Labour and Employment Law Blog

Mr. Justice Paul Belzil in the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench has granted Unifor an injunction blocking Suncor’s random drug testing policy for its oilsands facilities in northeastern Alberta.  

We will update this with further information once the decision is reported.

[This legislation has now been amended or replaced. Please see our subsequent blog post here.]

Bill 148, The Fair Workplaces, Better Jobs Act, 2017 received Royal Assent on November 27, 2017. This legislation would include significant amendments to the Employment Standards Act, 2000 (the “ESA”), the Occupational Health and Safety Act and the Labour Relations Act.  ...

The BC Government has passed a bill (Bill 27 – 2016: Human Rights Code Amendment Act, 2016) to add "gender identity and expression" as a prohibited ground of discrimination under the Human Rights Code. The amendment adds a prohibition against discrimination on the basis of "gender identity and expression" in addition to the existing grounds of “sex” and “sexual ...

On March 15, 2016, Manitoba gave royal assent to legislation that will provide employees who are victims of domestic violence with both paid and unpaid leave from work. Titled The Employment Standards Code Amendment Act (Leave for Victims of Domestic Violence, Leave for Serious Injury or Illness and Extension of Compassionate Care Leave) (the “Act”), the law is the ...

The federal government has enacted a new tax law that requires unions to disclose financial information (Bill C-377, An Act to Amend the Income Tax Act, passed on June 30, 2015). The bill had been slowly progressing for four years. It was the first private member’s bill to proceed to the Senate this session, and its passing was the final legislative act of the 41st Parliament.

Employers frequently ask us whether they are allowed to suspend an employee, and, if they do so, whether there is a risk that the employee may sue for constructive dismissal. In a Supreme Court of Canada judgment released on Friday, the main issue was, in what circumstances may a non-unionized employee who is suspended indefinitely with pay claim to have been constructively ...

Less than two weeks after handing down one landmark case on the freedom of association, the Court released another such case last Friday, Saskatchewan Federation of Labour v. Saskatchewan, 2015 SCC 4. The significance of this decision is that the Court has ruled that the right to strike is a guaranteed right of freedom of association protected by Section 2(d) of the Canadian ...

The Supreme Court of Canada released a judgment last Friday that strengthens and expands the protection of freedom of association under s. 2(d) of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The main issue in this case was the constitutionality of the employee association scheme for members of the RCMP, who are excluded from public sector federal labour relations legislation ...