When I started my legal practice 46 years ago, people in Canada, while not quite like those in Japan, largely had jobs for life, if they wanted them. Employees were loyal to their employers and employers to their employees. It was not uncommon for employers to dip into their own pockets to help out employees in all types of personal jams. How often do we see that anymore?
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Over the decades, this common venture approach to the workplace has eroded. Now, the reverse is true. Few employees will not quickly leave for a better job, and a majority are often looking for one. For the employers’ part, dismissals are just business — fundamentally financial with barely a scintilla of an emotional component.
Employment regulations and the development of the law has been onerous for many employers. And, on the international stage, our tight employment regulations and the expense of changing employees’ jobs, let alone dismissing them, has made us uncompetitive relative to many other countries, including our main competitor south of the border.
It is not as much the protection of employment standards — with overtime pay at time and a half, maximum hours of work, minimum wages and various paid leaves each year — as it is the development of what is called the common law, or judge made law.
Compared to the past, it is more difficult to fire employees for incompetence or misconduct without paying severance and the amount of...
On February 26, 2025, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas issued a significant False Claims Act (FCA) ruling in United States of America ex rel. Cheryl Taylor v. Healthcare ...