Pre-employment police record checks have become common in our information-obsessed society. This is where the employer requires a job candidate to pass a police record check as a condition of being hired. The Police Record Checks Reform Act (the “Act”) was designed to standardize why and when these record checks can be obtained, as opposed
Goodbye Personal Emergency Leave
Bill 47, the Ford government’s Making Ontario Open for Business Act has passed. One big change the bill makes is to the much discussed (and much used) Bill 148 amendment regarding Personal Emergency Leave. This amendment will come into force on January 1, 2019.
For historical purposes, you can read all about the Bill
Can an employee take back their intention to retire?
This was the question asked in English v. Manulife Financial Corporation, 2018 ONSC 5135 (English). In this case, English, a 66-year-old employee decided to retired when her employer, Manulife Financial Corporation, announced in 2015 that they would be converting their technology and employees would be required to learn a new system. She made this
Even Robots are a Little Bit Racist: AI Bias in Recruitment
How would you like to perform only the most high-level and uniquely human elements of your job? Are your skills really best utilized on data entry, rote memorization and pushing paper? Artificial Intelligence (AI) promises to delegate all the drudgery of your job to machines while freeing you up to mingle with clients on the
Remembrance Day and Why We Don’t All Get the Same Days Off
Earlier this year the federal government amended the Holidays Act to include Remembrance Day as a legal holiday. You can read more about this in our past post Remembrance Day Enacted as a Legal Holiday. In Ontario, Remembrance Day has not been added to the Employment Standards Act as a public holiday and consequently,
Again?! Bill 47, Making Ontario Open for Business Act
Last week the Ford government tabled Bill 47, Making Ontario Open for Business Act, 2018. This legislation would repeal many of the amendments made by the Bill 148, Fair Workplaces, Better Jobs Act, 2017, most of which came into force in January 2018 but some of which are slated for January 2019.
Not
Legal Pot! Drug Testing and Off-Duty Substance Use
Pot has now been legal in Canada for one week! Hell has not frozen over, or broken loose, as far as we can tell. Legal marijuana has been reportedly selling out and even illegal dispensaries are apparently having trouble keeping up. This suggests an uptick in cannabis consumption. I guess some people really were deterred
The Ontario Government and Changes to Bill 148 and Cannabis Law
Legislatively speaking, a lot has happened in the Ontario workplace law space over the past year. The biggest shake-ups being the Bill 148 changes to the Employment Standards Act and today’s legalization of recreational cannabis. The state of workplace law continues to evolve as the Doug Ford government takes steps to undo the Liberal legislation.
To google or not to google? Candidate background checks
In the information age it’s usually relatively easy to find out all about someone by doing a simple Google search. The burning question of online daters, “do I google my date before the date?” applies equally to employers. Can, and should, an employer background check a candidate? If so when? And how deep can and
Equal Pay for Midwives
The Ontario Human Rights Tribunal (HRTO) released an interim decision on September 24, 2018 in the application of the Association of Ontario Midwives (AOM) and the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care (MOH). The AOM brought an application to the HRTO alleging discrimination on the basis of gender in their compensation by the MOH.