In Ontario, where a dispute between an employer and an employee (or former employee) cannot be resolved informally – which is usually a more expedient and practical option - recourse to the courts is generally available.

We are not yet at the halfway point of 2024. Despite this, both Queen’s Park and Parliament Hill have already been quite busy creating new rules that will apply to employers with operations in Ontario. In this article, we highlight a few of the major changes announced in the Working for Workers Five Act, 2024 and the

2024 Federal Budget and summarize how these may impact your organization.

Hiring processes can be competitive – particularly in a slow market where eligible candidates may outnumber available opportunities. While applicants may look to present their experience or qualifications in the most favourable light (whether on a CV or in the course of an interview), there is a significant difference between positive spin and blatant dishonesty.

On November 14, 2023, the Ontario provincial government tabled

Bill 149

As of February 1, 2024, Part III of the Canada Labour Code (“CLC”) will require federally-regulated employers (including those in the private sector and Crown corporations) to meet the following obligations when terminating employment:

As August rolls by, many of us are heading to cottages, beaches, and other exotic places to enjoy some well-earned R&R in the sun. For most (not within the blessed leisure classes) this means requesting time away from work and using our paid vacation time.

Due to recent changes to the Canada Labour Code (the “Code”), federally regulated employers are now required to provide workers with written “employment statements”.

In Pham v. Qualified Metal Fabricators Ltd., 2023 ONCA 255, the Court of Appeal for Ontario recently issued an important ruling regarding the law of unpaid temporary layoffs.

Workers are usually categorized as an employee or a contractor. Each category comes with its own distinct set of entitlements and obligations. Generally speaking, a contractor is someone in business for themselves, while an employee works for the benefit of another’s business.

ChatGPT (an artificial intelligence language generator financed by Microsoft) has captured the world’s attention. By inputting prompts in plain language, ChatGPT can do a seemingly endless series of tasks. Some are quite mundane – such as answering questions – while others could be revolutionary for automating common and labour-intensive work.

By December 1, 2022, the Canada Labour Code will require all federally regulated employers, regardless of size, to provide their employees with up to ten (10) paid days of annual medical leave.

Vey Willetts lawyer Andrew Vey was recently interviewed by Canadian HR Reporter concerning the expiry of deemed Infectious Disease Emergency Leave (“IDEL”). In an article entitled “Will end of deemed IDEL lead to a rise in constructive dismissal claims?”, Vey walked through the practical implications of this legal development for both employers and employees.

Proper classification of workers is a challenging task but one important to get right from the start. Misclassification can have serious consequences, such as exposing an organization to orders for unpaid wages and incurring fines for outstanding CPP and EI contributions.

In the lead-up to the June 2nd provincial election, the Progressive Conservative Party under Premier Ford has introduced yet another set of changes to Ontario employment law. This marks the second major update to the province’s workplace regulations in a 12-month period. We reported on the prior round of changes (which became law in November 2021) here.

Over the course of the pandemic, many employers (particularly those in retail, hospitality and tourism) experienced a significant downturn in business. As a result, some made the difficult decision to either lay-off or dismiss staff. A recent court decision from British Columbia considers whether an employer’s dramatic loss of revenue (which informed the decision to end employment) should properly be considered a “frustration of employment.”

Over the past few months, the provincial government has introduced several legislative changes that impact upon the workplace and require employers to meet new requirements.

In early December 2021, the Ontario Government passed into law a ban on non-compete agreements. Non-competes are a form of restrictive covenant used to limit the ability of employees to seek work with competitive alternate employers. Ontario’s non-compete ban took retroactive effect as of October 25, 2021. But that begged the question, what happens to non-compete agreements entered into before this date?

The Government of Ontario has announced that Infectious Disease Emergency Leave (“IDEL”) will be extended for a fifth time. It will now cover the period from March 1, 2020 to July 30, 2022. As a result of this change, it is possible that the worst effected employees may find themselves out of work, and without pay, for a staggering 2 years and 5 months.