Friday, February 3rd, 2012
The Ontario Human Rights Tribunal recently examined an application before it and an earlier statement of claim made in court by the same person, and concluded that the claims were virtually identical. They were based on the same facts, made the same allegations and sought similar remedies…
Read the rest of this post »Wednesday, December 14th, 2011
January 1, 2012, is the date to complete all actions required under the Accessibility Standards for Customer Service and emergency preparedness requirements in the Integrated Accessibility Standards. The good news is, if your organization is obligated to report, you do not have to file with the government until December 31, 2012.
Read the rest of this post »Thursday, December 1st, 2011
As more employees spend time on leaves of absence, employers seem to be struggling to understand their rights and obligations…
Read the rest of this post »Friday, November 4th, 2011
‘Tis the season for us to put away the lawn furniture and take apart the garden. The sunlight hours are decreasing and the plants around the house are turning brown. We are now faced with leaves on the ground, colder, damper weather, and soon, Christmas commercials. As we take out our winter coats and snow shovels, it is important to remember that this is the time that Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) can hit employees. What can employers do?
Read the rest of this post »Thursday, November 3rd, 2011
Employers are often at a loss as to how to ensure employees who take sick days are really sick and not simply abusing the system. They are often scared to ask for doctor’s notes, but also scared that if they don’t, the abuse will become rampant. I often encourage employers to consider abandoning the notion of sick days altogether, and simply provide a fixed number of “personal days”, which eliminates the implicit or explicit requirement that an individual be sick in order to have time off.
Read the rest of this post »Tuesday, October 4th, 2011
Although it was clearly discriminatory on the prohibited ground of disability, the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal recently found it could not allow an applicant to smoke his medical marijuana in liquor-licensed establishments. This discrimination could be justified because…
Read the rest of this post »Friday, September 16th, 2011
The tribunal that decided the case of alleged discrimination against a part-time paramedic with multiple sclerosis who was shifted to a part-time ambulance driver position (at the paramedic’s pay rate) left some loose ends, according to the Supreme Court of British Columbia. The Court sent the case back to the tribunal to decide if the employer reasonably accommodated the employee, even though he was not able to perform important paramedic duties.
Read the rest of this post »Wednesday, August 24th, 2011
The Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) allows for severe maximum monetary penalties for any violation to the Act. Details on how these administrative penalties work are found in the Integrated Accessibility Standards Regulation, which came into force July 1, 2011.
Read the rest of this post »Thursday, August 11th, 2011
The Alberta Information and Privacy Commissioner recently confirmed that Alberta Health Services (AHS) breached the rights of one of its employees by intentionally using information from his addiction counselling against him during a human resources investigation. The breach of the employee’s personal health information clearly contravened the Health Information Act (HIA).
Read the rest of this post »Wednesday, July 27th, 2011
Generally, disruptions to all of your services, such as during a power outage or during a labour dispute, do not require this special notice. However, if the disruption has a significant impact on people with disabilities, you should provide notice of the disruption of service. In Ontario, under the Accessibility Standards for Customer Service, as of January 1, 2012, organizations are required to publicly notify customers of temporary disruptions of services or facilities or if they are expected to be temporarily unavailable in the near future, including the steps to take to access alternative methods.
Read the rest of this post »Thursday, July 7th, 2011
As most of us are aware, the Human Rights Code prohibits discrimination in the context of employment, and applies both during the employment relationship and in the hiring process. Most of us would take it as a given that you cannot make hiring decisions based upon grounds such as race, religion, gender, or disability. However, it is not quite as widely understood that the duty to accommodate an individual applies even to those who are not yet employees.
Read the rest of this post »Thursday, June 23rd, 2011
Since the economic burden of mental disorders in Canada has been estimated at $51-billion per year, with almost $20-billion of that coming from workplace losses, the Mental Health Commission of Canada (MHCC) has launched a collaborative project with the Bureau de normalisation du Québec (BNQ) and the standards division of the Canadian Standards Association (CSA Standards) to create a voluntary national standard for mentally healthy workplaces. The standard aims to…
Read the rest of this post »Wednesday, June 22nd, 2011
In Ontario there is a regulation called the Accessibility Standard for Customer Service. One of the requirements of this regulation is that persons with disabilities are allowed to enter your organization’s public premises with a service animal. A person should be able to remain with the animal unless otherwise excluded by law. If the animal is…
Read the rest of this post »Friday, June 10th, 2011
Now that the Integrated Accessibility Regulation under the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act is now law and will come into force on July 1, 2011, let’s take a closer look at the accessibility standard for employment.
Read the rest of this post »Wednesday, June 8th, 2011
Employers in Ontario must be aware of the changes that are happening and the requirements that will be placed on them in the very near future under the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act …
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Andrew Taillon:
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