Can an employer recover damages from an employee who damages a vehicle?

In a companion case, New Brunswick v. O’Leary, 1995 CanLII 109 (SCC), [1995] 2 S.C.R. 967, the employee was required to travel in a government-owned vehicle which he damaged. The government sought to recover repair costs in an action for negligence. It was held on appeal that this dispute must be resolved by arbitration because the collective agreement included a provision that required the employees to ensure the safety and dependability of vehicles entrusted to their care, and it did not matter that negligence was not mentioned in the collective agreement. In giving the judgment of the court, McLachlin J. said at p. 970–71: Article 24.04 of the collective agreement acknowledges the employee’s obligations to ensure the safety and dependability of the employer’s property and equipment. By inference it confers correlative rights on the employer to claim for breaches of these obligations. While Article 24 falls under the general heading “Safety and Health”, the rationale behind the obligation does not detract from the existence of that obligation to maintain the employer’s property. The essence of the dispute concerns the preservation of the employer’s property and equipment. Framing the dispute in terms of negligence does nothing to remove it from the contemplation of Article 24. Article 5.03 requires the employer to exercise its rights consistently with the terms of the collective agreement, by implication invoking the comprehensive arbitration scheme established by the Act and acknowledged by the collective agreement as the exclusive avenue of recourse. It follows from these provisions that the dispute arises from the collective agreement and that the only means of redress is the statutory arbitration process.