A former North Island conservation officer who lost his job after refusing to kill two bear cubs can’t have it back, says the court.
Bryce Casavant has been trying for years to be reinstated as a conservation officer since July 2015, when he refused to shoot two bear cubs after euthanizing their mother as a problem bear. Instead, he had them transferred to a wildlife recovery centre. He was suspended, then transferred to a different position in the public service.
He reached a settlement agreement with his union and employer in 2016 but has since been trying to have his dismissal declared unlawful. This week the BC Court of Appeal found that although the legal process had been flawed, Casavant was still not entitled to his old job.
Justice J. Christopher Grauer says in his reasons for judgment that Casavant did nothing wrong, and made a good case, but the previous judge made no errors in dismissing the case. He says because Casavant wasn’t technically dismissed, but moved into a different position with the same wages and benefits, his argument doesn’t work.
“The concerns Mr. Casavant raises would have considerable force if the parties had continued with the flawed arbitration procedure to its conclusion, leading to Mr. Casavant’s outright dismissal,” he writes. “Here, where the flawed process and the underlying concerns were resolved through a settlement agreement by which the parties have governed their actions for some years, I am satisfied that the rule of law was adequately recognized and upheld by this Court’s decision… I see no error in this regard.”
