Earlier this week, the Alberta Labour Relations Board published their first new applications report for April 2026. In it was an application for union certification.
The Alberta Union of Provincial Employees filed the application on 30 March 2026 on behalf of workers employed by Park Place Seniors Living Inc.
These 104 workers are employed at the company’s Prairie Lake Seniors Community in Grande Prairie.
The 107-unit long-term care facility is owned by the Vancouver-based private company, which has over 30 locations across BC, Alberta, and Ontario.
AUPE already represents workers at 8 facilities owned by Park Place, which typically include such positions as licensed practical nurses, health care aides, kitchen workers, receptionists, recreation aides, maintenance workers, rehabilitation aides, housekeepers, and administrative assistants.
For a union to file a union certification application in Alberta, they must demonstrate support from at least 40% of the workers who would be represented by the proposed bargaining unit.
In this case, that would be 42 workers.
Should the ALRB approve the application, they would hold a certification vote, giving the workers a chance to democratically choose to unionize with AUPE.
Assuming those 42 workers follow through and vote in favour of unionizing, they would need to convince 11 of their fellow workers to vote with them for a majority to vote in favour of unionizing.
The labour board has scheduled a hearing for later today, during which time, the employer will be able to present arguments, if they have any, why they feel the workers should not unionize with AUPE.
If the workers vote in favour of unionizing, one of their first orders of business will be to form a bargaining committee to begin negotiating their first collective agreement as AUPE members.
Because the ALRB does not archive their new application reports, I have included a copy of this week’s report below for your convenience.
