Aug 2026 Workplace Recap – Aug 31st, 2026
Enjoy our latest edition of Workplace Recap for Canadian employers.
Legislation Updates
HR News
Case Law Round Up
Legislation Updates
Caught in the U.S. trade war? New $ available for Canadian employers.
- Ottawa announced a $7.5-billion package of new and expanded supports for Canadian businesses and workers affected by U.S. tariffs.
- An additional $1.5 billion is going into the Regional Tariff Response Initiative, aimed particularly at small and mid-sized businesses.
- BDC is getting a new $500-million liquidity stream, and the minimum revenue requirement for certain tariff-related BDC programs is being reduced to $1 million.
- Another $2 billion will fund the new Canada Strong Diversification Fund to help tariff-affected businesses invest, adapt and diversify.
- Ottawa is also providing $3.5 billion in Rapid Response Supports for Workers and Employers, including EI measures, workplace training and the new Worker Retention and Retraining Program.
- The measures come alongside new Canadian counter-tariffs on $27.6 billion of U.S. imports, effective September 8.
Key Take-Aways for Employers
If U.S. tariffs are affecting your revenue, cash flow, workforce or expansion plans, do not assume these programs are only for large manufacturers. Several of the new and expanded measures specifically target small and mid-sized Canadian businesses, including financing, liquidity support, training and workforce-retention assistance.
Hiring foreign workers? The LMIA goalposts just moved again.
- New LMIA wage thresholds took effect July 17, 2026, increasing the dividing line between the high-wage and low-wage streams.
- The new threshold is $38.40/hour in BC, $37.50 in Alberta and $36.92 in Ontario.
- Jobs paying at or above the provincial threshold generally fall under the high-wage stream. Jobs below it generally fall under the low-wage stream.
- Employers cannot simply increase a foreign worker’s wage to qualify for the high-wage stream. The wage must still be consistent with what comparable Canadian and permanent-resident workers earn.
- The federal government specifically warns that adjusting wages simply to fit a preferred LMIA stream or avoid program requirements could result in a negative LMIA decision.
- The thresholds are based on provincial or territorial median hourly wages plus 20% and can change as wage data changes.
Key Take-Aways for Employers
If you hire temporary foreign workers, do not rely on last year’s LMIA strategy. Check the current provincial wage threshold and stream requirements before recruiting or making an offer. A relatively small wage difference can put the position into a completely different LMIA stream with different rules.
8,700+ federal workers get the green light to retire early
- Ottawa received 10,006 applications for its Early Retirement Incentive before applications closed July 24.
- As of August 25, 8,718 applications had been confirmed as meeting the program criteria.
- Another 65 applications had been denied, while reviews of remaining applications were continuing.
- The program allows eligible federal public servants to retire earlier without the normal pension reduction that would otherwise apply.
- Eligibility depends on factors including age, years of employment and pensionable service.
- The program is part of Ottawa’s broader effort to reduce the size of the federal public service through voluntary departures and attrition.
- Approved employees must retire by January 20, 2027.
Key Take-Aways for Employers
This is primarily a federal-government workforce story rather than a rule affecting private employers. But thousands of experienced federal employees could enter the labour market, consulting, contracting or retirement over a relatively short period, while Ottawa uses voluntary retirement as an alternative to deeper workforce reductions.
BC fast-tracks simpler Employment Standards complaints
- BC has changed the complaint process under the Employment Standards Act and Temporary Foreign Worker Protection Act.
- The changes took effect August 1, 2026.
- The new process creates more opportunities to resolve disputes early, before they move through a full investigation and determination.
- The changes are intended to help resolve straightforward complaints more quickly.
- Employers appealing a determination must now deposit amounts owed before the appeal proceeds.
- The changes also make it easier to match workers with unclaimed wages.
- The province says the streamlined process is intended to preserve fairness for both employers and workers while improving efficiency.
Key Take-Aways for Employers
An Employment Standards complaint does not necessarily have to turn into a lengthy formal investigation. The new process gives employers an earlier opportunity to understand the issue and resolve straightforward disputes. Take that early contact seriously. It may be the cheapest and simplest opportunity to close the file.
Alberta employers must now keep health benefits after 65
- Effective October 1, 2026, Alberta is changing how workplace health and drug benefits operate for employees who continue working after age 65.
- Employer-sponsored plans can no longer stop or reduce drug and health benefits solely because an actively employed worker reaches a certain age.
- The change applies to drug and specified health coverage. It does not extend to benefits such as life, disability, dental, travel insurance or spending accounts.
- Alberta’s government programs will also become the payer of last resort where eligible private coverage exists.
- That means employer-sponsored or private plans will generally pay eligible claims first.
- Employers with older workers may consequently see higher claims exposure and benefit-plan costs.
- Employers should review age-based eligibility provisions and plan wording before the new rules take effect.
Key Take-Aways for Employers
If your Alberta benefits plan cuts off or reduces health or drug coverage when an employee turns 65, review it now with your insurer or benefits broker. This is not simply a benefits-cost story. The legal rules governing age-based benefits are changing, and existing plan language may need to change with them.
HR News
July unemployment rate: 6.4%. Canada adds 75,000 new jobs
- Canada added 75,000 jobs in July.
- The unemployment rate fell from 6.5% to 6.4%, its lowest level in 2 years.
- Private-sector employment increased by about 58,000 jobs.
- Self-employment increased by about 44,000, while public-sector employment fell by about 27,000.
- Average hourly wages among employees increased 2.8% year over year, down from 3.3% growth in June.
Key Take-Aways for Employers
The July numbers point to a stronger labour market, particularly in the private sector. Employers may see more competition for workers if the trend continues, although slower wage growth suggests compensation pressure is not accelerating at the same pace.
Canadians shifting to skilled trades
- A new Canadian survey found 50% of Canadians believe trades or apprenticeships are the best way to prepare a child for a successful career in 2050.
- Only 37% chose university education.
- Support for trades was highest in BC, where 55% chose the trades route.
- Only 20% of Canadians surveyed believe children are currently being properly prepared for the jobs that will exist in 2050.
- The findings reflect growing interest in skilled trades and apprenticeships as an alternative to the traditional university route.
Key Take-Aways for Employers
The talent pipeline may be changing. Employers struggling to fill skilled roles should look beyond traditional university recruitment and consider apprenticeships, trade schools and other alternative education paths.
1 in 5 Gen Z candidates has brought a parent to a job interview.
- A U.S. survey of 1,001 Gen Z workers found 20% had a parent join a job interview, either in person or virtually.
- 21% said a parent had contacted an employer or recruiter on their behalf.
- 44% had parents help write or edit their resume.
- 28% received parental help negotiating pay or benefits, including 10% whose parents negotiated directly with the employer.
- The trend has been dubbed “career co-piloting.”
- The study is American, but the employer issue crosses borders: where does parental support end and candidate independence begin?
Key Take-Aways for Employers
Employers can set clear boundaries. Unless there is a legitimate reason for someone else to be involved, communicate directly with the adult candidate. A parent helping behind the scenes is one thing. A parent participating in interviews or negotiating directly with the employer is another.
No AC? BC employers still have heat obligations
- BC workers and unions are pushing for a specific temperature threshold that would automatically trigger workplace heat protections.
- WorkSafeBC currently does not set one universal temperature at which work becomes unsafe.
- Employers must assess heat risk based on factors such as temperature, humidity, physical exertion, clothing and exposure time.
- WorkSafeBC uses screening criteria to help employers identify when further heat-stress assessment may be needed, but these are not automatic stop-work temperatures.
- If workers may be at risk, employers must implement appropriate controls and may need a heat-stress exposure control plan.
- Between 2021 and 2025, WorkSafeBC accepted 335 heat-related injury claims, including 47 in 2025.
Key Take-Aways for Employers
There is no magic BC temperature at which everyone must stop working. But there is an obligation to assess actual heat risk and take reasonable steps to protect employees. Temperature is only one part of that assessment.
Summer camp background checks not mandatory. Ford says that’s changing.
- Ontario currently has no province-wide law requiring summer camps to conduct criminal record or vulnerable sector checks on staff.
- The issue erupted after a Kawartha Lakes hockey camp continued employing a lead instructor who had pleaded guilty to 2 charges of assaulting children known to him.
- The instructor eventually stepped down.
- The Ontario Camps Association requires criminal record checks at its accredited camps, but membership in the association is voluntary.
- Premier Doug Ford’s office responded by saying the province will take action to make criminal background checks mandatory for summer camps.
Key Take-Aways for Employers
Legal minimums and sensible risk management are not always the same thing. Employers placing workers or volunteers in positions of trust with children or vulnerable people should have appropriate screening in place even where legislation does not explicitly require it.
Workplace harassment is increasingly coming from outside the workplace.
- A Canadian study surveyed more than 5,600 workers about harassment and violence experienced at work.
- Nearly 7 in 10 respondents reported experiencing at least one form of harassment or violence during the previous 2 years.
- Harassment and violence from customers, patients, students and other third parties increased from 30.7% in 2022 to 36.2% in 2026.
- Third-party sexual harassment and violence increased from 33.7% to 41.4%.
- Meanwhile, harassment involving coworkers declined from 39% to 33%.
- Researchers say simple “zero tolerance” signs have had limited long-term impact.
Key Take-Aways for Employers
Your harassment policy cannot stop at employee-to-employee behaviour. Employers should have procedures for dealing with harassment from customers, patients, clients, students and other outsiders, including clear guidance on when employees can disengage or escalate a situation.
CEO pay hits a record high. Then there’s Elon Musk.
- Average compensation for S&P 500 CEOs reached US$22.8 million in 2025, up 21% in a single year.
- The average CEO earned 312 times the pay of the median worker, up from 285 times the previous year.
- Including Elon Musk’s extraordinary Tesla compensation package pushes average S&P 500 CEO compensation to US$340.1 million.
- Musk’s package dramatically distorts the overall average, which is why the US$22.8-million figure excluding him provides a more useful picture of typical S&P 500 CEO compensation.
- The growth in large special compensation packages is raising questions about whether Musk’s Tesla arrangements are influencing how other corporate boards structure executive pay.
Key Take-Aways for Employers
This is primarily a U.S. executive-compensation story, but the widening gap between executive and employee compensation continues to affect conversations about pay transparency, executive compensation and employee perceptions of fairness.
Second SickKids employee faces child sex charges.
- A second SickKids employee was charged with child sexual abuse and exploitation-related offences in August.
- The employee worked on the hospital’s housekeeping team and was placed on leave when SickKids learned of the charges. He later resigned.
- The charges came less than a month after a SickKids physician was separately charged with accessing and possessing child sexual abuse and exploitation material.
- Police have said there is no evidence connecting either employee’s alleged conduct to their work at SickKids, and the allegations have not been proven in court.
- SickKids has hired external experts to review its screening processes, controls and safeguards designed to prevent child harm.
- The hospital already had pre-employment screening and other safeguards in place, highlighting an uncomfortable reality: screening cannot uncover conduct that has never previously resulted in a record or other detectable information.
Key Take-Aways for Employers
Background screening is important, particularly in sensitive positions, but it is not foolproof. Employers also need ongoing safeguards, reporting procedures, access controls and clear processes for responding when concerns arise after someone has been hired.
Case Law Round Up
FINALLY! Landmark ruling brings clarity to Ontario termination clauses
- On August 6, the Ontario Court of Appeal released Baker v. Van Dolder’s Home Team Inc. and Li v. Wayfair Canada ULC.
- Both cases involved employment agreements allowing termination “at any time” or “at any time and for any reason.”
- Employees argued that this wording made the clauses illegal because Ontario’s ESA prohibits employers from terminating employees in certain circumstances.
- The Court rejected that highly technical interpretation.
- It said employment agreements must be read as a whole, with the goal of determining what the parties objectively intended.
- Both agreements repeatedly said employees would receive their minimum ESA entitlements.
- The Court therefore found the termination provisions valid and enforceable.
- The decision pushes back against years of Ontario cases in which termination clauses were attacked based on hypothetical or highly technical ESA violations.
Key Take-Aways for Employers
This is very good news for Ontario employers, but it does not mean termination clauses no longer matter. Poorly drafted clauses can still be unenforceable. What has changed is the Court’s approach: agreements should not be dismantled by isolating a few words and inventing hypothetical violations that ignore the agreement as a whole.
BC: 11 weeks on the job. 4 months’ termination notice.
- A BC corporate controller worked for his employer for only about 11 weeks before being terminated without cause.
- He earned $125,000 per year.
- The employer argued that 2 months’ notice was reasonable.
- The employee sought 6 months.
- The BC Supreme Court awarded 4 months’ reasonable notice, worth approximately $40,000 after deducting what had already been paid.
- The Court noted that BC cases involving short-service professional or managerial employees have often used 2 to 3 months as a starting point.
- The employee’s difficulty finding comparable work helped push the notice period higher.
- His claim for additional aggravated damages was rejected.
Key Take-Aways for Employers
Do not assume a new employee will be inexpensive to terminate. Common-law notice is not calculated using a simple “one month per year” formula. A properly drafted and enforceable employment agreement can significantly reduce this kind of unexpected termination exposure.
A 9-month employee just won nearly US$4.7 million from Meta
- Daniel Wigdor worked for Facebook Canada, now Meta, for only about 9 months before being terminated.
- Much of his compensation consisted of restricted stock units, or RSUs.
- Meta’s equity agreements said unvested RSUs would stop vesting when employment ended, including during statutory and common-law notice periods.
- The Ontario Court of Appeal found that the wording improperly attempted to remove an entitlement during the statutory ESA notice period.
- Because that part of the agreement violated the ESA, Meta could not rely on it to stop the RSUs from vesting during the employee’s 10-month common-law notice period.
- The result was approximately US$4.7 million in additional equity compensation.
- Importantly, the Court did not say employers can never limit equity vesting after termination. It said the language used here did not legally accomplish that result.
Key Take-Aways for Employers
If bonuses, stock options, RSUs or other incentive compensation are supposed to stop after termination, the plan language needs to be drafted extremely carefully and must comply with minimum employment standards. One defective provision can turn a termination into a very expensive mistake.
Landmark Ontario ruling defines a proper harassment investigation
- Ontario’s Occupational Health and Safety Act requires employers to conduct workplace harassment investigations that are “appropriate in the circumstances.”
- For almost 10 years, there had been little direct guidance from the Ontario Labour Relations Board about exactly what that meant.
- In Gassi v. Corporation of the County of Lambton, an employee made harassment allegations involving several people.
- The employer investigated, interviewed the complainant and 2 other employees, and concluded there was no workplace harassment.
- The investigator had told the complainant she would have an opportunity to respond to information gathered during the investigation, but never gave her that opportunity.
- The OLRB found the investigation was not appropriate in the circumstances.
- The decision does not mean every possible witness must always be interviewed.
- It does mean investigators must make reasonable procedural decisions and generally give a complainant a meaningful opportunity to respond to evidence that will be relied upon in reaching the conclusion.
Key Take-Aways for Employers
A workplace investigation does not have to resemble a courtroom trial, but it does have to be fair. Employers should document why particular witnesses were or were not interviewed and ensure employees have a reasonable opportunity to respond to important evidence before conclusions are reached.
Want an existing employee to sign a new contract? Pay the consideration.
- In Ross v. Newly Institute Inc., an Alberta executive was ultimately awarded $300,000 in severance.
- The employer argued that the employee had resigned, abandoned his job or could be terminated for cause. The Court rejected those arguments.
- There was also a second employment agreement that attempted to change the employee’s termination entitlements.
- Because the employee was already employed, the employer needed to give him something new of value, known legally as fresh consideration, in exchange for signing the new agreement.
- The agreement promised him a $10,000 signing bonus.
- The employer never paid it.
- The Court therefore found the new agreement was not supported by fresh consideration and could not replace the original agreement.
- Under that original agreement, the employee was entitled to the $300,000 termination payment.
Key Take-Aways for Employers
You cannot simply hand an existing employee a new employment agreement containing less favourable terms and expect it to be enforceable. Give the employee genuine new consideration, document it clearly and, most importantly, actually provide it.
WestJet’s decade-long harassment fight ends in a $4.5-million settlement.
- A BC court approved a $4.5-million settlement in a class action involving thousands of current and former female WestJet flight attendants.
- The lawsuit began in 2016 and alleged that WestJet failed to honour its contractual promise to provide a harassment-free workplace.
- WestJet has denied the allegations, which were not proven in court.
- The settlement covers more than 3,400 eligible current and former female flight attendants.
- The case travelled through BC courts for years, including an unsuccessful attempt by WestJet to stop the action and class certification in 2021.
- The settlement was approved in August 2026, roughly a decade after the lawsuit began.
Key Take-Aways for Employers
Having a harassment policy is not enough. Employers must actually enforce it, respond appropriately to complaints and ensure their investigation and reporting systems work in practice. Mishandled workplace harassment can create liability that follows an organization for years.
Melina Laird is the Operations Coordinator for Sienna HR, a company that provides practical HR services and support to Canadian small businesses.
You can contact her here.