issue, AASUA’s stated position includes that it is the exclusive bargaining agent for academic staff members of the University of Alberta and has exclusive authority, under the Labour Relations Code, to bargain collectively with the GUA and bind academic staff by a collective agreement, and that AASUA and the GUA are the only parties to the Collective Agreement. Of approximately 1,926 academic staff in the “Academic Faculty,” about 610 in the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry have dual roles, providing academic services to the GUA under the Collective Agreement while, in a separate role, providing clinical services to third-party entities. Academic clinicians are concurrently appointed by third parties to separate legal relationships, which may be as employees, dependent contractors, or independent contractors. AASUA has no legal relationship with those third-party entities, and the GUA is not a joint employer with any such third party. According to AASUA, the GUA has consistently taken the position that AASUA has no role with respect to academic clinicians in their clinical relationships with third parties, and Dr. Hume was concurrently appointed as an academic clinician by the GUA and by predecessors of APL and AHS to a separate legal relationship providing clinical services.

By contrast, AHS/APL’s position is that at the time of recruitment Dr. Hume chose to provide both clinical services and academic responsibilities as an employee of the University of Alberta. They say she provided clinical services in the laboratory as part of her overall services and employment relationship as a University employee, that the University paid her one salary for clinical work, research, non-clinical teaching, and administration, and that she was at all times an employee of the University whose entire employment relationship, including clinical services provided to a third party, was governed by the Collective Agreement.

AASUA’s evidence and perspective on the collective agreement and clinical arrangements

AASUA relied on an affidavit sworn March 26, 2025, by Brygeda Mary Renke as its evidence on the intervention application. The affidavit sets out the information and submissions AASUA proposes to provide on the appeal, including its perspective on the Collective Agreement and decisions made about its application to academic clinicians.

The affidavit describes that AASUA membership fees and union dues are collected only on the portion of remuneration related to academic employment services to the GUA, not on the portion related to clinical services for third parties. It states that payment to academic clinicians for their academic employment comes from the GUA, while remuneration for clinical services to third parties is funded by those third parties through legal arrangements that permit indirect payment through the GUA so that both academic and clinical work is paid through the GUA payroll system as a “global” payment. The affidavit provides examples of such arrangements with other academic clinicians and refers to Collective Agreement terms, including “other leaves” such as secondments, which allow academic staff members to work for third parties and under which disputes arising from third-party arrangements are not covered by the Collective Agreement.

Ms. Renke’s evidence also refers to other forms of clinical funding arrangements in which clinical income from a third party is paid indirectly through the GUA payroll system, and where agreements for academic clinicians to provide services to third parties recognize the clinicians as independent contractors, employees, or dependent contractors of the third party. The affidavit notes a July 2017 Master Agreement among Alberta Health, AHS, the GUA, and each participating physician, which governs the contractual arrangement for AHS to remunerate academic clinicians for clinical services to Alberta Health and/or AHS, and under which disputes are not within the jurisdiction of AASUA or of a grievance arbitrator appointed under the Collective Agreement.

Further, AASUA’s evidence sets out its perspective that an academic clinician may have two distinct relationships: one as an academic staff employee of the GUA, for which AASUA has representational rights and obligations under the Collective Agreement, and another with a third party to whom clinical services are provided, for which AASUA has no representational rights or obligations. The affidavit outlines the history of attempts to find a process to address concerns of physicians concurrently appointed to positions with both the GUA and a third party; the history of the GUA’s position regarding AASUA’s representational rights and obligations concerning academic clinicians’ clinical service to third parties; the details of AASUA’s investigation into Dr. Hume’s situation and its conclusion that the essential character of the dispute arose from her clinician role with AHS/APL; its perspective on the dispute-resolution mechanisms available under the Collective Agreement for issues raised in the Statement of Claim, including whether clinical duties at APL were governed by the Collective Agreement; and the GUA’s long-standing position that AASUA has no representational rights or obligations respecting academic clinicians’ clinical services to third parties, including clinical remuneration, because those disputes are outside the scope of the Governors–Association Collective Agreement.

Legal test for intervention under Rule 2.10

Rule 2.10 of the Alberta Rules of Court provides that, on application, a court may grant status to a person to intervene in an action, subject to any terms and conditions and with the rights and privileges specified by the court. The Rule gives the Court broad discretion to grant intervenor status on appropriate terms.

The legal test applied involves a global consideration of two criteria: whether the proposed intervenor has a particular interest in, or will be directly and significantly affected by, the outcome of the appeal; and whether the intervenor will provide special expertise, perspective, or information that will help resolve the appeal. This test is informed by several overlapping factors, including whether the intervenor will be directly affected by the matter before the Court; whether the intervenor’s presence is necessary for the Court to decide the matter properly; whether the intervenor’s interests may not be fully protected by the existing parties; whether the intervenor’s submissions will be useful and different or bring particular expertise; whether intervention will unduly delay the proceedings; whether there may be prejudice to the parties; whether the intervention will widen the lis between the parties; and whether the intervention will transform the Court into a political arena. These factors are drawn from authorities cited in the reasons and guide a robust review of the two criteria under Rule 2.10.

Application of the intervention criteria to AASUA

The Court found that the decision of the Applications Judge, if upheld, would have a significant impact on AASUA. AASUA has historically taken the position that disputes arising out of an academic clinician’s clinical relationship with a third party are outside the scope of the AASUA–GUA Collective Agreement. The decision under appeal implies that AASUA could have represented Dr. Hume regarding disputes arising from her relationship with AHS/APL in her clinical role, even though AHS/APL has no legal relationship with AASUA and is not a party to the Collective Agreement. The Court concluded that AASUA has a particular interest in the outcome of the appeal.

The reasons also note that many dual-role academic clinicians with disputes arising in their clinical relationships seek assistance from AASUA, and that AASUA’s role in relation to these clinicians will be impacted by the outcome of the appeal. The Court considered that AASUA has information and a perspective that will be important to the justice hearing the appeal in determining its outcome. Specifically, the most important information AASUA can provide concerns the scope and limitations of its rights and obligations to fairly represent academic staff employees of the GUA under the Collective Agreement, and the extent to which there may be limitations on those rights and obligations. The Court characterized this information as very significant to the appeal.

The Court further held that the information and perspective AASUA can provide is relevant to whether there is a genuine issue requiring trial on the possible existence of an employment or dependent contractor relationship between Dr. Hume and AHS/APL. The Court disagreed with AHS/APL’s submission that AASUA’s lack of involvement in arrangements between academic clinicians and third-party entities means it has nothing to offer on the appeal. Instead, the Court considered, from a holistic perspective, that AASUA’s role, the parameters of the Collective Agreement to which it is a party, and the history of treatment of academic clinicians with concurrent arrangements are all part of the broader context for determining whether there is a genuine issue requiring trial.

The Court also noted that AASUA was not given notice of the applications before the Applications Judge and that the information it could have provided may have impacted that decision. It found that AASUA’s interests were not fully and accurately represented by the other parties, since AHS/APL took a position contrary to AASUA’s and, with the third-party claim dismissed and not appealed, the position of the GUA, to the extent it aligns with AASUA, will not be represented on appeal. Dr. Hume does not have access to the same type of information as AASUA. The Court was therefore unable to conclude that AASUA’s interests would be protected by the parties to the appeal.

Representation, prejudice, scope of intervention, and procedural matters

The Court observed that there is sufficient time before the scheduled appeal hearing to complete necessary steps if AASUA is added as an intervenor, so permitting AASUA to intervene should not delay the proceedings. On potential prejudice, counsel for AHS/APL argued that AASUA’s intervention would generally support or repeat arguments that Dr. Hume can already make about contracts to which she is a party and that intervention should not provide “second counsel” to supplement counsel for the parties. The Court rejected this argument, finding that AASUA’s evidence, information, expertise, and perspective are relevant to whether there is a genuine issue requiring trial concerning the existence of a separate, though concurrent, contractual relationship between Dr. Hume and AHS/APL with respect to her clinical services. The merits of Dr. Hume’s main claim against AHS/APL will be determined at trial if the appeal is successful, and AASUA’s requested intervention is for the appeal only.

Regarding whether intervention would widen the lis between the parties, the Court accepted AASUA’s statement that its interests are focused on whether the dispute between Dr. Hume and AHS/APL jurisdictionally falls under the Collective Agreement. AASUA indicated it has no interest beyond this jurisdictional issue and is not seeking intervenor status in Dr. Hume’s main action against AHS and APL if her appeal is successful. The Court was satisfied that granting intervenor status to AASUA will not widen the lis between the parties. The Court also found no indication that granting intervenor status to AASUA would transform the Court into a political arena.

On costs and procedure, the Court granted AASUA’s request that, if its application were allowed, it should bear its own costs. However, it declined AASUA’s request for an order that no costs be awarded against it by any party, stating that this is best addressed by the justice hearing the appeal. The Court also determined that counsel are best placed to identify and schedule the necessary procedural steps leading up to the appeal hearing. Counsel were given until January 31, 2026, to provide a consent order setting out required steps and timelines; failing that, they may appear before the judge to finalize those steps and timelines. Any costs related to the intervention application are to be dealt with in the appeal.

Ruling and overall outcome

The Court of King’s Bench of Alberta granted AASUA’s application for leave to intervene in the appeal of the September 19, 2024 judgment of Applications Judge Lucille Birkett. AASUA is granted leave to make oral submissions and to file written argument and additional affidavit evidence that is relevant and material under Rule 6.14(3), in its capacity as an intervenor in the appeal. AASUA is ordered to bear its own costs of the intervention application, with any further costs awards in relation to the proceedings left to the justice who will hear the appeal. No damages or monetary award.