The Ontario government is proposing changes to the Working for Workers Acts, 2021 and 2022. The changes will require women’s-only washrooms on construction sites and make the skilled trades more accessible for everyone. The women’s-only washrooms aims to promote a more private, clean and safe environment on construction sites. The implementation of this policy would […]
The Ontario government is introducing new legislation to create job-protected leave for injured military reservists. If passed, the legislation will allow military reservists to return to their civilian jobs after deployment. A job-protected leave will acknowledge their physical and mental trauma, and could provide the reservists with additional time off to recover before returning to […]
On March 20, 2023, the Ontario government introduced the Working for Workers Act, 2023. This act will strengthen protections for temporary foreign workers who have become increasingly vulnerable to employers who withhold or retain a foreign worker’s passport or work permit. The highest maximum fines in Canada may be imposed on both businesses and individuals […]
The Ontario Superior Court of Justice has determined that an employee’s refusal to comply with a mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policy can give rise to the frustration of contract. In this case, a mandatory vaccination policy was implemented by Bell Canada, which operates through VuPoint Systems Ltd. (VuPoint). Two days after the policy was in effect, […]
In the recent decision Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario v. York Region District School Board, 2022 ONCA 476, the Court of Appeal for Ontario found that a school’s principal breached two teachers’ rights to privacy when he read and documented the teachers’ personal emails to each other, which had been left open on a school laptop. This […]
The Ontario government is proposing updates to the Ontario Employment Standards Act (ESA) in an effort to protect remote workers. The proposed amendments seek to ensure that remote workers receive the same notice of termination, or pay-in-lieu of notice, as in-office employees would receive in mass termination situations. Currently, employers are only required to share […]
The Ontario government has announced that it will be introducing regulatory amendments to expand cancer coverage for firefighters. The amendments to the Ontario Regulation 253/07 made under the Workplace Safety and Insurance Act, 1997, will expand the list of presumptive illnesses to include certain cancers. The amendments will provide firefighters with access to compensation to support the […]
The Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) recently denied leave to appeal in Battiston v. Microsoft Canada Inc., 2021 ONCA 727. The SCC decision reinforces an Ontario Court of Appeal decision which concluded that an employee’s consent through an internal e-consent process was a valid means of bringing an agreement, and in particular, termination provisions to the employee’s […]