Supreme Court of Canada Denies Leave to Appeal in Oudin: But Does That Really Mean Anything?

(c) istock/kenta210

On February 2, 2017, the Supreme Court of Canada denied the application for leave to appeal from the judgment of the Court of Appeal for Ontario in Oudin v. Centre Francophone de Toronto, 2016 ONCA 514, dated June 28, 2016. As is customary of the Supreme Court, no reasons for the decision to deny leave were provided.

I previously blogged about the Oudin decision in the post The ONCA’s Decision in Oudin v. CFT Leaves One 'Wundering' – Is Wunderman Dead?, which was actually cited to the Supreme Court by the Applicant as one reason leave should be granted.

So what does the fact that the Supreme Court of Canada denied leave really mean for Ontario employment law?

Should Employers be Allowed to Fire Employees for Their Off-Duty Conduct?

Should employers be allowed to fire employees for their off-duty conduct? Although this blog has repeatedly considered the issue of whether employers can fire employees for their off-duty conduct (they can; see e.g. Comments on Facebook "Just Cause" for Dismissal), the question that this blog has not yet really considered is whether employers should be able to do so.

In posing this question I do not wish to be taken as suggesting that any particular set of actions should go without punishment. Moreover, I do not intend to suggest that perhaps an employee should never lose his or her job for off-duty conduct. Rather the questions are really these:

• Is termination from employment ever an appropriate punishment for one’s off-duty conduct?
• If termination can be an appropriate punishment, after what sort of process should such a punishment be meted out?
• How serious must the off-duty conduct be in order to warrant termination from employment?

Opinion: Seeking Retail Honesty

Can we all be honest with one another for a moment? Yesterday’s fight over which retail establishments could open and which could not was about one issue and one issue only: which businesses had the right to make money yesterday and which were precluded.

Some have taken the position that the rules on who can open are arbitrary. The rules are not arbitrary; they are clearly deliberate. The law establishes clear criteria on the tourism criteria that must be met before a municipality may pass an exempting by-law under subsection 4 (1) of the Retail Business Holidays Act. The law is about economics. The clearest proof of that point, I would suggest, is the omission of Boxing Day from the enumeration of holidays in the Retail Business Holidays Act; it is a “holiday” in several other statutes including the Employment Standards Act, 2000.

Unpaid Articling Positions: Opportunity or Exploitation?

"Will litigate for food?" Earlier this month a community legal clinic in Oshawa drew fire after it advertised a 10-month unpaid articling position on Legal Aid Ontario’s official website. But can it do that? Shouldn’t lawyers know better?

Incredibly, the law concerning minimum wage does not apply to everyone. Some employees are expressly exempted from the protections of the minimum standards of the Employment Standards Act, 2000. Among those who are exempted are articling students.

Location, Location, Location! What a Demographic Shift Might mean for Employers

“Location, location, location.” It is the number one rule in real estate. Simply put, the mantra of real estate agents everywhere means that identical properties sited in different places will demand different prices depending upon the desirability of the neighbourhood. But what does this have to do with employment?

In promoting a compelling opinion piece in the Toronto Star on September 6, 2014, "In complete communities, pedestrians take precedence," Chief Planner for the City of Toronto, Jennifer Keesmaat tweeted “employers want to be near echo boomers; to attract emplmt across the city”.

Within the body of the editorial, Ms. Keesmaat noted that “Large employers like Coke and Google are moving to the core as they clamour to be near this future workforce.” Asked for evidence of the same, Ms. Keesmaat delivered.