In recent years, provincial legislatures across Canada have increasingly focused on compensation transparency as a tool to address pay disparities in the workplace. While the federal government requires that federally regulated private sector employers across Canada conduct pay equity exercises, no federal law currently requires them to publicly report compensation information.
Remote work arrangements may become binding terms of employment when they are applied consistently and relied on by employees. Changes to work location can therefore give rise to a constructive dismissal claim, similar to what can occur when an employer changes compensation or duties. While the outcome in any given case will depend on the specific facts, employers should assess whether flexibility has become part of the employment agreement and, if so, implement changes through agreement or reasonable notice rather than unilaterally to correct this situation.
In Cressey Construction Corporation v. Parolin, 2026 BCCA 199, the British Columbia Court of Appeal considered when a return‑to‑office requirement may cross the line into constructive dismissal. The decision underscores a familiar point for employers: changes to working conditions are often permissible, but greater care is required where those conditions have become established terms of the employment relationship.
Continue Reading From Flexibility to Employer Obligation: Remote Work and Constructive Dismissal
Special thanks to our articling student Rana Aly for contributing to this update.
Employers often assume that bonus damages in a wrongful dismissal claim will be calculated by averaging the employee’s last three years of compensation. A recent Ontario Superior Court decision confirms that assumption can be wrong and very expensive depending on the circumstances.
Warren v. Canaccord Genuity Corp. is a reminder that courts will consider the context of a bonus entitlement, and will not mechanically apply a three-year averaging method. Where a terminated employee can point to what comparable employees actually earned during that same window, a court may use those real-world figures instead as a better indicator of what bonus the employee ought to receive. This could have a particular impact for employers in bonus-heavy, market-driven industries.
Craig Warren was a Managing Director in Canaccord’s mining group, terminated without cause in September 2019 after 18 years of service. His compensation was heavily bonus-dependent, fluctuating based on Canaccord’s Canadian Capital Markets Pool and his individual performance. Justice Schabas awarded Mr. Warren 21 months’ notice. The central dispute was how to calculate the bonus component of that award.
Continue Reading When Averaging Is Not Enough: Ontario Court Rejects Three-Year Bonus Average in Favour of a Comparator Approach
From ergonomic complaints to fatalities, workplaces inevitably face accidents and other safety incidents. Employers rely on effective investigations to respond to these incidents. Occupational health and safety legislation often also requires employers to investigate, either explicitly or implicitly, as part of their legal obligation to take all reasonable steps to protect workers from harm.
Even when the law does not specifically require an investigation, employers have many good reasons to conduct one. An investigation often helps employers save time and resources, improve health and safety systems, prevent similar future incidents, enhance workplace morale, and ultimately improve work quality and productivity.
However, employers should conduct an effective investigation that fits the circumstances. Most employer investigations we see do not meet that standard.
Below are the most common mistakes we see employers across Canada make.
Many employers are reluctant to spend time and resources investigating an incident unless it is required by law. They may feel that an investigation is a waste of time and resources, or that they already know what caused the incident.
However, employers prevent costly repeat incidents when they identify and remedy root causes. When an employer fails to address the root cause, it misses an opportunity to improve safety systems, and workplace culture. That failure increases the risk that the same incident will occur again, potentially with more serious consequences. If the incident occurs again, the consequences can far outweigh the cost of one effective investigation.
Continue Reading Common Pitfalls When Performing Occupational Health and Safety Workplace Incident Investigations
Employee monitoring tools — badge and access logs, video surveillance, productivity and activity tracking, and even biometrics — can strengthen security and operations, but they also create real privacy, employment, and (in some cases) criminal-law risk. In this installment of Baker McKenzie’s In Focus video chat series, our cross-border Employment and Data Privacy lawyers break
Special thanks to our articling student Rana Aly for contributing to this update.
Quebec’s multi‑year modernization of its occupational health and safety (OHS) system reached full implementation in late 2025. There are permanent prevention and participation mechanisms under the Act to Modernize the Occupational Health and Safety Regime (AMOHSR) and its accompanying regulation (Regulation Respecting Prevention and Participation Mechanisms in an Establishment) now in force. This represents a significant shift in Quebec occupational health and safety law.
Employers must now comply with the new requirements, if they have not already done so.
Below is an overview of the new requirements Quebec employers must be aware of:
The OHS overhaul stems from major reforms introduced by Bill 59 in 2021, with staggered implementation over several years. The permanent regime, effective October 1, 2025, replaces temporary interim mechanisms that applied during the transition period.
Key features of the new framework include:
The result is a harmonized and prevention‑first model that applies across industries, regardless of risk profile.
Continue Reading Modernizing Quebec’s Occupational Health and Safety Regime: Key Employer Obligations in 2026
George Avraam, a distinguished trial and appellate litigation partner in the Firm’s Toronto office, has been inducted as a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers (ACTL), one of the most selective and prestigious honors in the legal profession.
Invitation to fellowship in the ACTL is extended by existing Fellows only after a rigorous
Special thanks to our articling student Rana Aly for contributing to this update.
Employers monitoring their employees in the workplace should be cognizant of their obligations under employment and data privacy laws. This article provides a primer on legal requirements for employee monitoring in Canada and contrasts employer compliance requirements in the provinces of Ontario, British Columbia, Alberta, Quebec, and Nova Scotia.
Employers must balance operational needs, such as safety, security, and productivity, with any privacy rights of their employees. Generally, monitoring should be reasonable, proportionate, and tied to a legitimate business purpose. Organizations must comply with applicable federal or provincial privacy laws, which can include safeguarding any employee personal information collected, obtaining employee consent in certain circumstances, and providing notice to employees of monitoring practices.
For federally regulated private-sector employers—such as banks, airlines, and telecommunications companies— employee monitoring is generally governed by the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA). PIPEDA only applies to employee personal information in federally regulated workplaces; otherwise, it governs commercial and customer personal information across Canada.
Provinces that have enacted private‑sector privacy legislation deemed “substantially similar” to PIPEDA are exempt from PIPEDA’s collection, use, and disclosure provisions under section 26(2)(b). Presently, only British Columbia, Alberta, and Québec have privacy legislation that is substantially similar to PIPEDA.
In provinces which do not have substantially similar private‑sector privacy legislation, such as Ontario and Nova Scotia, PIPEDA does not apply to provincially regulated employers’ handling of employee personal information. In those provinces, employee privacy protections arise through a more fragmented framework that may include employment standards legislation, privacy torts under the common law, employment contracts, workplace policies, and collective agreements. While PIPEDA does not govern employee personal information for provincially regulated employers in such provinces, it continues to apply to commercial or customer personal information across all private‑sector organizations engaged in commercial activities.
Continue Reading Employee Monitoring in Canada: What Employers Need to Know
Join us for our 2026 Labour & Employment Webinar on February 4, where we’ll unpack the most significant developments shaping workplace law in Canada. This year brings critical updates that every employer needs to understand, from evolving termination clauses and new protections for gig workers to navigating new employment standards laws and creative immigration strategies
