DEVELOPING Latest updates on the major wildfires burning in Canada
The 2024 wildfire season has begun, and it's shaping up to follow last year's unprecedented destruction in kind, with thousands of square kilometres already consumed.
With workplaces mandating vaccines, employees with medical exemptions wonder what will happen to them. One lawyer says that regardless of vaccination status, employees should be paid severance if they lose their job over vaccine requirements.
As Canada tries to return to a pre-pandemic normal, workplaces are grappling with enforcing vaccine mandates for their employees, and some employees are learning in real-time the legality of such mandates.
"An employer can't force you to put a needle in your arm, but they can make your continued employment conditional on having received a vaccine. And for those employees who choose not to vaccinate, they can be fired," employment lawyer Daniel Lublin told CTV's Your Morning on Thursday.
Regardless of vaccination status or why they opted out of getting vaccinated, those employees should be paid severance, he added.
How vaccine mandates are being handled differs across businesses and industries. Some employers, such as Air Canada and some Ontario hospitals, are opting to terminate or put unvaccinated employees on unpaid leave if they don’t have a medical exemption. Other companies, such as Canada’s major banks, are allowing unvaccinated workers to return to the workplace, but they will have to complete regular COVID-19 testing.
Proving medical exemption for the vaccine has become more difficult, Lublin said. Where a doctor's note used to suffice, he said, he's seeing more employers question the authenticity of doctor's notes they are provided.
"That's not how the human rights law should be interpreted," he said.
For employees who provide a medical exemption and are still dismissed, it could be considered discrimination.
"That would be a discriminatory termination, an individual can sue for both wrongful dismissal and human rights damages," Lublin said. "And in human rights courts, in addition to receiving wage loss recovery, you can potentially sue for reinstatement with back pay."
Much of this, though, still needs to be tested in courts. Lublin said that some of these cases are still working their way through the legal system and could be highly dependent on which industry is involved.
"It's going to be very industry-specific. In certain industries, such as health care, there's probably a far greater case to be made for mandatory vaccinations," he said. "But in other industries where you can have adequate social distancing and employees can work remotely or in a hybrid basis, it may be more difficult for employers to uphold hardcore mandatory vaccination policies."
The 2024 wildfire season has begun, and it's shaping up to follow last year's unprecedented destruction in kind, with thousands of square kilometres already consumed.
Veteran TSN broadcaster Darren 'Dutch' Dutchyshen, one of Canada’s best-known sports journalists, has died. He was 57. His family says 'he passed as he was surrounded by his closest loved ones.'
A ‘lifetime of abuse’ led Dallas Ly to snap and repeatedly stab his mother inside their Leslieville apartment in 2022 but he never intended to kill her, his defence lawyers argued during at his murder trial in Toronto on Thursday.
A burgeoning track star says his dream of going to the Olympics is being derailed by a deportation order after Immigration officials rejected his family’s claim for asylum
A Montreal father who kidnapped his daughter who has autism and lied to police when they asked where she was should serve three years in prison, a Crown prosecutor said.
Loblaw Cos. Ltd. said Thursday it's ready to sign on to the grocery code of conduct, paving the way for an agreement that's been years in the making.
A medical examiner says a Massachusetts teen who participated in a spicy tortilla chip challenge died from ingesting a substance 'with a high capsaicin concentration.'
To give Canadians a break on their summer road trips, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is calling on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to suspend all gas and diesel taxes from Victoria Day to Labour Day.
Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly is imposing sanctions on Israelis she accuses of 'extremist settler violence' in the West Bank, three months after pledging to do so.
A Starbucks fan — whose name is Winter — is visiting Canada on a purposeful journey that began with a random idea at one of the coffee chain's stores in Texas.
Members of Piapot First Nation, students from the University of Winnipeg and various other professionals are learning new techniques that will hopefully be used for ground searches of potential unmarked grave sites in the future.
ALS patient Mathew Brown said he’s hopeful for future ALS patients after news this week of research at Western University of a potential cure for ALS.
When Adam Kirschner wrote 'Slap Shot,' he never imagined the song would be embraced by his favourite team.
A team is ready to help an entangled North Atlantic right whale in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
A $200 reward is being offered by a North Vancouver family for the safe return of their beloved chicken, Snowflake.
Two daughters and a mother were reunited online 40 years later thanks to a DNA kit and a Zoom connection despite living on three separate continents and speaking different languages.
Mother's Day can be a difficult occasion for those who have lost or are estranged from their mom.
YES Theatre Young Company opened its acclaimed kids’ show, One Small Step, at Sudbury Theatre Centre on Saturday.