This past Monday marked the three-year anniversary of the date the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic. Since that fateful day in 2020, a lot has changed. Though there remain areas where transmission rates are still high, increased vaccination rates, higher immunity, and public health measures have helped curtail the spread of the virus and significantly decreased the rate of new infections in Canada.
As a result, many provinces and territories are revoking laws that were amended or implemented as a result of the virus. For example, about a month ago, Alberta repealed the COVID-19 layoff provisions in its Employment Standards Code (the “ESC”). This followed a trend we saw with the federal government as well as many other provinces such as Ontario.
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It has been another very busy year in the world of Employment Law with many significant changes to the workplace/workforce both legally and culturally.
An employer recently asked whether it would be helpful for them to record a sensitive employee termination meeting and, more broadly, whether this is a recommended practice for routine terminations. In this particular case, the logistics of having a second person attend as a witness were tricky, and the employer was also looking to be more efficient by having only one person conduct the meeting.