Labour and Employment Law Blog

In the recent decision of Parmar v. Tribe Management Inc., 2022 BCSC 1675, the BC Supreme Court held that placing an employee on unpaid leave because they refused to get the COVID-19 vaccine did not amount to constructive dismissal. This case is one of the first civil court decisions in Canada that considered the validity of mandatory vaccination policies where employees ...

On July 15, 2022 the federal government released its proposed Regulations Amending Certain Regulations Made Under the Canada Labour Code (Medical Leave with Pay) (the “Proposed Regulations”), with respect to paid sick leave for federally regulated employees.

As summarized in our earlier blog post, employees are entitled to a maximum of 10 days sick leave per year ...

Two recent decisions from the Ontario Court of Appeal demonstrate that courts are moving away from assessing the severity of sexual harassment on a “spectrum,” and towards treating every incident of sexual harassment as serious.

Render v. ThyssenKrupp Elevator (Canada) Limited (2022 ONCA 310) dealt with a manager who was terminated after a single incident of ...

On April 6, 2022, Bill 10 – 2022 Labour Relations Code Amendment Act, 2022 (“Bill 10”) received its first reading. If passed, Bill 10 will introduce two significant amendments to the BC Labour Relations Code (the “Code”):

1. Return to a “card based” certification process – i.e. union certification without a vote.
2. Yearly opportunity for rival unions to ...

Bill C-3, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Canada Labour Code (“Bill C-3”) amends the Canada Labour Code (the “Code”) to provide federally regulated employees with the following:

• Ten days of paid sick leave per calendar year; and
• Increases to unpaid bereavement leave in the event of a death of a child or a stillbirth.

The following is a summary of the new ...

On November 24, 2021, the British Columbia government announced that, effective January 1, 2022, British Columbia employees who are covered by the Employment Standards Act and who have worked more than 90 consecutive days will be entitled to five paid days of personal illness or injury leave per year.

Employees who qualify for the paid leave must be paid an “average ...

On October 25, 2021, Ontario introduced Bill 27, Working for Workers Act, 2021, and on November 3, 2021 it received its second reading. If passed, the proposed Bill will amend Ontario’s Employment Standards Act, 2000 (ESA) to prohibit non-compete clauses in employment agreements and require organizations with over 25 employees to implement “disconnecting from ...

In the recent decision of Matijczack v. Homewood Health Inc., 2021 BCSC 1658 (Homewood Health), the BC Supreme Court confirmed that employers must provide consideration to make amendments to existing employment agreements enforceable.

Following a 2018 decision from the BC Court of Appeal (Rosas v. Toca, 2018 BCCA 191), the law relating to consideration for contractual ...

The Workplace Harassment and Violence Prevention Regulations, SOR/2020-130 (the “Regulations”) came into force on January 1, 2021. The Regulations introduced significant changes to how federally regulated organizations are required to prevent and address workplace harassment and violence. Specifically, federal employers must:

• conduct workplace ...

The new Work Place Harassment and Violence Prevention Regulations, SOR/2020-130 (the “Regulation”) and corresponding changes to the Canada Labour Code (the “Code”) come into force on January 1, 2021. The amendments introduce significant changes to how federally regulated organizations are required to prevent and address workplace harassment and violence ...