'He's in our hearts': Family and friends still seek answers one year after Nathan Wise’s disappearance
It’s been a year since Nathan Wise went missing and his family is no closer to finding out what happened to him.
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."
It’s been a year since Nathan Wise went missing and his family is no closer to finding out what happened to him.
Dozens of Ontarians are expressing frustration in the province’s health-care system after their family doctors either dropped them as patients or threatened to after they sought urgent care elsewhere.
An Ottawa pizzeria is being recognized as one of the top 20 deep-dish pizzas in the world.
Amazon's paid subscription service provides free delivery for online shopping across Canada except for remote locations, the company said in an email. While customers in Iqaluit qualify for the offer, all other communities in Nunavut are excluded.
The fire burning near Fort McMurray grew from 25 hectares to 5,500 hectares over the weekend.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin began a Cabinet shakeup on Sunday, proposing the replacement of Sergei Shoigu as defence minister as he begins his fifth term in office.
Police are searching for a male suspect after a man was “slashed in neck” on Sunday morning in downtown Toronto and died.
There were some scary moments for several people on a northern Ontario highway caught on video Thursday after a chain reaction following a truck fire.
Health Canada announced various product recalls this week, including electric adapters, armchairs, cannabis edibles and vehicle components.
English, history, entertainment, math and geography: high school trivia teams could be quizzed on any of it when they compete at the Reach for the Top Nationals in Ottawa in June.
An Ottawa pizzeria is being recognized as one of the top 20 deep-dish pizzas in the world.
A family of fifth generation farmers from Ituna, Sask. are trying to find answers after discovering several strange objects lying on their land.
A Listowel, Ont. man, drafted by the Hamilton Tigercats last week, is also getting looks from the NFL, despite only playing 27 games of football in his life.
The threat of zebra mussels has prompted the federal government to temporarily ban watercraft from a Manitoba lake popular with tourists.
A small Ajax dessert shop that recently received a glowing review from celebrity food critic Keith Lee is being forced to move after a zoning complaint was made following the social media influencer’s visit last month.
The Canada Science and Technology Museum is inviting visitors to explore their poop. A new exhibition opens at the Ottawa museum on Friday called, 'Oh Crap! Rethinking human waste.'
The Regina Police Service says it is the first in Saskatchewan and possibly Canada to implement new technology in its detention facility that will offer real-time monitoring of detainees’ vital health metrics.
Just as she had feared, a restaurant owner from eastern Quebec who visited Montreal had her SUV stolen, but says it was all thanks to the kindness of strangers on the internet — not the police — that she got it back.