CUB 35452
JUDGMENT OF THE FEDERAL COURT OF APPEAL
Date:
19970612
Docket:
A-909-96
Umpire's Decision:
CUB 35452
"TRANSLATION"
CORAM :
THE HONOURABLE MADAM JUSTICE DESJARDINS
THE HONOURABLE MR. JUSTICE DÉCARY
THE HONOURABLE DEPUTY JUSTICE CHEVALIER
BETWEEN :
CHARLES RENY,
applicant,
-and-
CANADA EMPLOYMENT AND INSURANCE COMMISSION,
respondent,
-and-
DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL OF CANADA,
mis en cause.
Hearing held at Montréal on Wednesday, June 11, 1997.
REASONS FOR JUDGMENT OF THE COURT
(Delivered from the bench at Montréal,
on Thursday, June 12, 1997)
CHEVALIER, D.J.:
The respondent Commission denied the applicant’s claim for unemployment insurance benefit on the ground that he had continued to work during the period for which he was claiming benefit. Moreover, given that he had on that occasion made a statement concerning his unemployment that he knew to be false, it imposed a penalty on him representing three times the rate of benefit at which the overpayment was paid.
That decision was reversed by the board of referees, and then restored on appeal to the Umpire, Madam Justice Tremblay-Lamer. However, she found that the penalty should be reduced to an amount equal to the rate of benefit, and no cross-appeal was filed by the respondent in this respect. Accordingly, the application before the Court is for judicial review of the decision of the Umpire.
The applicant was employed by a company which acted as an agent for performers, of which he was a co-founder, a principal shareholder and a director. On May 15, 1992, he was laid off because the business was having financial problems. He acknowledged that he had [TRANSLATION] "continued to be involved in the company so as not to risk bankruptcy" and, that, between May and December 1992, he had "spent less than ten hours per week on the company". "Outside office hours," he added, he was involved "in trying to set up projects but to date none of these projects has resulted in any income to the company or himself." He was not paid for his work, but the company reimbursed him for the expenses he incurred.
The Umpire stated that she agreed with the reasons given by the Commission and criticized the board of referees for failing to have regard to the whole of the evidence, and in particular for ignoring the applicant’s admission that he had continued to work after the alleged termination of his employment and that he had done so for seven or more consecutive days, two facts that barred him from arguing that there had been an interruption of earnings as defined in subsection 37 (1) of the Regulations made under the enabling provision set out in subsection 44(h) of the Act which provides for benefit to be paid.
We are of the opinion that this criticism was sound, and accordingly that the Umpire was justified in intervening and her conclusion as to the applicant’s disqualification from receiving benefit was sound in fact and in law.
We see no reviewable error in the reasons she stated in respect of the penalty imposed, that is, that a false statement was made, that the applicant knew that it was false, that the reason he gave for making it was not acceptable and accordingly that the Commission’s decision to penalize him for his conduct was appropriate.
Lastly, with respect to the applicant’s criticism of the Umpire for failing to have regard to other alleged interruptions of earnings, specifically one which he alleged occurred before and another after the date on which his claim to be entitled to benefit was made, we are of the view that these alleged interruptions of earnings were not before the Commission, and neither were they before the board of referees and the Umpire, who did not address those interruptions.
For these reasons, the application for judicial review will be dismissed.
François Chevalier
D.J.