Labour & Employment
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November 05, 2025
Frédéric Desmarais joins Lavery as labour law partner
Lavery has added Frédéric Desmarais as a partner in its labour and employment law group in Montreal.
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November 04, 2025
Federal budget proposes new laws, spending cuts and $1 trillion in ‘generational investments’
The Liberal government’s 2025 federal budget contains dozens of legislative and justice-related proposals, including new and expanded anti-money laundering provisions, a new Canada Labour Code restriction on the use of non-compete agreements, and the creation of an Environmental Protection Tribunal of Canada. Summed up, the stated theme of the federal budget introduced by Finance and National Revenue Minister François-Philippe Champagne in the House of Commons on Nov. 4, 2025, is “smarter public spending and stronger capital investment.”
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November 04, 2025
Court dismisses Sobeys bid to halt picketing at company stores
The Alberta Court of King’s Bench has refused Sobeys Capital Inc.’s application for a stay of an Alberta Labour Relations Board (ALRB) decision permitting striking employees who work at a distribution centre and a warehouse to picket at the company’s Calgary grocery stores.
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November 04, 2025
Border infractions can haunt non-citizens: Why appeals matter for immigration status
The consequences of border infractions under the Customs Act and the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act (respectively, the CA and PCMLTFA; collectively, the Acts) are minor in most instances — but for non-citizens in Canada, the circumstances can be very different, as border infractions may produce a significant headache from an immigration status standpoint.
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November 04, 2025
Brain fog and other long COVID problems in the workplace
The pandemic may not be on many people’s radars these days, but those with long COVID continue to struggle with a serious illness that is often misdiagnosed, frequently dismissed and not fully understood.
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November 04, 2025
When the soul suffers: Why moral injury should be compensable in law
It is a curious paradox of modern professional life that physical injury is readily compensable and psychological injury is increasingly actionable, yet wounds of conscience remain invisible to the law.
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November 03, 2025
B.C. Court of Appeal upholds BMO class action over underpaid vacation, holiday pay
The B.C. Court of Appeal has upheld certification of a class action against the Bank of Montreal over allegations that it systematically underpaid statutory vacation and holiday pay to certain groups of employees.
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November 03, 2025
Can Canada attract U.S.-bound talent?
Highly educated immigrants, particularly those trained in STEM fields (science, technology, engineering and mathematics), are widely acknowledged as drivers of innovation, productivity and economic growth in advanced economies. Both Canada and the United States have invested heavily in attracting such talent. Yet Canada, despite being one of the most successful countries in attracting university-educated newcomers, has struggled to translate their educational credentials into equivalent labour-market outcomes as the United States.
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November 03, 2025
Ontario court orders new trial in doctors’ exam dispute
A group of internationally trained physicians will get a second chance to argue they were incorrectly failed in their Canadian qualification exams after Ontario’s top court ruled the trial judge did not properly analyze their claim.
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October 31, 2025
Split SCC strikes down one-year mandatory minimums for accessing or possessing child pornography
Dividing over what is too “remote” a hypothetical scenario to qualify as “reasonable” when sentencing judges are assessing the constitutionality of a mandatory minimum penalty (MMP), the Supreme Court of Canada ruled 5-4 that the one-year MMPs for accessing or possessing child pornography are unconstitutional as they would be grossly disproportionate in some hypothetical, but reasonably foreseeable, circumstances.