HReview Breakfast Seminar Archive: 2023

2023 ushered in many important changes to the employment and labour landscape in Ontario and across Canada.

Join us as we discuss how these changes impact employers. Topics include:

1. Legislative Update

• • Licensing requirements for temporary help agencies and recruiters in Ontario
  • Cross-Canada update on key employment-related legislative amendments.

2. Labour Law Update

• • Update on Bill 124 and other wage restraint legislation and related case law.
  • Recent COVID-19 decisions (mandatory vaccination, religious exemptions). 

3. Human Rights Update

• • The role of unconscious bias in race-based discrimination cases.
  • Family status discrimination update.
  • Recent case law on workplace investigations.

4. Trends in Employment and Independent Contractor Agreements

• • Enforceability of termination provisions.
  • Independent contractors and the duty to mitigate.

Join us as we discuss:

1. Mental health and substance use

• • Duty to inquire
  • Investigating suspected impairment
  • Requests for medical information

2. Accommodation under human rights legislation

• • Definition of “disability”
  • Employer’s duty to accommodate
  • Employee’s duty to co-operate

3. WSIB traumatic mental stress claims

4. Discipline and termination

• • When is behaviour linked to a disability?
  • Last chance agreements
  • Frustration of contract
  • Mitigating risk

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the way we live and work.  Now, more than ever, employees work in a remote or hybrid work arrangement.  However, with this shift comes new and altered legal risks and challenges for employers.

Join us as we discuss:

1. Cross-Canada or International Relocation

• • Legal risks if a remote worker relocates, temporarily or permanently (which laws apply).
  • How to prevent or manage employee relocation issues.

2. Performance Management

• • Use of electronic monitoring to manage employee performance.
  • Discipline and termination for time theft and other remote work performance issues. 

3. Health and Safety

• • When will occupational health and safety and workers’ compensation legislation apply to a remote worker?
  • Bullying and harassment in an online workplace.

4. Employment Standards and Human Rights

• • How to ensure a remote worker complies with employment standards requirements (e.g., hours of work, meal breaks, etc.).
  • Remote or hybrid work as a form of human rights accommodation.

More than ever, employers are facing high damage claims for post-termination conduct, and a heightened risk their employment agreement termination language will be found unenforceable.

Join us as we discuss:

1. Employment Contract Considerations

• • Recent caselaw on the enforceability of termination clauses.
  • When will ancillary terms jeopardize a termination clause?
  • Risks associated with the termination of a fixed term employment agreement.

2. An Increase in “Bad Faith” Claims Related to the Manner of Termination

• • What should (and should not) be included in the termination letter.
  • How to minimize the risk of reputational damage to an employee post-termination.
  • When will delay in the payment of statutory entitlements increase an employer’s potential liability?

3. Post-Termination Income and its Impact on Damage Awards

• • An update on the duty to mitigate.
  • The impact of Employment Insurance (EI) and Canada Emergency Relief Benefits (CERB) payments on a damage award.