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Serious insight for serious situations.

Serious insight for serious situations.

Insights

Reflections and news direct from Rubin Thomlinson.
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Employment law: April Fools’ Day edition (believe it or not!)

April 1st has for hundreds of years marked “April Fools’ Day”- the unofficial “holiday” on which the jesters and pranksters among us test their wit and creativity in staging practical jokes and hoaxes, large and small. Many of us have fond memories of youthful hijinks, and tricks played on us (and by us) in our

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New job-protected leaves introduced in Ontario

On March 5, 2013, the Ontario government introduced new legislation which, if passed, would create three new job-protected leaves under the Employment Standards Act, 2000 (“ESA”). If these new leaves are added to the ESA, caregivers would be allowed to provide support to their loved ones without fear of being dismissed by their employer. The

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Supreme Court of Canada to rule on expanding reach of mandatory retirement

Should individuals who are not technically “employees” be afforded the same protections as employees, even though they are self-employed? The recent decision of the Supreme Court of Canada to grant leave to appeal from the British Columbia Court of Appeal’s decision in McCormick v. Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP, 2012 BCCA 313 will tackle just how

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Are you a 22-22-22 employee?

If you’re reading this post in the evening, through a mobile device, and you’re still working, you are likely part of Generation Y. Born between 1981 and 2000, the 12 million Canadian members of Generation Y, have accepted working hours and conditions that, according to a recent article in the New York Times, have coined

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Are political beliefs a creed?

In speaking to employers, and particularly to human resources professionals, I often hear how challenging they find it to accommodate their employees’ needs as they relate to creed, both because of the sensitive nature of discussions around religion and the uniqueness of each employee’s genuinely held beliefs. A recent decision by the Ontario Superior Court

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Dumb Ways to Get Fired

Someone played the “Dumb Ways to Die” video for me recently. I know it sounds morbid, but it’s actually a very clever video produced as a public service announcement for Metro Trains in Melbourne, Australia on train safety (check it out at http://dumbwaystodie.com/). It got me to thinking about the dumb ways that people manage

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Social media update: Are your employees doing “the Harlem shake”?

Employers will no doubt concede that social media is ubiquitous, and is beginning to permeate the boundary between personal life and professional life; and the YouTube phenomenon is no exception. However, “The Harlem Shake”, the biggest YouTube sensation since Justin Bieber’s “Baby” and Psy’s “Gangnam Style”, has recently caused ripples in the workplace the world

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Recent amendment to Alberta’s Workers’ Compensation Act creates rebuttable presumption for PTSD claims of emergency service workers

A recent “hot topic” in occupational health and safety circles has been psychological health and safety in the workplace. From the workplace violence and harassment provisions that have been added to occupational health and safety legislation across the country, to the introduction of the Canadian Standards Association’s guideline Z1003 (Psychological health and safety in the

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