Accommodating Employees at Christmas

Are employers required to accommodate an employee at Christmas?  

Accommodating Employees at Christmas

If an employee requests December 25 off for “family time” or religious events, are those protected grounds under Canadian human rights law?  This arises in industries that stay open 365 days a year, such as hospitals, public transit, variety stores, movie theatres and some restaurants.  For those employees working in these industries, can an employee request accommodation to have December 25 off on the grounds of family status or religion? 

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Canadian Employment Law for US Employers: Part 2 – Contracts

This is Part 2 of our blog series for US employers with operations in Canada. Click here to read Part 1 if you haven’t already.

Canadian Employment Law for US Employers

No At-Will: Contracts are a Big Deal in Canada

One of the core employment law differences between the US and Canada is that there is no at-will employment in Canada. Ever. In fact, when Canadian judges read “at-will” in a contract, they typically set aside the contract altogether and substitute in typically far more generous common law terms.

In addition, if you do not have any contracts in place, the courts will read in implied terms. This is because all Canadian employment relationships are governed by a contract under our law, whether expressly in an agreement or implied based on common law.

If an employer does not roll out a contract with their employees, the judge will imply terms and conditions that in most cases are more generous than anything the employer would have provided.

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Canadian Employment Law for US Employers: Part 1 – Backgrounder

US Employers' Guide to Canadian Employment LawsAre you a US employer with operations in Canada? Welcome and bienvenue to this blog series written just for you. Our Canadian virtual employment law firm advises many US employers who have employees and contractors in Canada. I love this conversation. We’re neighbours who share so many similar cultural values, pop culture references and the world’s longest unsecured border.  And yet there are fundamental differences in our countries’ respective workplace laws and workplace culture. It often catches our US employers by surprise and triggers very expensive moments in the employment relationship.

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Welcome Mandeep: New Marketing Manager at SpringLaw

  • June 12, 2023
  • News

We are so excited to introduce the newest member of the SpringLaw family, Mandeep Suri.  Mandeep is our new Marketing Manager, overseeing the firm’s marketing and communications. As SpringLaw continues to grow and evolve, Mandeep will be critical to promoting our innovative integrated legal solutions. Mandeep is a creative thinker and has spent her professional career developing and executing global marketing campaigns using a variety of media that bring a company's story, values, vision, and…

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No At-Will Employment in Canada

No At-Will Employment in CanadaAre you an employer with operations in both Canada & the US? This post is for you.

Contracts vs At-Will Employment

For our US readers, Canada does not have at-will employment. In Canada, employment relationships are governed by employment contracts, either written or implied, and various employment laws and regulations. Employers are generally required to provide reasonable notice or pay in lieu of notice when terminating an employee without cause.

For our Canadian readers, at-will employment is a term used in the United States to describe the employment relationship between an employer and an employee, where either party can terminate the employment at any time, with or without cause, and with or without notice. This means that an employer can fire an employee for any reason or no reason at all, as long as it is not for an illegal reason (such as discrimination). Similarly, an employee can quit their job at any time without providing a reason or notice.

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SpringLaw is 6 years old!!

 

I launched SpringLaw on April 1, 2017, with the mission to be a fully virtual, tech-forward employment law firm in the cloud. Although this now feels like a thousand years ago, before a global pandemic introduced the world to the ease of online communications and business, our purpose remains to disrupt old-school law in order to provide an amazing client journey. 

We continue to solve workplace law issues through leading-edge, tech-forward collaboration with our virtual-only team, located throughout Ontario. We have built a web of internal communications, frequent team video & chat touchpoints, online-first systems and our data conveyor belt which are all focused on making the client journey as effective, efficient and practical as possible. 

Thank you to all of our amazing clients, our workplace law community, our allies and all the friends and family who have supported us along the way.

SpringLaw’s First 6 Years by the Numbers

  1. We’ve grown from 1 lawyer and an assistant to 9 lawyers, 2 paralegals, and 3 operational gurus. We continue to grow and have just posted for a new Marketing Manager.
  2. We’ve opened over 1300 client matters, serving a mix of employers and employees and the full range of workplace law issues.
  3. We’ve hosted 41 of our free monthly webinars, all posted on our YouTube channel.
  4. We’ve written over 300 weekly blog posts.
  5. We share those posts monthly with our 2500+ newsletter subscribers.
  6. Most importantly, between the 14 people on our team, we have 9 dogs, 1 cat, 2 guinea pigs and 1 rabbit. Critical law firm numbers, I know.
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