Firm Announcement

The Firm welcomes our new Associate Katherine Symonds. Katherine completed her articles with the Firm and has recently been called to the Bar.

One Year Later: Are You Compliant with Bill 168?

Last summer, Bill 168 was declared in force by the Ontario Government. This Bill made significant amendments to Ontario’s Occupational Health and Safety Act, and placed onerous obligations on employers with respect to workplace harassment and violence prevention. The Bill made it mandatory for all Ontario employers to conduct risk assessments of their workplaces, create […]

New Ontario Human Rights Commission Policy on Sexual and Gender-Based Harassment

The Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC) released a new policy on the prevention of sexual and gender-based harassment in early 2011. The policy provides a general overview of sexual and gender-based harassment, and then offers more context-specific information for employers, as well as for housing providers and educators. The policy provides examples of conduct that […]

$500,000 Arbitration Award to be Reviewed

In our Summer 2010 newsletter, we reported on an award of Arbitrator Owen Shime, in which he ordered the Greater Toronto Airports Authority (GTAA) to pay over $500,000 in damages for bad faith conduct in the termination of a PSAC employee for suspected abuse of sick leave. This unprecedented award included: damages for past and […]

Who is the Employer?

Several recent decisions of courts and tribunals across Canada have answered the question “who is the employer?” In three recent decisions, a broad view was taken of the concepts of “employee” and “employment,” while a recent decision of the Alberta Court of Appeal moves in a different direction. Ontario Court of Appeal In Ontario (Ministry […]

Ontario Court of Appeal Clarifies Employee Privacy Rights at Work

The Ontario Court of Appeal recently released its judgment in R. v. Cole, in which it set out employee’s privacy rights with respect to personal information stored on a work computer. A school board had launched an investigation after noticing that there was a high level of activity between a teacher’s work computer, which had […]