The Nova Scotia Department of Labour and Advanced Education issued a "Discussion Paper on Regulations for Recruiters and Employers of Foreign Workers" on January 16, 2012.

The Introduction of the paper states:

In June 2010, the government conducted a broad consultation on the employment of foreign workers (FWs) in Nova Scotia. Following the consultation, on May 19, 2011, the Government passed the Worker Recruitment and Protection Act, which amends the Labour Standards Code. Included among the amendments to the Code is a prohibition against charging workers (both FWs and non FWs) recruitment fees and a prohibition against recovering recruitment costs from workers. These prohibitions are now in force.  read more »

Jean-Philippe Couture, a lawyer in the Borden Ladner Gervais (BLG) office in Calgary, has written an article entitled, "Canadian Tax Implications Of Hiring U.S. Contractors To Perform Work In Canada".

The article was published in BLG's Fall 2011 Labour and Employment Law News newsletter.

The table below contains a comprehensive list of the upcoming workplace law (employment, labour, human rights, pensions, privacy and immigration) conferences in Canada in 2011. The full names of the service providers, and links to their sites, are at the bottom of the page.

 read more »

A Notice of Claim under British Columbia's Class Proceeding Act has been filed against Denny's restaurants by employees working in Canada under the Temporary Foreign Workers Program. The employees are originally from the Philippines,

The claim, which covers more than 50 employees, states that Denny's breached the workers' employment contracts by reducing their hours, refusing to pay overtime and failing to pay for their round-trip airfare back to the Philippines.

The Province has a story here: "Filipino workers' class action says Denny's owes $10m" (January 12, 2011).

The Georgia Strait's story is here: "Foreign workers file class-action lawsuit against Denny's restaurants in B.C." (January 11, 2011).  read more »

Jennifer Ervick, a lawyer at Thompson Dorfman Sweatman LLP in Winnipeg, has written a brief entitled, "Temporary Foreign Worker Program - Information Technology Specialists" (June 2010).

The brief highlights the fact that, "On September 30, 2010 the temporary foreign worker program for information technology (IT) specialists will come to an end (except for employers wanting to hire foreign workers for positions in Quebec)".

The brief further notes that there have been seven occupations covered by the program:

1. Senior Animation Effects Editor
2. Embedded Systems Software Designer 
3. MIS Software Designer 
4. Multimedia Software Developer 
5. Software Developer Services
6. Software Products Developer
7. Telecommunications Software Designer

The federal government announced changes today to the federal skilled worker program. The changes were set out in a news release ("Government of Canada will welcome more economic immigrants in 2010") from Citizenship and Immigration Canada. The news release states, in part:

Effective immediately, to be eligible to apply as a federal skilled worker, applicants must either have a job offer, or they must have experience in one of 29 in-demand occupations. These occupations were identified through analysis of updated labour market information and consultations with provinces, territories, stakeholders and the public.  read more »

The employer in Nishina v. Azuma Foods (Canada ) Co. Ltd., 2010 BCSC 502, was ordered to pay $20,000 in punitive damages for dismissing an employee for just cause without properly investigating the allegations of misconduct.  

The case is also of interest in that the court addressed:

• the contractual force of workplace policy handbooks; and
• the degree to which different cultural norms - in this case, the importance of an apology in Japanese culture - will impact on the just cause analysis.

Background 

The employer was a Japanese company with operations in California and BC. It produced Japanese ready-to-eat frozen food products.

The employee was a Japanese citizen.  At the time of her dismissal, she was 43 years old, had 6 years, four months service and was employed as a quality control associate. She earned approximately $52,000 per year.     read more »

Canada's Auditor General issued its 2009 Fall Report today. Chapter 2 is entitled "Selecting Foreign Workers Under the Immigration Program" and is an audit of HRSDC's and Citizenship and Immigration Canada's (CIC's) practices in this regard. The report, in its entirety, can be read here.

As part of its Outlook 2020 Project, the Business Council of BC has released a paper entitled "Where Will The Workers Come From? British Columbia Labour Force Projections to 2030". The authors conlude, somewhat surprisingly, as follows:

...the results of our analysis are encouraging in that quite moderate changes in behaviour (particpation rates) and in policy (immigration, temporary work visas, training programs and so on) can materially lift growth in the labour force. This suggests that labour shortages in the coming decade are apt to be far less pervasive than often feared. It is important to recognize, however, that the labour market will tighten irrespective of future changes, and that the macroeconomic projections reported in this paper say little about labour demand/supply conditions in specific industries or regions. With more people retiring, it is reasonable to anticipate greater hiring challenges in some sectors of the economy as well as for certain highly-skilled occupations in fields like health care and advanced technology (pg. ii).

A lawyer at Farris, Vaughan, Wills & Murphy LLP presented a paper entitled "Loss of
Employment and the Effect on Permanent Resident Applications" at a September 16, 2009 CLE conference in Vancouver on immigration law called Working Your Way Into Canada - 2009.