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New Business Liability Protection Act Carves out Employee Claims

Last week, on November 17, 2020, the Ontario government passed a law providing liability protection for businesses for COVID-19 issues. The new Supporting Ontario’s Recovery and Municipal Elections Act, 2020 is good news for businesses worried about liability if a customer or client is exposed or contracts COVID-19.

The critical, and pretty much deal-breaking carve out for employers, however, is that employers are NOT protected from claims from employees.

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Covid-19 2nd Wave Workplace Law Issues: Part 2

covid-19 workplace law issues

Credits: www.cherrydeck.com

With the new Ontario Covid-19 response framework in place and Covid-19 still on the rise, employers need guidance on how to navigate workplace law issues.

During our last webinar, we covered this very topic and were flooded with employer questions. This is Part 2 of our Q&A on the second wave of Covid-19 workplace law issues.  Click here for Part 1.  

Question 7: If an employee chooses to work from home because of childcare, kids’ online learning/homeschooling, but their role is impossible to do at home, are we required to provide alternative work OR do they just go on leave? 

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Attention Employers with Employees on the IDEL!

The state of emergency in Ontario ended on July 24, 2020. This means a new clock has started ticking for employers with employees on what were temporary layoffs but were then converted into deemed Infectious Disease Emergency Leaves (IDEL) by O. Reg 228/20. While this sounds confusing, basically if your employees are off work involuntarily (you told them to stop working vs. they asked to take a leave) then they have been on a deemed…

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Cancel Culture at Work: Terminating Employees for Inappropriate Behaviour

Terminating Employees for Inappropriate Behaviour

Photo by mana5280 on Unsplash

In the wake of the killing of George Floyd and in the midst of protests and heightened awareness of anti-black racism across the world, two prominent Canadians have been “cancelled.”

Earlier this month Sasha Exeter, lifestyle blogger and influencer, called out Jessica Mulroney for “textbook white privilege.” Exeter explained, calling out Mulroney by name, that Mulroney took offence to her call to action for people with large public followings to use their platforms to address racial inequality and then proceeded to threaten Exeter and her brand.  Soon after Mulroney’s reality show, “I Do, Redo” had been cancelled by CTV, and Cityline, Good Morning America, Hudson’s Bay and apparently Meghan Markle, had all cut their ties with the star.

Mulroney’s fall was preceded by CBC TV host Wendy Mesley’s suspension from her show “The Weekly,” pending an investigation into her use of a racist word during a meeting. Again, details are fuzzy, but Mesley said on Twitter that she “used a word that should never be used” and that she was “quoting a journalist we were intending to interview on a panel discussion about coverage of racial inequality.” 

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Cast Your Vote! Lisa Stam Nominated for a Changemakers Award!

We are super excited to share that our founder Lisa Stam has been nominated for a Canadian Lawyer Top 25 Most Influential Lawyers “Changemakers Award”!  Lisa has always made it a top priority to make legal services relevant, easy to access & more affordable through tech smarts!

We’d sure appreciate it if you could cast a vote for her – anyone can vote! Please click here.  Voting ends this Friday, June 5.  Thanks so much!

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We’re 3 Today! How We Built Our Virtual Law Firm

I launched SpringLaw 3 years ago. It was on April Fool’s Day 2017 and a friend of mine questioned whether I should delay it by a day so that people would not mistake my launch of a virtual law firm as a joke. My assistant Sandi and I proceeded to launch anyways, figuring we’d be in the clear by noon that day. 

Fast forward to three years later: we are in a very different world. Even before the current virus pandemic, the ease and comfort of communicating and working through tech have moved forward at such a fast clip. 

Over the last few weeks (yes, the virus has only been here for a few weeks!), the world has been forced to face remote working and to engage in the online economy. For those of us already there, it’s been no big deal, but it’s not a system you can just whip up overnight. 

Here are my thoughts on the key ingredients to a successful online law firm.

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