Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• Whether the Court of Queen’s Bench had jurisdiction and discretion to grant an interlocutory injunction staying the Alberta Labour Relations Board’s (ALRB) ballot count despite the Board’s refusal to order a stay.
• Assessment of “irreparable harm” to the union if ballots from a long-delayed certification vote were counted before judicial review, given a transient construction workforce and changed economic conditions.
• Evaluation of the balance of convenience between timely resolution of labour relations matters and the prejudice caused by the ALRB’s nearly three-year delay in issuing written reasons.
• The extent to which courts must defer to the ALRB’s statutory role and expertise in managing certification votes and interim procedural steps.
• The impact of the ALRB’s failure to follow its own timeliness policies when later relying on those same policies to oppose a further stay.
• Whether any error of law, principle, or palpable and overriding factual error justified appellate intervention in the chambers judge’s discretionary decision to grant the injunction.

Factual background

Strike Group Limited Partnership is a construction and maintenance company that, at the material time, was building a compressor station for a client in Didsbury, Alberta. Part of the project work was performed at an off-site fabrication shop in Crossfield operated by Strike. The United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipefitting Industry of the United States and Canada, Local No. 496 (Local 496) sought to unionize a group of Strike employees. On April 9, 2021, Local 496 filed an application with the Alberta Labour Relations Board (ALRB) to be certified as the bargaining agent for a proposed bargaining unit of Strike employees. A central dispute arose over whether workers at the Crossfield fabrication shop were engaged in construction work and should be included in the same bargaining unit as the Didsbury construction employees. Local 496 argued that Crossfield employees were not engaged in construction and should be excluded, while Strike maintained they were doing construction-related work and ought to be included with the Didsbury workers for certification purposes. The parties referred this and other bargaining-unit composition issues to the ALRB for determination. While those issues were pending, a certification vote was held in 2021 among both the Didsbury and Crossfield employees, with the ballots sealed until the Board resolved the outstanding disputes about who properly belonged in the unit.

ALRB process and delay

The ALRB heard the matter in June 2021 and February 2022. On March 30, 2022, it released a “bottom line” decision holding that the Crossfield fabrication shop employees fell within the proposed bargaining unit, advising that full written reasons would follow. On April 21, 2022, based solely on the parties’ consent, the ALRB stayed the counting of the ballots pending the issuance of those written reasons. However, the Board did not release its reasons until February 24, 2025—almost three years after the bottom line decision and nearly four years after Local 496’s original certification application. This extreme delay became central to the later legal analysis, particularly on irreparable harm and the balance of convenience. After reasons issued, Local 496 sought from the ALRB a further stay preventing the ballots from being counted while it pursued judicial review of the Board’s decision concerning the inclusion of the Crossfield workers. Local 496 emphasized that the long passage of time, the transience of construction employment, and substantial changes in economic conditions since 2021 meant that many of the Didsbury employees might no longer work for Strike, making any future revote practically impossible and non-equivalent to the original vote.

The ALRB’s refusal of a stay

On March 17, 2025, the ALRB denied Local 496’s stay application. The Board accepted that there had been delay but reasoned that “time is of the essence in labour relations matters” and stressed the policy need for expedition and certainty in resolving certification issues. It concluded that a revote would not necessarily prejudice Local 496, viewing a new vote as an adequate remedy if Local 496 later succeeded on judicial review. The ALRB also noted that its earlier delay in issuing reasons only impacted the counting of the vote because the parties themselves had consented to a stay following the bottom line decision. In the Board’s view, imposing a further stay while judicial review progressed would likely cause substantial delay and ongoing uncertainty in the workplace and for the parties. On March 18, 2025, Local 496 filed its judicial review application in the Court of King’s Bench (then Court of Queen’s Bench) challenging the ALRB’s underlying certification-related decision. On March 19, 2025, it brought an application in that court for an interlocutory injunction—effectively a court-ordered stay—restraining the ALRB from counting the ballots pending the outcome of the judicial review.

Chambers decision on the interlocutory injunction

The chambers judge first considered whether the court had jurisdiction to grant a stay in light of the ALRB’s prior refusal to order one. Relying on Siksika Health Services v Health Sciences Association of Alberta and on Rule 3.23 of the Alberta Rules of Court, the judge concluded that the court retained original jurisdiction and a residual discretion to grant a stay in connection with a judicial review, notwithstanding the Board’s decision. Rule 3.23 expressly empowers the court to stay the operation of a decision or act being challenged by judicial review pending final determination of that proceeding. The judge then applied the familiar three-part test for interlocutory injunctive relief from RJR-MacDonald Inc v Canada (Attorney General): (1) whether there is a serious issue to be tried, (2) whether the applicant will suffer irreparable harm if the relief is not granted, and (3) where the balance of convenience lies. On the first branch, the judge held that Local 496 had an arguable case on judicial review regarding the Board’s inclusion of the Crossfield employees in the bargaining unit. That was sufficient to establish a serious issue to be tried. On irreparable harm, the judge accepted Local 496’s evidence and submissions that, if the ballots were counted and the union later succeeded on judicial review, it would be impossible to identify which ballots were cast specifically by the Didsbury employees. She acknowledged Strike’s contention that a revote could be conducted in line with ALRB policy using “the same employees that voted in 2021,” but rejected that as an adequate substitute given the circumstances. In particular, she emphasized the transient nature of employment in the construction industry, the passage of five to six years between the original vote and any potential revote, and the significantly different economic context between 2021 and 2025. On that basis, she concluded that counting the amalgamated Didsbury and Crossfield ballots while the judicial review remained unresolved would cause harm that could not be adequately remedied by a later revote or monetary compensation. Turning to the balance of convenience, the judge found that the ALRB’s policy concerns about timeliness and expedition “did not ring true” in this case, given that the Board itself had taken almost three years to provide written reasons, all while the parties operated under a consent stay. She held that the extraordinary delay, combined with the prejudice Local 496 would face if the ballots were counted before judicial review, justified granting the interlocutory injunction staying the ballot count.

Appellate issues and standard of review

Strike appealed to the Alberta Court of Appeal. As appellant, Strike argued that the chambers judge misapplied the irreparable harm and balance of convenience analysis, failed to give proper weight to labour relations policy favouring speedy resolution of certification matters, and did not appropriately respect the ALRB’s expertise and decision to refuse a stay. It also submitted that the judge erred by conflating Strike’s submissions to the ALRB with the content of the ALRB’s reasons when she purported, in the alternative, to assess the reasonableness of the Board’s decision. The ALRB, for its part, urged the Court of Appeal to adopt an approach that respected the Board’s statutory mandate and specialized competence in supervising certification processes. Local 496 argued that the chambers judge had applied the correct legal test, made no reviewable legal or factual errors, and rendered a discretionary decision that attracted deference on appeal. The Court of Appeal reiterated that decisions to grant or refuse interlocutory injunctions are discretionary and should not be disturbed on appeal absent an error of law or principle, palpable and overriding error of fact, or an unreasonable exercise of discretion. It cited existing appellate authority confirming this deferential standard for reviewing such discretionary orders.

Reasoning of the Court of Appeal

The Court of Appeal upheld the chambers judge’s decision. It characterized the ALRB’s extraordinary delay in issuing written reasons, combined with the acknowledged transience of the relevant construction workforce, as making this case exceptional. Those circumstances, together with the possibility that Local 496 could ultimately succeed on judicial review, provided a sound basis for the judge’s conclusion that irreparable harm would result if the ballots were counted before the judicial review application was determined. The Court accepted that a later revote could not truly replicate or restore the original employees’ expression of choice from 2021, given staff turnover and markedly changed economic conditions several years later. The Court also agreed that the balance of convenience favoured preserving the status quo by preventing the ballots from being counted. It noted that the judge correctly applied the RJR-MacDonald framework and found no error of principle in her reasoning. Importantly, the Court held that the ALRB’s own delay and its willingness to permit a three-year consent stay undercut its reliance on general labour-relations policies emphasizing speed and finality. In other words, where the Board itself had not adhered to its timeliness policies, it could not convincingly invoke those same policies to oppose a short additional stay while judicial review proceeded. On the question of deference to the Board’s expertise, the Court of Appeal observed that the chambers judge’s primary analysis did not involve a traditional judicial review of the ALRB’s refusal to grant a stay; instead, she exercised the court’s independent jurisdiction under Rule 3.23 to issue an interlocutory injunction linked to the judicial review. As a result, the usual concerns about usurping the tribunal’s role or failing to defer appropriately to its specialized judgment did not arise in a way that undermined the decision. With respect to the judge’s alternative comments that appeared to treat Strike’s submissions as if they were the Board’s reasons, the Court considered those remarks to be obiter dicta. Because the parties did not dispute the court’s jurisdiction to grant a stay, any conflation of submissions and reasons in that portion of the analysis did not affect the outcome or the overall reasonableness of the chambers decision.

Policy considerations and absence of contractual clauses

The judgment discusses “policies” in the sense of labour-relations principles and Board practice rather than contractual or insurance policy terms. The ALRB had relied on its general policy that labour matters must be resolved expeditiously and that time is “of the essence” in certification disputes. The chambers judge and the Court of Appeal both accepted the importance of timely decision-making in labour relations but held that, given the ALRB’s own prolonged delay and its prior acquiescence in a lengthy consent stay, this case was an outlier that did not undermine those policies in a broader way. There is no discussion of specific contractual clauses, insurance policy wording, or other private policy terms in this decision; the focus is exclusively on statutory labour relations processes, administrative law principles, and the test for interlocutory injunctive relief. Accordingly, there are no “clauses at issue” in the conventional contractual-policy sense.

Ruling and overall outcome

The Alberta Court of Appeal concluded that the chambers judge made no reviewable error in granting Local 496 an interlocutory injunction staying the ALRB from counting the certification ballots pending judicial review. It held that she had correctly identified a serious issue to be tried, reasonably found irreparable harm based on the unique delay and workforce circumstances, and properly weighed the balance of convenience in favour of maintaining the status quo. The Court therefore dismissed Strike Group Limited Partnership’s appeal. As a result, the respondents—the United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipefitting Industry of the United States and Canada, Local 496, and the Alberta Labour Relations Board—remain the successful parties in this appellate decision. The judgment does not award or quantify any damages, compensation, or specific costs; from the text available, the total monetary amount, if any, ordered or granted in favour of the successful parties cannot be determined.