Since late 2020, the conversation about mandatory vaccination and questions regarding employer rights has been an evolving target. In December 2020, the first person in Canada received their first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. This began Stage 1 of the vaccine rollout. Now we are in Phase 4 of Canada’s vaccine rollout, and 80% of […]
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The Employment Standards Act and Family Responsibilities – Employer Forum Recap
For our June Employer Forum, Kent lawyers Fiona H. McFarlane and Sean Marzinzik led a discussion about the Employment Standards Act and human rights legislation. The discussion focused on: the laws in place in British Columbia that ensure employees can meet various family responsibilities, and that employers who impact these rights risk exposing themselves to […]
Recap: Virtual Employer Forum – Restrictive Covenants: When and How to Use Them
Recap: Virtual Employer Forum – Restrictive Covenants: When and How to Use Them For its May Employer Forum, we turned our attention to restrictive covenants: What are they, why do you need them, and how should you put them into place? KEL lawyers Simon Kent and Ryan Macklon led the discussion, which included a review […]
Covid-19 Case Law Update: Is It CERB Payback Time?
By Fiona H. McFarlane and Janelle Neufeld The courts are slowly weighing in on the impact of the global pandemic on employment relationships. The BC Supreme Court’s decision in Hogan v. 1187938 B.C. Ltd., 2021 BCSC 1021 is one example. The Facts Terence Hogan was an assistant service manager of Mercedes-Benz and was 52 years […]
Recap: Virtual Employer Forum – Mental Health Matters
For our April Employer Forum, the focus was workplace mental health – a particularly timely topic given the widely-acknowledged negative impacts that the COVID-19 pandemic is having on our mood, functioning and overall psychological wellbeing. Forum facilitators lawyer Fiona McFarlane and former clinical counsellor (and current KEL co-owner) Wendy Woloshyn began the discussion with a […]
Verbal Resignations: Do Intentions Matter?
By Sean Marzinzik. The BC Supreme Court recently had the opportunity to consider whether an employee’s verbal resignation was effective, or whether the employee’s subjective intentions had to be taken into account as well (Conway v. Griff Building Supplies Ltd., 2020 BCSC 1899). Background Mr. Conway was a long-term (20 year) employee who had been […]
New Zealand’s Miscarriage Bereavement Bill is a leap forward—but maybe not how you think? How Canada Compares
By Stephanie Cousineau and Kim Darling. Last week, New Zealand made headlines when Parliament unanimously passed the Miscarriage Bereavement Bill, giving mothers and their partners three days’ bereavement leave after pregnancy ends from miscarriage or stillbirth. Previously, paid leave was available in New Zealand for a stillbirth (i.e., after 20 weeks’ gestation) – now, it […]
Labour reforms sought for gig economy workers (Fiona McFarlane speaks to Business in Vancouver)
Labour reforms sought for gig economy workers By Hayley Woodin, Business in Vancouver, April 6, 2021 As it faces a potential $400 million class action lawsuit in Ontario on the issue of driver classification, Uber last month announced what it called a modern approach to supporting app-based workers. Find out what employment lawyer Fiona McFarlane […]
Interns and Volunteers: Beware of “Free” Labour
By Wendy Woloshyn. Several years ago, we wrote a blog post on what we termed the “perils” of unpaid internships. The topic was particularly…topical at the time (2014), as the Canadian Press then reported that unpaid internships were “on the rise in Canada, with some organizations estimating…as many as 300,000 people currently working for free […]
Recap: Virtual Employer Forum – The What, Why and How of Workplace Policies
For our February Employer Forum, we turned our attention to workplace policies: What are they, why do you need them, and how should you put them into place? KEL lawyers Fiona McFarlane and Stephanie Cousineau led the discussion, which included a review of the relevant legislation and certain key common law principles, and an introduction […]
