Blog

On October 4, 2022, the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario (HRTO), released its decision in Weilgosh v. London District Catholic School Board. This HRTO decision was highly anticipated, following the Supreme Court of Canada decision in Northern Regional Health Authority v. Horrocks, in 2021. The Court in Horrocks concluded that unionized employees in Manitoba may not file human rights complaints with the Manitoba Human Rights Commission.

On June 16, 2022, the government of Canada tabled a bill that would make significant changes to privacy laws impacting employers in the federal jurisdiction. The new legislation, the Digital Charter Implementation Act (Bill C-27) would replace Part 1 of the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) and would create three pieces of legislation in its place, the Consumer Privacy Protection Act (CPPA), the Personal Information and Data Protection Tribunal Act (PIDPTA), and the Artificial Intelligence and Data Act (AIDA).

On April 6, 2022, the British Columbia government introduced legislation that would change the union certification process under British Columbia’s Labour Relations Code.

The Pay Equity Act, which Canada’s federal government passed in 2018, is going into effect on August 31, 2021. The act aims to address the systemic gender-based discrimination faced by women in federally regulated sectors by achieving pay equity through proactive measures. The act will require all federally regulated employers to analyze their compensation practices, even if they have not received a complaint and even if they believe there is no wage gap in their organization.

With daily COVID-19 case counts approaching 4,000 in Ontario, the Ontario provincial government announced on January 12, 2021, a state of emergency and a return to stricter lockdown measures that will take effect at 12:01 a.m. on January 14, 2021.