Labour and Employment Law Blog

In today’s Supreme Court of Canada decision in British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal and Schrenk, a split court held that British Columbia’s Human Rights Code provides protection to employees from the discriminatory conduct of persons unrelated to their own employer, provided that the discriminatory conduct arose in their employment setting.

The facts of the case ...

The decision of Mr. Justice Paul Belzil in the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench granting an interim injunction to block Suncor’s random drug testing policy has now been released. The Court applied the three part test for an injunction: there is a serious issue to be tried, there will be irreparable harm if the injunction is not granted, and the balance of convenience favours ...

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.

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 ...

Today, the Supreme Court of Canada provided guidance on the proper interpretation and application of damages for breaches of statutory freeze provisions in labour legislation. These provisions prevent employers from changing terms and conditions of employment after a certification application is made by a union in respect of its employees or during the bargaining ...

The Supreme Court of Canada has provided some important guidance regarding who qualifies as an "employee" under the British Columbia Human Rights Code in the case of McCormick v. Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP.

Mr. McCormick was an equity partner at Fasken. The Fasken Partnership Agreement required Mr. McCormick to divest his ownership in the partnership and retire ...