Labour and Employment Law Blog

On November 9, 2020, the federal government announced a further temporary extension to permitted layoff periods for federally regulated private-sector employees.

Background

In June of 2020, the federal government extended the time periods for layoffs under the Canada Labour Standards Regulations to allow federally regulated private-sector employers more time to ...

Early last year, we blogged about the British Columbia Court of Appeal’s decision in Envirocon Environmental Services, ULC v. Suen, 2019 BCCA 46, where the Court of Appeal confirmed that there is a strict test for finding a prima facie case of family status discrimination under the British Columbia Human Rights Code. Recently, the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal ...

Today, the SCC handed down an important decision for employers in Matthews v. Ocean Nutrition Canada Limited. There are at least three significant implications of this case in which the SCC sought to clarify the remedies available to employees on termination without cause:

1. An employer has a common law duty to provide reasonable notice of dismissal. This is an independent ...

On September 17, 2020, the British Columbia government released its economic recovery plan for the province, Stronger BC for Everyone: BC’s Economic Recovery Plan. The plan details various new support measures for B.C. businesses, including a new refundable tax credit for employers.

The B.C. Increased Employment Incentive is a refundable tax credit for employers ...

It has been several months since Covid-19 forced many people to suddenly shift to working from home. One major benefit of this arrangement is the potential for employers to save on considerable overhead expenses – for example rent and internet connectivity in office buildings. It is important to ask, however, whether these costs are being eliminated, or simply shifted to ...

On August 20, 2020, the Government announced that the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (“CERB”) will be extended an additional four weeks and then will transition to a simplified Employment Insurance (“EI”) program. The Government also introduced a suite of new temporary benefits to support workers.

Changes to EI

Effective September 27, 2020, the Government ...

Federally regulated employers in the private sector should mark their calendars for September 1, 2020, when changes to the Canada Labour Code (“Code”) and the new Standards for Work-Integrated Learning Activities Regulations (the “Regulations”) will come into force.

These upcoming legislative changes are part of the federal government’s ongoing ...

As discussed in prior blog posts, the Employment Standards Regulation was previously amended to extend the temporary layoff period due to COVID-19 to a maximum of 24 weeks in a period of 28 consecutive weeks provided the layoff started before June 1, 2020 and ended by August 30, 2020. Employers wishing to extend the temporary layoff period beyond 24 weeks must apply for a ...

You can find our previous blog post on the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy here and the first extension details here.

On July 27, 2020, Bill C-20, “An Act respecting further COVID-19 measures” (the “Bill”) received Royal Assent. The substantial changes introduced by the Bill include an extension of the CEWS and revisions to the calculation of the subsidy that ...

In the recent decision of Uber Technologies Inc. v. Heller, 2020 SCC 16 (“Heller”), the Supreme Court of Canada (“SCC”) found that the arbitration clause in Uber’s standard form service agreement with its drivers was invalid.

This decision clears the way for the proposed class action lawsuit brought by David Heller on behalf of Ontario Uber drivers. If that class ...