by Katie Clayton and Farrah Sunderani

Over the past couple of years, human rights legislation across Canada has undergone a period of transition. This comes as a response to growing dissatisfaction with outdated statutes and the lengthy processes in place to resolve complaints.

Amendments to the British Columbia Human Rights Code were proposed in 2002 and set the stage for other provinces to follow suit. Modifications to Ontario’s Human Rights Code followed in 2008, and those changes closely mirrored those put in place in British Columbia. Now it seems that Alberta is next in line.

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By Derek Knoechel and Lindsey Taylor

One of the principle features of Canadian employment law that strikes many U.S. employers as unique is the concept of an employee’s common law right to reasonable notice of termination when an employee is fired without cause.

Compliance with the minimum statutory requirements for notice, termination pay, and/or severance pay contained in employment standards legislation across the country generally isn’t sufficient to extinguish an employer’s obligations to provide reasonable notice. That’s because the courts have repeatedly held that minimum standards aren’t “reasonable.”

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The Court of Appeal of Quebec recently overturned a decision of the Superior Court ordering former directors and officers to pay their ex-employer $3,185,148. The damages had been awarded for appropriating a business opportunity of the former employer and for having breached their obligations of loyalty and good faith under the Civil Code of Quebec. It was a business opportunity on which the employees had actively worked in the course of their employment with Enerchem Transport inc. (ETI).

The appeal court in Gravino v. Enerchem Transport Inc. confirms that, absent specific noncompete and nonsolicitation agreements, ex-directors or officers may, in certain circumstances, fulfill the duty of loyalty owed to their former company while still pursuing for themselves certain business projects that were started while engaged with the prior company.

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A customer is hit by a car in your parking lot and is severely injured. You call 911 and a fire truck and ambulance arrive on the scene. A police officer also interviews all witnesses. This makes sense – the customer needs medical attention and the police have to investigate the incident. Surely your obligations stop there. You weren’t the customer’s employer so there’s nothing left to do.

A recent decision in Ontario – Blue Mountain Resorts Limited v. Ontario (Labour), 2009 CanLII 13609 (ON L.R.B.) – suggests that your obligations might not stop there. In fact, you might have to report the critical injury to the occupational health and safety authorities – even though the accident didn’t involve a worker. How can this be? Isn’t occupational health and safety law restricted to just that – occupational situations? The answer, at least for the time being in one Canadian province, is “no.”

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