Labour and Employment Law Blog

On March 23, 2020, the British Columbia government passed two amendments to the B.C. Employment Standards Act, RSBC 1996, c. 113. There are now two new unpaid, job-protected leaves of absence for eligible B.C. employees: sick leave and COVID-19 related leave. Unfortunately, the changes do not provide much relief to B.C. employers. In particular, B.C.’s inflexible ...

There have been several developments across the country since our previous blog post (Keeping Cool: An Employer’s Guide to COVID-19 in the Workplace). On March 17, 2020, British Columbia declared a state of emergency. It is initially in effect for 14 days, but may be extended or rescinded as necessary. Other provincial governments across the country are taking similar ...

COVID-19 has now been characterized as a pandemic by the World Health Organization. Although the number of reported cases in Canada is currently low in comparison to some other countries, public health authorities have cautioned that this situation may change rapidly. As part of this quickly changing situation, employers need to be prepared to address related workplace ...

In the recent case of Quach v. Mitrux Services Ltd., 2020 BCCA 25 (CanLII), the British Colombia Court of Appeal clarified how mitigation applies to fixed-term contracts, commented on when aggravated damages may be awarded in wrongful dismissal cases, and mused about the necessity of fresh consideration to ensure the enforceability of new contractual terms.

In this case ...

Many employers seem to think there is an advantage to having a fixed-term employment contract with an employee.  The usual rationales are that it sets the parties’ expectations for a period of employment and that either party can walk away at the end of the term, without any further obligation to the other.   These are reasonable rationales…when the employment ...

In February 2018, the British Columbia Minister of Labour appointed an independent panel to review the Labour Relations Code (the "Code") and recommend changes. The panel's report was publicly released on October 25, 2018. The report, entitled Recommendations for Amendments to the Labour Relations Code, sets out 29 recommendations.

Notably, the report recommends:

• The ...

This is probably not the first article you will read today on cannabis. Cannabis is now legal in Canada, but strictly regulated. Due to the intersection between human rights, privacy, and occupational health and safety laws, employers often have a challenging task in ensuring their employees are free from impairment.

Here are our top tips for employers:

1. Have an up-to-date ...

In our June 28 blog post, we wrote about calculating holidays and holiday pay for employees working in British Columbia who are entitled to holiday pay. With Labour Day approaching, we thought we would revisit the topic.  

Did you know that there are many employees who do not have any entitlement to statutory holidays under the British Columbia Employment Standards Act

Alberta’s Court of Appeal has upheld the decision of the Court of Queen’s Bench granting the Union’s request for an interim injunction. The interim injunction blocks Suncor’s random drug testing policy at the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo site. The injunction will apply until the underlying arbitration is decided; a final decision will be made either by ...

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 ...