No At-Will Employment in Canada
Are 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.
With St. Patrick’s Day having just passed, many of us start to bank on luck at this time of the year. While luck might get you to the end of the rainbow on some things, we wouldn’t recommend that you lean on luck when it comes to non-existent, outdated or incomplete employment contracts. 
