On October 29, 2018, the Federal government introduced the omnibus Bill C86 titled “A second Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on February 27, 2018 and other measures”.  If passed, Bill C86 would introduce changes to the Canada Labour Code (“Code”) that would have a significant impact on federally regulated employers.

Some of the changes proposed in Bill C86 include:

1) Scheduling and Hours of Work

Employers would be required to provide employees with a 30-minute unpaid break after 5 consecutive hours of work and would be entitled to a minimum rest period of 8 hours between shifts.

Employers would also be required to provide employees with at least 96 hours written notice prior to scheduling a shift, without which employees have the right to refuse this work.

Employers would be required to provide unpaid breaks needed for medical reasons or for nursing.In the case of medical breaks, employers would be permitted to request a written medical certificate.

2)Expenses

Employers would be required to reimburse employees for reasonable work-related expenses.

3) Vacation

Vacation time and pay entitlements would be increased for employees:

o Employees with 1 year of service: 2 weeks’ vacation and 4% vacation pay;

o Employees with greater than 5 years of service: 3 weeks’ vacation and 6% vacation pay;

o Employees with greater than 10 years of service: 4 weeks’ vacation and 8% vacation pay.

3) Leaves of Absence

Employees will be entitled to up to 5 days of annual personal leave. After 3 months of continuous employment, the first 3 of these days will be paid. Employees will be eligible to take this leave for personal illness or injury, responsibilities relating to the health care of family members, responsibilities relating to the education of family members under the age of 18, to address urgent matters concerning themselves or family members, to attend their citizenship ceremony or for any other reason prescribed by regulation.

The sick leave provisions would provide employees with up to 17 weeks of “medical leave”, including for personal illness or injury, organ or tissue donation or medical appointments during working hours.

4) Termination

The Proposed Act would provide employees with at least three months of service with:

• two to eight weeks’ written notice of termination;

• two to eight weeks’ pay in lieu of notice at their regular rate of wages for their regular hours of work; or
• a combination of the two, equivalent to at least two to eight weeks depending on length of service.

This would not apply to employees whose employment was terminated for just cause or as part of a group termination of employment.

5) Pay Equity Act

Bill C-86 would also introduce new legislation known as the Pay Equity Act. The Act would require all federally regulated employers with 10 employees or more to provide men and women employees with equal pay for work performed which is of equal value, and to establish and maintain a pay equity plan.

If you would like to speak to an employment lawyer at the MacLeod Law Firm, you can reach us at [email protected] or 647-204-8107.