Date: 20120703
Docket: A-154-11
Citation: 2012 FCA 202
CORAM: NOËL
J.A.
EVANS
J.A.
SHARLOW
J.A.
.
BETWEEN:
ROB MAUCHEL
Appellant
and
ATTORNEY GENERAL OF CANADA
Respondent
REASONS FOR JUDGMENT
EVANS J.A.
[1]
Rob
Mauchel applied for employment insurance (EI) benefits on September 14, 2009
and requested that his application be backdated to October 5, 2007, when he
left his employment in Ottawa to move with his wife to Toronto where she had accepted a job.
[2]
Mr Mauchel
stated that he only realized in September 2009, when his wife applied for EI
benefits, that moving to a different city with a spouse may constitute just
cause for voluntarily quitting employment, and that he could be eligible for
benefits. He learned this from an agent of the Canada Employment Insurance
Commission (Commission) who also suggested that he apply to have his claim
backdated.
[3]
The
Commission rejected Mr Mauchel’s application to backdate his claim, because he
had not shown good cause within the meaning of subsection 10(4) of the Employment
Insurance Act, S.C. 1996, c. 23 (Act), for applying for benefits two years
late. He was not eligible for EI benefits as of the date when he applied,
September 14, 2009, because he had no hours of insurable earnings in the
previous twelve months.
[4]
Mr Mauchel
appealed the Commission’s decision to a Board of Referees (Board). The only
issue in dispute before the Board was the Commission’s refusal to backdate the
claim.
[5]
Mr Mauchel
testified that because of his previous experience as an EI claimant and an
information technology worker accustomed to web-based research, he accepted
that the information on Service Canada’s website about EI eligibility was true
and as authoritative as if given by an agent of the Commission. He stated that
he found the information on the website “clear and unambiguous”. Since it
emphasized that EI was for those who lost their jobs through no fault of their
own, he concluded that a person in his situation was ineligible for benefits.
However, if he had searched the website more thoroughly he would have seen that
it also stated that those who left their employment because they needed to move
with their spouse to a different place of residence might be eligible for
benefits.
[6]
The Board
held that, “because of his information technology background and his previous
experience” as an EI claimant, it was reasonable for Mr Mauchel to have
inferred from what he had read on the website that he was not eligible. He thus
had no reason to verify his position with the Commission until September 2009
when he learned that he might be eligible for benefits. Consequently, it said,
Mr Mauchel had done what a reasonable person in his circumstances would have
done to inform himself of his rights and obligations.
[7]
On this
basis, the Board granted the appeal, holding that Mr Mauchel had shown good
cause throughout the whole period of the delay in filing his application for
benefits. The Commission appealed the Board’s decision to an Umpire, who
allowed the appeal (CUB 76454).
[8]
The Umpire
held that, since Mr Mauchel had found the website “too complex or incomplete”,
a reasonable person would have made further inquiries of the Commission about
his eligibility for benefits. The Umpire stated that this was not a case where
an employee of the Commission had provided incorrect information, or where illness
had prevented a claimant from seeking information. He set aside the Board’s
decision as being erroneous in fact and law.
[9]
Mr Mauchel
has applied to this Court for judicial review of the Umpire’s decision.
[10]
I agree
that the Umpire erred by finding that the Board agreed with Mr Mauchel that the
Service Canada website was “unduly complex and did not properly give the
information he required to file his application.” The Board made no such
finding, but appears to have accepted Mr Mauchel’s evidence that he found the
information on the website “clear and unambiguous”, and that he did not contact
the Commission because the information was not “confusing or misleading”.
Nonetheless, I am not persuaded that the Umpire’s error was
material because, despite this error, he was bound to conclude on the facts
found by the Board that its decision was unreasonable.
[11]
Mr Mauchel
acknowledged that the website stated that a person who had voluntarily quit
employment to move with a spouse to a different place of residence might be
eligible for EI benefits. However, he argued that a reasonable person could not
have been expected to locate this example of “just cause” because the principal
message initially conveyed to the reader of the website was that only those who
lose employment through no fault of their own are eligible, and he did not
regard voluntarily leaving his job as “losing” his employment.
[12]
Moreover,
he said, even had he read that just cause for quitting employment can include
moving to be with a spouse, he would not have thought this applied to him. With
the exception of pregnancy, all the examples of just cause are “negative”, and
he and his wife had made a joint “positive” decision to move if she got a job
in Toronto. Accordingly, he said, he did
not “need” to move in the sense implied by the website.
[13]
I do not
agree. A reasonable person who relies on the website for information must do
more thorough research than Mr Mauchel apparently undertook. A reasonable
person would not have been so misled by its initial general statements about
eligibility as to be deterred from looking for more specific information
relevant to his or her situation. The statements early in the website that EI
is for those who lose employment through no fault of their own are general enough
to include those who are longer employed because they voluntarily quit their
job with just cause.
[14]
In my
view, the website contained enough information to have alerted a reasonable
person in Mr Mauchel’s position to wonder whether he or she might be eligible
for benefits and to contact the Commission to find out or to make an
application for benefits. The question is not whether a particular claimant
found the information clear and unambiguous, and decided that further search of
the website was pointless, but whether a reasonable person would have so
regarded it. It is not alleged that the website contained erroneous material.
[15]
Since the
website does not purport to deal with the specifics of every person’s
particular situation, claimants cannot reasonably treat information on it as if
it were personally provided to them by an agent in response to an inquiry about
their eligibility on given facts. That it can now take several days to speak
with a Commission agent by telephone does not justify Mr Mauchel’s delay.
[16]
For these
reasons, I would dismiss the application for judicial review.
“John M. Evans”
“I
agree
Marc
Noël J.A.”
“I
agree
K.
Sharlow J.A.”
FEDERAL COURT OF APPEAL
NAMES OF COUNSEL AND
SOLICITORS OF RECORD
DOCKET: A-154-11
(AN
APPLICATION FOR JUDICIAL REVIEW OF A DECISION OF THE UMPIRE, THE HONOURABLE
R.J. MARIN, DATED FEBRUARY 14, 2011, DOCKET NO. CUB76454)
STYLE OF CAUSE: ROB MAUCHEL v. ATTORNEY
GENERAL OF CANADA
PLACE OF HEARING: Toronto, Ontario
DATE OF HEARING: June
27, 2012
REASONS FOR JUDGMENT BY: EVANS
J.A.
CONCURRED IN BY: Noël and Sharlow JJ.A.
DATED: July
3, 2012
APPEARANCES:
|
Rob
Mauchel
|
APPLICANT
ON HIS OWN BEHALF
|
|
Susan
Jane Bennett
|
FOR
THE RESPONDENT
|
SOLICITORS
OF RECORD:
|
Myles
J. Kirvan
Deputy
Attorney General of Canada
|
FOR
THE RESPONDENT
|
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