government policy was held to fall within the ambit of the Charter. I noted, at p. 265, that the
arbitrator in that case was "part of the governmental administrative machinery for effecting the
specific purpose of the statute". "It would be strange", I wrote, "if the legislature and the
government could evade their Charter responsibility by appointing a person to carry out the
purposes of the statute"; see idem. Although the arbitrator in Slaight was entirely a creature of
statute and performed functions that were exclusively governmental, the same rationale applies
to any entity charged with performing a governmental activity, even if that entity operates in other
respects as a private actor; see A. Anne McLellan and Bruce P. Elman, "To Whom Does the
Charter Apply? Some Recent Cases on Section 32" (1986), 24 Alta. L. Rev. 361, at p. 371.
43 Two important points must be made with respect to this principle. First, the mere fact that an
entity performs what may loosely be termed a "public function", or the fact that a particular activity
may be described as "public" in nature, will not be sufficient to bring it within the purview of
"government" for the purposes of s. 32 of the Charter. Thus, with specific reference to the
distinction between the applicability of the Charter, on the one hand, and the susceptibility of
public bodies to judicial review, on the other, I stated as follows, at p. 268 of McKinney:
It was not disputed that the universities are statutory bodies performing a public service. As
such, they may be subjected to the judicial review of certain decisions, but this does not in itself
make them part of government within the meaning of s. 32 of the Charter. . . . In a word, the basis
of the exercise of supervisory jurisdiction by the courts is not that the universities are government,
but that they are public decision-makers. [Emphasis added.]
In order for the Charter to apply to a private entity, it must be found to be implementing a
specific governmental policy or program. As I stated further on in McKinney, at p. 269, "[a] public
purpose test is simply inadequate" and "is simply not the test mandated by s. 32".
44 The second important point concerns the precise manner in which the Charter may be held
to apply to a private entity. As the case law discussed above makes clear, the Charter may be
found to apply to an entity on one of two bases. First, it may be determined that the entity is itself
"government" for the purposes of s. 32. This involves an inquiry into whether the entity whose
actions have given rise to the alleged Charter breach can, either by its very nature or in virtue of
the degree of governmental control exercised over it, properly be characterized as "government"
within the meaning of s. 32(1). In such cases, all of the activities of the entity will be subject to the
Charter, regardless of whether the activity in which it is engaged could, if performed by a nongovernmental actor, correctly be described as "private". Second, an entity may be found to attract
Charter scrutiny with respect to a particular activity that can be ascribed to government. This
demands an investigation not into the nature of the entity whose activity is impugned but rather
into the nature of the activity itself. In such cases, in other words, one must scrutinize the quality
of the act at issue, rather than the quality of the actor. If the act is truly "governmental" in nature -for example, the implementation of a specific statutory scheme or a government program -- the
entity performing it will be subject to review under the Charter only in respect of that act, and not
its other, private activities.
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