The paper is a comprehensive resource for experienced and novice counsel. It provides an overview of the legal principles that govern restrictive covenants in employment agreements. It reviews the applicable legislations and employment law cases, with an emphasis on appellate decisions, which scrutinized restrictive covenants...
A foreign money judgment is evidence of a debt. To recognize and enforce it in Canada, two conditions must be met: the judgment must be for a debt or definite sum of money (ie not being a sum payable in respect of taxes or other...
Senior executives, key employees and corporate officers owe their former employers’ fiduciary duties. The term “fiduciary” stems from the Latin root of the word fiduciaries meaning “holding thing in trust.” The concept of a fiduciary duty is not novel. It dates back to medieval England...
A motion for summary judgment is a procedural tool that enables litigants to obtain judgment without the forensic machinery of a trial. Section 108(1) of the Courts of Justice Act (CJA) grants a civil litigant a substantive right to have issues of fact to be...
Are you applying for leave for judicial review in an immigration law matter? Experienced immigration lawyer and Practical Guidance contributor Nikolay Chsherbinin offers a helpful practice note and precedent to help you navigate the process...
К основным законам, регулирующим иммиграционные аресты и задержания в Канаде, относятся Хартия Прав и Свобод, Федеральный Закон об Иммиграции и Защите Беженцев (“Закон”) и одноимённые Правила. Иммиграционному задержанию могут быть подвергнуты не только иностранные граждане, но и постоянные жители Канады. Такая ограничивающая свободу мера пресечения...
A client has an unfettered right to discharge his or her legal counsel at any time and for any reason. Counsel, on the other hand, does not have an unfettered right to withdraw. The fiduciary nature of the solicitor-client relationship means that counsel is constrained...
The “changed substratum” doctrine is an integral part of employment law. The doctrine provides that if an employee enters into a written employment contract that specifies the notice period for a dismissal, its terms may be held unenforceable if, over the course of employment, the...
In Ontario, Rule 29.1 of the Rules of Civil Procedure (Rules) imposes an obligation on litigation counsel to meet, confer and to create a written discovery plan before documentary production and discovery get underway. In context of litigation, discovery planning represents the first real opportunity...
Where a settlement agreement has the effect of changing entirely the landscape of the litigation in a way that significantly alters the dynamics of the litigation, it must be immediately disclosed to the non-settling defendants. Failure to do so amounts to an abuse of process....
Voltaire once said: “Originality is nothing but judicious imitation.” Arguably, and so is the determination of a reasonable notice. An oft-quoted assertion that determining the period of reasonable notice is an art not a science aside, I note that in 2022 there is a vast...
Интервью Николая Щербинина с Евгением Бычковым на "Радио Плюс" Торонто.
Тема: новости в иммиграционном и трудовом законодательствах Канады и провинции Онтарио на Сентябрь 2022...
Employees are entitled to know at the beginning of an employment relationship what their entitlement will be at the end of their employment. To accomplish this objective, employers often spend a great deal of financial and human resources in drafting comprehensive employment agreements, just to...
Employment law contemplates an intermediate category of “dependent contractor” between employee and independent contractor status. A dependent contractor relationship is a non-employment relationship in which there is a certain minimum economic dependency, which may be demonstrated by complete or near complete exclusivity....
The “fresh step” rule is based on the theory that if a party pleads over to a pleading, this implies a waiver of any irregularity that might otherwise have been attacked. For example, if a party, after obtaining knowledge of the irregularity, nonetheless delivers a...
For wrongful dismissal actions the limitation clock begins to tick when notice of dismissal is communicated to an employee. This is so, even if the actual termination date is in the future, as in a working notice scenario. In contrast, in cases of constructive dismissal,...
An appeal is a statutory right. No right to appeal exists except as provided by statute and/or until leave has been granted. Any right of appeal is governed, and limited, by the statutory framework that creates it. In Ontario that framework is convoluted....
Termination clauses are akin to prenuptial agreements. Their purpose is to create clarity about an employee’s entitlements at the time of dismissal. If a termination clause does not comply with the Employment Standards Act, 2000 (ESA), it will not be enforced. The issue of enforceability...
Пандемия COVID-19 стала настоящим стресс-тестом для нашего общества, правовой системы и трудовых отношений. Беспрецедентное количество сотрудников было переведено на работу в удаленном режиме и множество сотрудников были сокращены....
In most jurisdictions, an expert witness is not permitted to give opinion evidence at trial unless the party has served a report signed by the expert, which includes the substance of the expert’s proposed testimony, and the expert has been qualified as such at trial....
The common law doctrine of “common employer” recognizes that two or more separate corporate entities may, but not always, be considered a single employer in relation to one employee. If an employer is a member of an interrelated corporate group, one or more other corporations...
Layoffs are spells of employees’ temporary unemployment at the employer’s instigation. Neither the Employment Standards Act, 2000 (ESA) nor common law confers upon the employer the right to a layoff. Consequently, a layoff is a contractual right. Absent an express or implied term in a...
Written reasons are the voice of a decision. They are the means by which a decision maker communicates the rationale for its decision. Their presence explains how and why a decision was made. Their absence creates the perception of arbitrariness in the exercise of judicial...
A dismissal for just cause is a matter of substance, not form. The central question concerning just cause is whether an employee’s misconduct is sufficiently serious that it strikes at the heart of the employment relationship. The answer to this question requires a factual inquiry...
Unionized employees derive security of employment from collective agreements, which vest exclusive jurisdiction over employment disputes in arbitrators and labour relations boards. The principle that unionized employees must seek redress under the terms of their collective agreements, which typically provide for a grievance procedure and...
Solicitor-client privilege is best understood as a quasi-constitutional right to communicate in confidence with one’s lawyer. As an evidentiary concept, it applies only to confidential communication between clients and lawyers. It is sometimes confused, especially in the discovery context, with litigation privilege, which applies to...
The determination of whether an order is "final" or "interlocutory" is a legal minefield for both novice and experienced counsel. The distinction between the orders is of crucial importance, because it confers substantively different procedural rights. This article deals with the ambitious task of tackling...
Employment contracts are contracts of personal services. They cannot be transferred from one employer to another without the parties’ consent. If an employer sells its business and a purchaser hires its employees there is a risk that the employees’ periods of employment with the vendor...
A termination clause is only enforceable if it conforms to the provisions of the Employment Standards Act, 2000 (“ESA”). If the clause’s application “potentially” violates the ESA in the future, it is void. The issue of enforceability of termination clauses does not cease to vacillate....
The issue of enforceability of a termination provision is one of the most frequently litigated areas of employment law. The enforceability of such provisions turns on their wording, the purpose and language of the Employment Standards Act, 2000 (ESA), and jurisprudence on interpreting employment agreements,...
A trial judge wears many hats. He or she serves as the gatekeeper for the admission of evidence and ensures that a trial record is complete and accurate, so that the appellate court can discern without difficulty exactly what was before the trial judge in...
The COVID-19 pandemic presents novel legal issues. To resolve them lawyers, as is common, start their analysis of a novel situation with a consideration of precedents. However, by definition a precedent was created in a different setting from the present, which is crippled by the...
This paper was presented at the 20th Employment Law Summit, organized by the Law Society of Ontario. The paper is available upon request....
It has long been the general rule in Canada that execution cannot be obtained prior to judgment and judgment cannot be recovered before trial. The term execution includes any order abrogating a defendant’s rights prior to a trial. Such orders, apart from certain exceptions, will...
Punitive damages are meant to punish malicious and outrageous acts that offend the ordinary standards of morality or decent conduct. Since they are not meant to be compensatory, their focus is on a wrongdoer’s misconduct, not a victim’s loss. In McCabe v. Roman Catholic Episcopal...
Layoffs are spells of employees’ temporary unemployment. At common law, employers have no right to lay employees off. Nor does the Employment Standards Act, 2000 give employers such a right; rather, it regulates the periods and effects of layoffs when the right exists....
A true condition precedent occurs whenever the rights and obligations of the contracting parties depend on a future uncertain event, the happening of which is beyond the parties’ control and contingent entirely on the will of a third party. Until the event occurs, there is...
An employee’s employment is terminated when he or she is dismissed without cause, not when the notice period ends. The date of an employee’s dismissal is, thus, a question of fact. When an employer dismisses an employee without cause and without proper notice this constitutes...
The fundamental principle applicable to quantifying damages in wrongful dismissal cases is that the damages award should place an employee in the same economic position that they would have been in, had they not been wrongfully dismissed. In determining damages, the court will typically include...
Resignation is a right personal to an employee. It can neither be imputed to nor imposed on the employee and, thus, must be voluntary. The act of voluntary resignation has a subjective and an objective element. The former is represented by the employee’s intention to...
Canadian citizens and permanent residents have an unrestricted right to work for any employer in Canada. Non-citizens’ right to work is restricted by a statutory requirement to obtain a work permit. When employers make a distinction between job candidates on the basis of a person’s...
Enforceability of a termination clause in a written employment contract continues to be a vexing legal issue. An employment case in point is the Court of Appeal for Ontario decision in Amberber v. IBM Canada Ltd., 2018 ONCA 571, which clarified that subdivision of a...
A guilty plea constitutes a formal admission of guilt to the crime with which an accused is charged. It relieves the Crown of its burden to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt and constitutes a waiver of constitutional right to a trial. The accused’s decision...
In MacIvor v. Pitney Bowes, 2018 ONCA 381, the Court of Appeal for Ontario ("ONCA") determined that an employee could benefit from his former employer’s LTD coverage, even though he did not discover the disability until after he began working for another employer. In the...
Immigration detentions of non-citizens must only be for an immigration-related purpose. Undoubtedly, a detention is never pleasant. However, it is not the detention itself, or even its length, that is objectionable, but its unlawfulness. Often non-citizens are being detained on a faulty factual premise, inadvertent...
There is a remarkable range of differences in employers’ conduct that has been found to amount to constructive dismissal. In most constructive dismissals, the operative question is whether the unilateral change introduced by the employer to a significant term of the employment contract amounted to...
A question of enforceability of termination clauses turns on the wording of the clause, the purpose and language of the Employment Standards Act, 2000, and the jurisprudence on interpreting employment agreements. With the release of Nemeth v. Hatch Ltd., 2018 ONCA 7, the Court of...
Employees’ right to choose their employer is a main difference between a servant and a serf. Because employment contracts are contracts of personal services, they cannot be transferred from one employer to another without the parties’ consent. In Krishnamoorthy v. Olympus Canada Inc., 2017 ONCA...
Conditional sentences are sentences of imprisonment that are served in the community. They are meant as an alternative to incarceration for less serious offences and non-dangerous offenders. In Tran v. Canada (Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness) 2017 SCC 50, the Supreme Court of...
In general, courts interpret employment contracts differently from commercial contracts, mainly because of unequal bargaining power between employers and employees and the importance of employment in a person’s life. Some employment contracts include severability clauses, which are designed to reform an illegal...
Communications towards settlement are generally privileged. A privilege is necessary to encourage full and frank discussion with a view to coming to a resolution of the matter. Where an offer to settle is made without prejudice, the fact of its existence should not generally be...
A single act of dishonesty may constitute cause for dismissal, even if the specific incident is of minor consequence. It is not so much the dishonest act itself, rather it is the revelation of a character that is untrustworthy that provides the legitimate basis...
In a wrongful dismissal action, an employer is generally entitled to a deduction on income earned by the dismissed employee from other sources during the reasonable notice period. In Brake v. PJ-M2R Restaurant Inc., 2017 ONCA 402, the Ontario Court of Appeal reaffirmed that not...
In the domain of employment law, a fundamental common law principle is that a contract of employment for an indefinite period is terminable only if reasonable notice is given. This principle does not apply to fixed-term contracts. At the conclusion of a fixed-term contract, employees are...
The importance of employment in a person’s life enables courts to interpret employment agreements differently from commercial agreements. However, the question of enforceability of a termination clause within an employment agreement has been plaguing our courts with uncertainty for years....
A motion for summary judgment is a procedural tool that is both practical and perilous. It is practical because it can be litigation’s main event. However, it is perilous because it can turn out to be a journey beset with procedural ramifications and costs. Despite...
A dismissal for just cause is a matter of substance, not form. An unsubstantiated allegation of cause could result in punitive damages for corporate employers. A recent employment case in point is Morison v. Ergo-Industrial Seating Systems Inc., 2016 ONSC 6725, where Justice P.E. Roger...
Twitter is a public social media platform that allows people to create content and share it at a prodigious rate. Its users’ comments, known as tweets, are particularly effective in spreading their sentiments. Increasingly, companies mine Twitter for information about their services and products. Employers...
The question of whether it is ever lawful for federally regulated employers to dismiss non-unionized employees without just cause has been plaguing the federal employment sector with uncertainty for decades. It’s been the cause of widespread judicial controversy....
The law of evidence controls the presentation of facts before courts and tribunals. It is made up of common law concepts, statutory provisions and constitutional principles. Admissibility of “fresh” documentary evidence on appeal before the Refugee Appeal Division of the Immigration and Refugee Board (RAD)...
Written employment contracts are relationship management tools. Their goal is to provide certainty of the terms of employment. If an employment contract fails to conform to the provisions of the Employment Standards Act, 2000, it will be invalidated. A recent case in point is Garreton...
An order for the payment of money in lieu of notice is an order that creates a fixed debt obligation. A wrongfully dismissed employee who obtains a judgment requiring his ex-employer to pay damages may be unable to enforce it until appeal is determined. When...
An offer to settle is an indispensable component of virtually every civil lawsuit in Ontario. However, to skillfully craft an offer that meets an offeror’s objectives can be challenging. A recent case in point is Puri Consulting Limited v. Kim Orr Barristers PC, [2015]...
It is undisputed the practice of breastfeeding must be promoted and protected. Since the ability to breastfeed is unique to the female gender, a woman who opts to breastfeed may be subjected to adverse treatment in a workplace, something her male colleague...
The smuggling of human beings across international borders is a matter of increasing concern around the world. People smuggling can be viewed in starkly contrasting ways, either as inherently immoral and posing a potential threat to border security or it could be seen as helping...
Modifications to contracts have traditionally encountered problems of enforceability, because of the requirement that enforceable promises must be given for consideration. Consequently, dismissed employees often challenge the enforceability of their employment contracts, a trend that shows no signs of abating. A case in point is...
While we often see employment contracts that contain termination provisions that purport to limit employees’ entitlements upon dismissal to the statutory minimums mandated by the Employment Standards Act, the language used to achieve that objective is often susceptible to legal interpretation. A case in point is...
One vexing question that has been the subject of further judicial scrutiny is whether to allow the payment of disability income to wrongfully dismissed employees at the same time that they’re receiving their full salary for the reasonable notice period. In a recent decision, Fernandes v....
National security is one of the key objectives of the Canadian immigration legislation. This objective is given effect by preventing the entry of applicants with criminal records, as well removing individuals from Canada for deportable offences. Immigration law has become adjunct to criminal law and...
In the context of employment, inducement occurs whenever a rival or its agent embarks on a campaign of luring the targeted employee away from his secure employment to join the competitor’s firm. A promise of long-term security, greater remuneration, more valued responsibilities, and career advancement...
Employment disputes are frequently resolved through litigation, where litigants seek a slew of damages ranging from statutory to common law to human rights. Until recently, an award of human rights damages in the context of a wrongful dismissal action has been perceived to be a...
2021-09-07: The Federal Court of Canada granted our client's request to dismiss the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness’s mootness motion. The court also dismissed the Minister’s request to vacate its production order, compelled the Minister to comply with it and, among others, denied...
Labour and employment cases are a regular testing ground for confidentiality provisions in binding settlement agreements, with the goal typically to foster an environment for negotiation conducive to reaching a settlement or to create a broader protection against disclosure. The Divisional Court’s judgment in Wong...
Among the factors for assessing the quantum of damages in wrongful dismissals is the impact of non-competition clauses in employment contracts on the employee’s ability to find comparable employment. In Ostrow v. Abacus Management Corp. Mergers and Acquisitions, the Supreme Court of British Columbia had...
The duck test — “If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck” — captures the essence of Jajj v. 100337 Canada, a labour and employment case that concerned the novel issue of...
An anticipatory breach occurs when a party declares an intention to repudiate their contractual obligations before they fall due. Such declaration only becomes a wrongful act if the innocent party elects to treat it as such. Until that party accepts the repudiation, the contract continues...
A constructive dismissal occurs when an employer unilaterally makes a substantial change to the essential term of an employment contract, thereby giving an employee a right to treat the contract as being at an end and resign. In constructive dismissal actions, employees may not be...
Pension is a negotiated benefit that forms an integral part of an employee’s total compensation package and in this regard there’s a close relationship and dialectical tension between salaries, pensions, and damages. The recent case of IBM Canada Ltd v. Waterman starkly exemplifies this tension. In...
Unlike other torts, economic torts have as their primary function the protection of a plaintiff ’s economic interests. They include, among others, the torts of inducing breach of contract and intentional interference with economic relations. In Heydary Hamilton PC v. Muhammad [2013] O.J. No. 3601,...
Lawyers and their clients have wondered for some time whether the civil courts would award human rights damages in the context of a wrongful dismissal action. In its recent decision, Wilson v. Solis Mexican Foods Inc., the Ontario Superior Court of Justice answered this vexing...
Restrictive covenants relating to employment and competition have been an integral part of our law for many years, typically taking the form of non-competition and non-solicitation clauses. While restrictive covenants can be found in commercial and employment contracts, their interpretation requires the application of different...
Lawyers representing dismissed employees typically include a claim for prejudgment interest in a wrongful dismissal lawsuit. However, there appears to be no controlling authority governing a method for calculating prejudgment interest and circumstances when the court should deny it. This void renders the rules regarding...
In Aristotle’s view, “we are what we repeatedly do.” The validity of this proposition cannot be taken for granted in the context of employment relations. If a manager repeatedly performs non-managerial tasks, does it destroy the essential character of his managerial position so as to...
The issue of whether compensation for lost vacation pay accruing after dismissal and during the period of reasonable notice should be a component of damages for wrongful dismissal continues to vex employers, judges, and the bar. There are conflicting authorities in Ontario concerning the recovery...
Words are the voice of contracts. That voice guides a court during interpretation of a termination provision in an employment contract. A lesson from a recent case, Stevens v. Sifton Properties Ltd., suggests if the termination clause contains no explicit reference to continuation of benefits...
The concept of reasonable notice is like a living tree capable of growth and expansion within its natural limits. The expansion begins with necessity and is customarily informed by a series of prudential and pragmatic considerations designed to test those natural limits. It’s common knowledge...
Many experienced employment lawyers and HR professionals recognize the importance of written employment contracts. Their purpose is to clearly define the terms and conditions that represent the actual intentions of the contracting parties at the time of its execution. However, written words, taken in isolation, have...
In Titus Andronicus, Shakespeare offered an apt recommendation for the social media age: “I tell my sorrows to the stones.” Modern society turns to social networking sites to tell people’s sorrows. As a result, misguided use of social media increasingly clogs the courts’ dockets. Employees’...
Generally speaking, there are two types of injunctions: mandatory and prohibitory. Like the two-headed god Janus, these injunctions are looking in different directions. The former is looking to the past for a remedy in the sense that it requires a defendant to undo some wrong...
When an employer operates in multiple provinces or countries, it can be subject to varying laws of different jurisdictions. Things can also get tricky if its operations in different locations overlap and employees in one jurisdiction are overseen by an office in another jurisdiction. If...
The law expects much of employees. Not only does it require them to serve their employer honestly and faithfully, it places an implied obligation upon them to act in the best interests of their employer, at all times, even if they’re not fiduciaries. The court...
Frustration of an employment contract occurs whenever the law recognizes that, without the fault of either party, a contractual obligation cannot be fulfilled. Physical disability, commercial impossibility, or changes in legislation are frustrating events, which may excuse a non-performance of contractual duties without liability. In...
Wrongful dismissals come in many forms, including temporary layoffs. In Elsegood v. Cambridge Spring Service (2001) Ltd., the Ontario Court of Appeal examined a novel legal issue of whether common law wrongful dismissal damages are available to employees whose dismissal was triggered by the operation...
As with their secular counterparts, disputes aren’t uncommon in religious organizations and may take different forms. There may be factional disagreements between members or even wrongful dismissal claims, as exemplified by the Ontario Court of Appeal decision in Hart v. Roman Catholic Episcopal Corp. of...
Determination of an appropriate notice period is a crux of virtually every wrongful dismissal lawsuit. However, there is no formula for what will constitute proper notice in circumstances surrounding termination. In the pursuit of determining a proper notice period, judges are guided by the so-called...
The majority of the Alberta Court of Appeal scrutinized the non-solicitation clause’s language, which prohibited the employees from “solicit(ing) customers in any manner whatsoever, in any business or activity for any client of Globex with which he/she had dealings.” Relying on the Ontario Court of Appeal...
Employment is a game and wrongful dismissal is a gamble. Employers sometimes roll the dice by opportunistically offering just the statutory minimum to dismissed employees instead of what workers might be entitled to under the common law. Sometimes it works — employees fold their rights and...
There are important peripheral issues to business immigration, quite separate from those pertaining to gaining admission to Canada. Employment law implications for corporate employers seeking to hire from abroad can be significant and are often overlooked. In Canada, the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act requires, in...
In today’s competitive marketplace, it’s not uncommon for organizations to induce skilled professionals to defect from corporate rivals. Obviously, it is not automatically improper to poach employees from rivals, but defections can cause organizations to suffer economic loss or other harm; for example, when the...
The area of economic torts is not comprehensible without a great deal of time and effort. The judiciary and practitioners across Canada consistently find themselves wading through elements and rationales of the two seemingly similar, yet fundamentally distinct, torts of inducing breach of contract and...
A resignation is matter of substance, not form. To constitute a valid resignation, there must be unequivocal evidence supported by conduct consistent with an employee’s intention to voluntary resign her employment. The employee’s conduct before and after the supposed resignation is relevant in making the...
Dismissed employees with a certain amount of service are usually entitled to statutory severance pay. For example Ontario employees with at least five years of service are entitled to one week of wages for every year of service up to 26 weeks, if their employers’...
The law of fiduciary duty evolved from the jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery over trusts and confidences. A fiduciary is often described as someone bound to act in the best interests of a beneficiary. Equity, which is a body of substantive law supplementary to...
The tort of inducing breach of contract is a perplexing yet fascinating legal phenomenon. It arose from the action for enticement of a servant contained in the Statute of Labourers of 1349. Fundamentally, the inducement tort is about persuading a contractor to defect. Perhaps, the...
The deductibility of disability benefits and gross sales that dismissed employees earn during the notice period is a recurring source of uncertainty for employers, as is the awarding of moral damages arising out of wrongful dismissal. The distinction between the forms of benefits and their...
The duty to mitigate arises in almost every wrongful dismissal case. The so-called “duty” is not a duty in the strict legal sense, because a breach of it is not actionable. The reference in the case law to the duty to mitigate derives from the...
In Lewis v. Terrace Tourism Society, the British Columbia Court of Appeal was faced with two intriguing issues: whether an employee on maternity leave was entitled to receive reasonable notice of termination of her employment if the employer ceased operations prior to her return and...
Employees are expected to perform work in exchange for pay. When an employee fails to attend work due to a permanent illness or disability, an employer may be justified in terminating the employment without liability. Termination of employment in such a case is not based...
The Ontario Occupational Health and Safety Act (“OHSA”) was recently amended by the Occupational Health and Safety Amendment Act (Violence and Harassment in the Workplace) (“Bill 168”), a law which expands and creates new obligations for Ontario employers to take specific steps to proactively prevent...
Aside from base salary, employment contracts frequently offer additional economic incentives. Typically, these include deferred profit-sharing plans, short- and long-term incentive plans, stock options, pension benefits, corporate discounts, discretionary bonuses, and merit compensation. Discretionary bonuses are particularly apt to be confused with merit compensation plans. Though...
In Ontario, an employer’s statutory obligation to pay for overtime is triggered when an employee works more than 44 hours in a week. The right to overtime pay applies to all employees except those whose “work is supervisory or managerial in character and who may...
Dismissed employees frequently attempt to bolster their wrongful dismissal claims by pleading economic torts. One of these increasingly pleaded economic torts is the tort of inducing breach of contract (the “inducement tort”), which imposes liability on an employer who intentionally procures a breach of its...
The bar for accommodation for Ontario employers is about to be set a little higher. The final version of the Employment Accessibility Standard developed under the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, 2005, has been released and is expected to become law early in 2010....
In Ontario, employers are responsible for the health and safety of employees in the workplace. Increasingly, employers are charged with a breach of the Occupational Health and Safety Act (“OHSA”), which is designed to protect employees against health and safety hazards at work. The OHSA...
Most written employment contracts include a provision that limits the compensation to which an employee is entitled in the event of termination. If an employment contract provides for a period of notice that, at the time of dismissal, would be less than the employment standards...
As a general rule, dismissed employees have a duty to take reasonable steps to reduce, or mitigate, their loss by looking for a new job within a reasonable period of time. If an employment contract provides for a severance payment upon termination, the question becomes...
With thousands of job casualties being claimed each week by the wounded economy, buzzwords like downsizing, corporate reorganizations, economic restructuring and layoffs are becoming increasingly ingrained in employers’ minds. By contrast, ambushed by employers’ unpreparedness to survive another recession, employees frantically search the Internet in...
Право на свободу является основополагающим правом, которое гарантируется параграфом 10(с) Канадской Хартии Прав и Свобод, как гражданам, так и негражданам страны. В ходе иммиграционного процесса, постоянные жители и неграждане страны могут быть задержаны на неопределенный срок. Дефиниция “на неопределенный срок” пугает своей неконкретностью и невольно...
В одной из моих предыдущих статей – “Увольнение за некомпетентность” – я рассказывал, что в Канаде существуют два основных вида увольнения по инициативе работодателя: причинное и беспричинное. Напомню, что работодатель имеет право в любой момент уволить сотрудника без указания причин, выплатив ему выходное пособие. В...
19 июня 2013 года получил королевскую санкцию закон об “Ускоренном выдворении иностранных правонарушителей” (“Закон”). Королевская санкция – это действие, которым королева обозначает своё формальное согласие с принятым парламентом законом, ставя на нём свою подпись. Закон вносит важные изменения в положения о государственной безопасности и недопустимости...
Право на личную жизнь при использовании сотрудниками компьютеров, принадлежащих их работодателям, является новым правовым полем битвы в борьбе между работниками и работодателями. Вопрос о том, имеет ли работник право вести личную переписку, хранить файлы и прочую приватную информацию на корпоративном компьютере, недавно рассматривался Верховным Судом...
С 1 июня 2012 года Министерство по делам гражданства и иммиграции приостановило прием заявлений по федеральной программе иммиграции “Квалифицированный работник”. Министерство аргументировало своё решение необходимостью рассмотрения большого количества ранее полученных ходатайств. Для того чтобы “разгрузить” себя, Министерство решило не рассматривать заявления, полученные до 27 февраля...
Услышав фразу “служебный роман”, многие невольно вспоминают одну из самых популярных советских кинокомедий под одноименным названием. Сюжет фильма заключается в том, что от безысходности своего профессионального положения подчиненный решает “приударить” за начальницей, чтобы получить заветное повышение. Обнаружив, что он глубоко заблуждался насчёт бессердечности и жестокости...
Недавно Королевский суд провинции Саскачеван рассматривал иск о незаконном увольнении г-на Гиллама к компании Waschuk Pipeline. Суду предстояло решить интересный правовой вопрос: может ли работодатель уволить сотрудника за “косвенное” домогательство (harassment) без предоставления ему уведомления об увольнении и/или выплаты выходного пособия? Суд постановил, что может!...
Одна из самых существенных правовых ошибок, которую отдел кадров может допустить – это предоставить сотруднику на подписание трудовой договор после того, как он уже начал свою трудовую деятельность в компании. 10 мая 2012 г. Верховный Суд провинции Онтарио вынес решение по иску Энтони Фасулло к Investments...
В моменты ухудшения трудовых отношений сотрудники зачастую пытаются узнать о своих правах либо из интернета, средств массовой информации, либо от “всезнающих” друзей, у которых всегда есть убедительно-утешительный пример того, что, например, у внучки троюродной сестры их соседки была точно такая же ситуация, и она сделала...
Иммиграция является эликсиром экономического процветания Канады, ее демографического роста и трудовых ресурсов. Поэтому Канада находится в постоянном поиске квалифицированных иммигрантов, которые прибывают в страну в одной из трех категорий: экономическая иммиграция, воссоединение семьи, либо беженцы. Процессы иммиграции и депортации регулируются федеральным законом об Иммиграции и...
Иммиграционная система Канады переживает период бурного реформирования. 29 Июня 2012 вступил в силу закон о Сбалансированной Реформе Беженцев (“Закон”), который внес изменения в федеральный закон об Иммиграции и Защите Беженцев. Внесенные изменения нацелены на создание эффективной процедуры рассмотрения заявлений на политическое убежище и ускоренного процесса...
Провинция Онтарио является одной из самых прогрессивных юрисдикций в мире по вопросам защиты прав человека и равенства в сфере труда. В Онтарио Кодекс по Правам Человека (“Кодекс”) запрещает дискриминационную практику на производстве по причине сексуальной ориентации сотрудников. Тем не менее, в Кодексе есть исключение, которое...
За исключением редких случаев, целью каждого коммерческого предприятия является извлечение прибыли. Талантливые работники являются эликсиром финансового благополучия компаний. Однако привлечение талантов и оформление с ними трудовых отношений на финансово выгодных для работодателя условиях неоднозначно. Нередко работодатели, желающие расширить штат служащих, задаются вопросом: “как привлечь талантливых...
Одной из целей закона по Безопасности Труда и Страхованию (“Закон”) является содействие укреплению здоровья и безопасности на рабочем месте. Поэтому Закон требует от большинства попадающих под его действие работодателей обязательного страхования работников. Исторически это требование не распространялось на “независимых операторов” в строительной индустрии. Независимый оператор...
Федеральный Закон об Иммиграции и Защите Беженцев и одноименные Правила (“Закон”) подразумевают три вида приказов по высылке не граждан из страны, а именно: приказ о добровольном выезде, приказ о депортации и приказ об исключении. Каждый из приказов является обособленным силовым механизмом имеющим принудительную функцию в...
В условиях экономического кризиса или в периоды технологического, технического или организационного затишья работодатели активно ищут пути сокращения производственных расходов. Один из способов выхода из сложившейся тяжёлой экономической ситуации, часто используемый работодателями, – предоставление работникам отпусков без сохранения заработной платы (анг. lay-off). Возможность направления работников в...
С 1 января 2012 года в Онтарио вступил в силу Стандарт по Обслуживанию Клиентов с инвалидностью (“Стандарт”), который является одним из первых стандартов, разработанных в рамках Закона о Доступности для Инвалидов (“Закон”). Стандарт распространяется на предпринимателей, организации и определенные государственные предприятия, которые предоставляют товары и...
Целенаправленные эмоциональные издевательства, беспричинная придирчивость, повторяющаяся критика компетентности, публичная необоснованная грубость, циничный и оскорбительный тон, физические домогательства и/или неуместные комментарии являются составляющими популярного в Канаде концепта “харазмент”, который может привести к физическим или нравственным страданиям работника, а также повлечь серьёзные правовые и финансовые последствиям для...
В Канаде существуют два основных вида увольнения по инициативе работодателя: с указанием причины увольнения и без указания таковой. Работодатель имеет право в любой момент уволить сотрудника без указания причин, выплатив ему выходное пособие. В случае, когда у работодателя есть веская правовая причина для увольнения, то...
Иммиграционное право является комплексным структурным образованием, в основе которого лежат не только законодательные акты и нормы прецедентного (общего) права Канады, а также множество инструкций министерства по делам гражданства и иммиграции (“министерство”). Юридически точное использование этих ресурсов может облегчить и ускорить получение желаемого результата, тогда как...
В практике трудовых отношений нередки случаи, когда работодатель в одностороннем порядке вносит существенные изменения в трудовой договор, как правило, негативно влияющие на положение работника. В таких случаях, работник вправе в одностороннем порядке прекратить трудовые отношения и обратиться с иском в суд. Такого рода иски называются...
Увольнение по собственному желанию – это такая форма прекращения трудовых отношений, когда инициатором увольнения является сам работник. Добровольность увольнения должна быть подкреплена доказательствами, выраженными не только фактом подачи заявления, но и поведением работника до и после подачи такого заявления. Эмоциональное восклицание “Я увольняюсь!”, письменное уведомление:...
В Онтарио трудовые отношения регулируются нормами закона “О Трудовых Стандартах” (Employment Standards Act, 2000), а также прецедентным правом Канады. “Трудовой стандарт” – это обязательство, возлагаемое на работодателя Законом в пользу работника. Нормы Закона являются минимальными трудовыми стандартами, действие которых, в отличие от прецедентного права, работодатель...
Иммиграция является эликсиром экономического процветания Канады, ее демографического роста и трудовых ресурсов. Поэтому Канада находится в постоянном поиске квалифицированных иммигрантов, которые прибывают в страну в одной из трех категорий: экономическая иммиграция, воссоединение семьи, либо беженцы. Процесс иммиграции регулируется федеральным Законом об Иммиграции и Защите Беженцев...
В Онтарио работодатели могут уволить своих работников в любой̆ момент без объяснения причин, но с предоставлением предварительного извещения о том, что их трудовая деятельность в компании будет прекращена в определённый̆ день. Срок подачи такого извещения регламентируется трудовым законодательством провинции Онтарио и прецедентным правом Канады, действие...