Courts Continue to Carefully Consider the Legal Effect of Temporary Layoffs, Even Where an Employee Initially Agreed to It

On June 29, 2021, I wrote a blog post about the decision in Hogan v 1187938 BC Ltd., 2021 BCSC 1021, where the BC Supreme Court confirmed that an employee’s receipt of Canada Emergency Response Benefit (“CERB”) payments after termination should be deducted from an award of damages for wrongful dismissal. That decision was released ...

BC Employees Receive 3 hours Paid Time for Vaccination

On April 28, the BC government announced that it was making it easier for individuals to get vaccinated by amending the Employment Standards Act.  The Act now requires employers to provide up to 3 hours of paid time off for employees to get vaccinated. This change is retroactive to April 19, 2021. Employers can ask ...

Proposed Changes to EI and Canada Recovery Benefits

On February 19th, Prime Minister Trudeau announced a plan to increase the number of weeks available for benefits under the Canada Recovery Benefit (CRB) and the Canada Recovery Caregiving Benefit (CRCB) by 12 weeks, thus extending the maximum duration of the benefits to 38 weeks. The government also intends to double the number of weeks ...