CUB 75312

L.-P. LANDRY, Umpire

The Commission appeals from the decision of the Board of Referees, which acknowledged that the claimant left her employment voluntarily in a context in which she had reasonable assurance of employment in the immediate future.

The claimant worked part-time for the Centre Féminin du Saguenay Inc. from November 19 to December 23, 2007. This employment required her to be available on weekends and was paid at a rate of $11 an hour. She worked part-time for another centre from January to November, 2007.

Before working for the Centre Féminin du Saguenay, the claimant applied for work with a number of other organizations. While she was working for the Centre Féminin du Saguenay, she received an offer of employment from a government agency, the Centre de Réadaptation en Déficience Intellectuelle of Saguenay Lac-St-Jean, where she would earn $20 an hour.

To accept this employment, she first took two weeks of training while maintaining her employment with the Centre Féminin du Saguenay. When her training ended, she felt she needed to quit that employment because her new employer required her to be available on weekends. Moreover, she expected to fill in over the holidays.

Contrary to what she expected, the claimant did not receive a request from her new employer prior to February. In the end, she could have maintained her employment with the Centre Féminin du Saguenay during the period from late December to February.

The Commission maintains that, in the circumstances, since the claimant did not have a set schedule with her new employer, she should suffer the consequences of the risk that she accepted in taking part-time employment without a guarantee of working hours.

In this case, it is clear that when the claimant left her employment, she had reasonable assurance of employment in the immediate future. In addition, the employer required her to be available on weekends, and she could therefore not be available for the Centre Féminin. Lastly, contrary to her legitimate expectations, the claimant was not offered hours prior to February 2008.

The Board therefore notes that, considering all the circumstances, the claimant adopted the only reasonable alternative in her situation with regard to reasonable assurance of another employment in the immediate future offered by a government agency. Given the requirement of availability on weekends, the claimant could not declare herself available to two employers.

The issue in this case is a mixed question of fact and law. The standard of review is therefore that of reasonableness.

The Commission uses the decisions in Inram (2008 FCA 17) and Murugalah (2008 FCA 10) to illustrate situations in which it was deemed that the claimants' voluntary leaving of an employment did not constitute the only reasonable alternative. The Commission notes that in those two cases, the claimants no doubt had good reasons for voluntarily leaving their employment, but they were in situations in which there was no reasonable assurance of another employment in the immediate future. In this case, the claimant not only had such assurance, but she had in fact also been hired by her new employer and had received two weeks of training with that employer.

It appears from the above that the Board properly defined the question of law and, in exercising its discretion, the Board determined that based on the circumstances revealed by the evidence, the claimant adopted the only reasonable alternative. This finding meets the criterion of reasonableness.

For these reasons, the Commission's appeal is dismissed.

L.-P. Landry

UMPIRE

Gatineau, Quebec
September 23, 2010