In Ontario, there is a mandatory government order to close non-essential businesses due to COVID-19. Despite this order, we wanted to ensure that the arbitration hearing continued, so we worked with the Arbitrator, CPC and our IT department to find a way to proceed. This process has been going on for a very long time and we are very close to the end.
We were able to establish a secure way to proceed with the arbitration using video conferencing software. Despite some modifications necessary, to allow the hearing to run efficiently, we were able to respect the law, maintain physical distancing and successfully present our reply evidence.
We started our evidence with testimony from Sylvain Lapointe on changes we made in some of our proposals to address issues raised during the interest arbitration. We made these changes to show the Arbitrator that we are being reasonable and were listening to the evidence presented to her.