About Ib Petersen

I am a graduate of the University of Aarhus in Denmark with a Cand.Scient.Pol. degree. I received an M.Sc. (Econ.) degree at the London School of Economics (L.S.E.) in 1982. I am a graduate of Queen’s University Law School in Ontario with a Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree in 1987. I was called to the Bar in British Columbia in 1988. Additionally, I have taken courses in Business Studies at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, Macro-Economics ay University of California, Irvine, and International Humanitarian Law at Leiden University in Holland.

In my more than 25 years at the Bar, I have focused my practice on employment related law representing clients, both employers and employees, in:

• employment law disputes and wrongful dismissal before all levels of courts, in BC and elsewhere;
• human rights cases before federal and provincial human rights tribunals, in BC and elsewhere; and
• labour disputes before federal or provincial labour boards and in collective bargaining.

I have also represented clients in criminal and regulatory offences.

In addition to my counsel work, I have served on a variety of administrative boards and tribunals:

• as an arbitrator in collective agreement disputes between trade unions and employers;
• as a federal adjudicator/arbitrator under the Canada Labour Code since 1997;
• as a member of the B.C. Employment Standards Tribunal between 1997 and 2004 (bcest.bc.ca);
• as vice-chair of the British Columbia Mediation and Arbitration Board, deciding disputes between landowners and oil and gas companies (em.gov.bc.ca); and
• as an arbitrator under the federal National Energy Board Act (nrcan.gr.ca).

Since 1993, I have been the editor of the annual British Columbia Labour and Employment Law Statutes (Carswell). Between 1991 and 2003, I was the editor of the Canadian Encyclopedic Digest (Western) Vols. 11C and 11D, covering public and private sector labour and employment law in the federal jurisdiction and the four western provinces (Carswell).