Alia Rashid

Alia Rashid, a lawyer with Hicks Morley’s Toronto office, provides advice to employers and management in both the private and public sectors on labour, employment and human rights issues. This includes wrongful dismissal actions, employment standards, labour disputes, grievance arbitrations, human rights and accommodation.

Evon J. Gayle

Evon Gayle, a lawyer with Hicks Morley’s Waterloo office, provides advice to employers and management in both the private and public sectors on human resources issues. This involves labour, employment law and employment equity, human rights and accommodation, occupational health and safety, and anti-racism policy development and implementation.

Michael A. Jaworski

Michael’s practice emphasizes the negotiation of collective agreements and the defence of employers before the courts and in arbitration cases, human rights hearings and labour board proceedings. He devotes time to truly understand each client’s business so that he can better assist them to navigate and prioritize their workplace issues.

Gabrielle A. Lemoine

Gabrielle provides advice and representation to employers and management in both the private and public sector on a wide-range of labour and employment issues. Having recently clerked at the Federal Court of Appeal, Gabrielle is uniquely positioned to assist clients with judicial reviews and appeals.

Danika L. Winkel

Danika represents a broad range of public- and private-sector employers—both small and large—in trials, hearings, motions, applications, judicial reviews and appeals. In addition to that work, she provides proactive, day-to-day advice to help employers avoid litigation.

Ontario Introduces Temporary Funding Relief for Defined Benefit Pension Plans

Sponsors of defined benefit (DB) pension plans registered in Ontario have been given significant temporary contribution relief as part of the Ontario government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. On September 21, 2020, Ontario Regulation 520/20 (Regulation) was filed. The Regulation amends Regulation 909 made under the Ontario Pension Benefits Act (PBA) to permit temporary contribution deferral for certain eligible DB pension plans, and extend the time over which catch-up contributions following the filing of a new valuation report must be made.

Ontario Government Announces Extension of Temporary Relief from ESA Termination and Severance Provisions

On Thursday, September 3, 2020, the Ontario government announced that it would be extending the temporary relief measures from the termination and severance provisions of the Employment Standards Act, 2000 (ESA) until January 2, 2021. The temporary measures are found in Ontario Regulation 228/20, Infectious Disease Emergency Leave (IDEL Regulation), and had been set to expire today (September 4, 2020). The IDEL Regulation has been amended to define the “COVID-19 period” as that period beginning on March 1, 2020 and ending on January 2, 2021

Details of Extensive Changes to Employment Insurance and Canada Emergency Response Benefit Announced

In the latest evolution of the federal government’s response to the ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic, on August 19, 2020, amendments to the Employment Insurance Act (EI Act) were published and, on August 20, 2020, the government announced new measures to support affected Canadians who continue to be unable to work due to COVID-19.