On January 14, 2021, the Supreme Court of Canada denied the employer’s leave to appeal application from the decision of the Ontario Court of Appeal in Waksdale v Swegon North America. That decision held that termination clauses in employment contracts must be read together and if one contravenes the Employment Standards Act, 2000 (ESA), all…
Practice Area: Employment Law
Redeployment Ability of Health Service Providers (Including Hospitals) Expanded
On January 18, 2021, the Ontario government amended Ontario Regulation 74/20, Work Redeployment For Certain Health Service Providers (Regulation), made under the Reopening Ontario (A Flexible Response to COVID-19) Act, 2020. The amendments – which came into effect January 18, 2021 – are intended to help alleviate the increasing staffing and capacity issues faced by…
Ontario Makes Further Amendments to COVID-19 Rules
On January 9, 2021, the Ontario government filed three regulations made under the Reopening Ontario (A Flexible Response to COVID-19) Act, 2020 amending the Rules for Areas in Stages 1, 2 and 3, which set out the restrictions in light of COVID-19. Among other things, Ontario Regulation 6/21 makes the following amendments to the…
Lockdown Extended in Northern Ontario; On-Line Learning for Elementary Students in Southern Ontario Extended to January 25, 2021
On January 7, 2021, the Ontario government announced that it is extending the current provincial lockdown an additional 14 days for the 7 public health unit regions in Northern Ontario. This will align the length of their lockdown with the length of the lockdown for the regions in Southern Ontario. The government also announced that…
COVID Case Law Update: Two Recent Decisions of Note in the Long-Term Care Sector
In this HR HealthCheck, we discuss two recently released arbitral decisions involving retirement and long-term care home providers whose responses to the COVID-19 pandemic were challenged by their unions. The first case deals with a mandatory testing policy. The second case considers an employer’s right to cancel an employee’s leave of absence in order to…
Ontario Court of Appeal Upholds $1.27 Million Damages Award Against Employer for Breach of Fixed-Term Employment Contract
In McGuinty v. 1845035 Ontario Inc. (McGuinty Funeral Home), the Ontario Court of Appeal upheld a lower court decision awarding the respondent over $1.27 million in damages for constructive dismissal. Background The respondent had sold his family’s funeral business to the appellant employer and entered into a 10-year transitional consulting services agreement (TCSA) in 2012….
Supreme Court of Canada Considers Duty of Good Faith Performance of Contracts
In one of its final decisions of 2020, C.M. Callow Inc. v. Zollinger, the Supreme Court of Canada held that parties to any and all contracts (which would include employment contracts) cannot lie or otherwise knowingly deceive each other about matters directly linked to the performance of the contract. This type of deceptive conduct is…
Beyond COVID-19: 2020 Year in Review – Cases and Legislation of Note
Employers and human resource professionals will undoubtedly remember 2020 as the “year of the pandemic.” But … there were also legal developments in 2020 that were not related to COVID-19. In this FTR Now, we look at some of the year’s notable “non-pandemic” cases and legislative developments of interest. We also identify some decisions and…
Temporary Relief from ESA Termination and Severance Pay Obligations for Hospitality and Related Industries
On December 17, 2020, the Ontario government filed a new regulation under the Employment Standards Act, 2000 (ESA), Ontario Regulation 764/20: Terms And Conditions Of Employment In Defined Industries – Hospitality, Tourism And Convention And Trade Show Industries (Regulation). As stated by the government, the Regulation provides certain employers with an alternative to putting termination…
Ontario Government Announces Extension of Temporary Relief from ESA Termination and Severance Provisions
Effective December 17, 2020, the Ontario government has extended the temporary relief measures from the termination and severance provisions of the Employment Standards Act, 2000 (ESA) until July 3, 2021. The temporary measures are found in Ontario Regulation 228/20, Infectious Disease Emergency Leave (IDEL Regulation), and had been set to expire January 2, 2021. The…