PEI: Required Workplace Policies & Legislative Amendments

Written by Maggie Hughes, Associate and Kaylee Campbell, Articled Clerk Workplace policies are a helpful tool to provide employees with clear expectations. This may include setting parameters around expected employee conduct or outlining procedures to streamline processes. While there are a wide range of policies that any one organization may implement, it is important to […]

Shareholder Agreements Can Limit Wrongful Dismissal Damages

Written by: Matthew K. LeBlanc What happens when a company terminates someone who is both an employee and a shareholder? In Kirke v Spartan Controls Ltd, 2025 ABCA 40 (“Spartan Controls”), the Alberta Court of Appeal reiterated the distinction between a person’s employment rights and their shareholder rights, and held that the payments owed upon […]

Time Theft is Theft

A recent decision from western Canada gives employers confidence that circumstantial evidence can be relied on to justify the termination of an employee for time theft. The decision also provides support for categorizing time theft as theft in the ordinary sense of the word, for disciplinary purposes. Time theft is generally understood as the falsification […]

This Month in New Brunswick Family Law – April 2023

GM v JG, 2023 NBKB 57 Justice Danys R.X. Delaquis Subject Matter: Parenting Orders | Jurisdiction The parties have a 5-year-old child, who was born in New York. The Applicant is a Canadian citizen living in Saint John and the Respondent is an American citizen living in New York. The child has dual citizenship. The […]

Enough is Enough: The Human Rights Tribunal of Alberta Cracks...

Nearly five years following the start of the #MeToo movement, courts, administrative tribunals, and arbitrators are cracking down on sexual harassment in the workplace. See also: Employers May Terminate for a Single Incident of Harassment and Employment & Labour – Top 10 Cases of 2021. In Yaschuk v Emerson Electric Canada Limited, 2022 AHRC 62, […]

Employers May Terminate for a Single Incident of Sexual Harassment

Sexual harassment is one of the most serious forms of workplace misconduct. While acts of sexual harassment can occur on a spectrum of severity, a single incident of sexual harassment can warrant termination. This is especially the case if the employee lacks remorse and responsibility. In Render v ThyssenKrupp Elevator (Canada) Limited, 2022 ONCA 310, […]

Secretly Recording Workplace Conversations Can Result in Termination

In recent years, there has been an increase in the prevalence of employees secretly recording conversations in the workplace. While it is not unlawful for a conversation to be recorded when only one person is aware that the recording is being taken, the undisclosed recording of conversations can raise privacy concerns. The recent decision of […]

Labour Arbitrators, not Human Rights Tribunals, have exclusive jurisdiction over...

On October 22, 2021, the Supreme Court of Canada released the decision of Northern Regional Health Authority v Horrocks, 2021 SCC 42 in which it explained that human rights tribunals are without jurisdiction to consider human rights disputes arising from the interpretation, application or alleged violation of a collective agreement. Such issues fall within the […]

Impact of COVID-19 on the Reasonable Notice Period

In every non-unionized employment relationship, the employer has an implied common law obligation to give the employee reasonable notice of its intention to terminate the employment relationship, unless there is just cause for termination. If the employer fails to give the employee reasonable notice of termination, the employer risks a wrongful dismissal action for breach […]

January 20, 2021

Employment & Labour – Top Ten Cases of 2020

In a year like no other, there have been steady developments in the landscape of employment & labour and human rights law. Some of these developments were long anticipated, including the effect of termination on bonus compensation and the legality of mandatory arbitration clauses in the gig economy. Perhaps the most interesting cases, however, are […]