Year: 2025

This article is written by a law firm with employees as the intended audience, but it’s applicable to employers and a good reminder of the issues and challenges employers face…

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If you work in Ontario, you have more legal protections than you might realize. The Employment Standards Act, the Human Rights Code and health and safety laws influence everything from your pay and hours of work to harassment, discrimination and termination. Recent Working for Workers changes and new rules on pay transparency and artificial intelligence in hiring are also reshaping the landscape for 2025 and 2026.

This guide highlights 12 key employee rights in Ontario in clear, practical language. It is intended as general information only. If anything here sounds familiar, it may be time to speak with an employment lawyer at Unified LLP about your specific situation.

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If you have employees in Ontario  or any other provinces, here are some of the recent changes to Employment Standards  that may affect you and your employees.

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Across Canada various jurisdictions are reviewing their statutory leaves and proposing/implementing new ones. Here are a few that you should be aware of:

British Columbia

As of November 28, 2025, the Employment Standards Acthas been updated to include a new job protected medical leave that allows employees to take up to 27 weeks (in a 12-month period) for “serious personal injury or illness”. Unlike with sick days, this medical leave does allow employers to request a medical certificate from a designated health professional confirming the employee is unable to work, the date the leave begins and the expected return‑to‑work date.

Saskatchewan

As of January 1, 2026, the following leaves will be updated/implemented in the Saskatchewan Employment Standards Act:

• Sick Leave: Long-term sick leave is extended from 12 to 27 weeks to support employees dealing with “prolonged illness or injury”.
• Bereavement Leave: Eligibility for employees would be expanded to allow use of the current five unpaid days to be used within six months of a death, and with extended eligibility to “like family” relationships and for a pregnancy loss.
• Maternity Leave: Eligibility for employees would be expanded to include employees who experience pregnancy loss within twenty (20) weeks of their due date.
• Interpersonal or Sexual Violence Leave: Employees will be eligible to receive additional time off if they are a victim of interpersonal or sexual violence. In addition to the existing 10 day leave (five days paid and five days unpaid), employees will be eligible to up to 16 weeks unpaid leave (to be taken in one continuous period within 52-weeks).

Ontario

As of November 27, 2025, the Employment Standards Act has been updated to include a new “job seeking leave” for employees that are part of a mass layoff to take up to 3 days of unpaid leave during the notice period for job searches, interviews, and training.

Federal

As of December 12, 2025, federally regulated workers have access to the following updated/implemented job protected leaves:

• Pregnancy Loss Leave: Employees will have access to up to eight weeks of unpaid leave following a pregnancy loss as defined. The first three days of the leave would be paid for employees that have three months of employment.
• Bereavement Leave: Employees will have access to an additional eight weeks of unpaid leave following the the death of their child or the child of their spouse or common-law partner.
• Placement of Child Leave: Employees will have access to 16 weeks of unpaid leave following the the placement of a child into their care through adoption or surrogacy.

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If you are is looking for a good event to keep you up to date on HR issues… George has spoken at our CGIB events in the past, and he and his team are generally quite good.

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Join us for our annual “Year in Review” webinar, where we’ll unpack the most significant labour and employment law developments from 2025 and discuss what we expect to see in 2026.

Topics will include:
• Legislative Updates: Federal and provincial changes affecting employment standards, workplace safety, leaves of absence, and more
• Caselaw Highlights: Notable decisions from courts and tribunals shaping employer obligations and employee rights
• Practical Implications: What these developments mean for your policies, practices, and risk management

This webinar is designed so that business leaders, human resources professionals, and in-house counsel can stay current on legislative changes, key decisions, and emerging trends that impact workplace compliance and strategy.

Monday, December 15, 2025
Start Time:
9:00 a.m. PT | 10:00 a.m. MT | 11:00 a.m. CT | 12:00 p.m. ET

Duration: 60 Minutes
Register Now

Speakers
Gerald Griffiths, Partner
Nikki Banwait, Associate

Professional Development & Continuing Education
This program is eligible for one hour of recertification credit with the Human Resources Professionals Association.

Ontario legislation is changing and requiring employers with over 25 staff to be more transparent in their job postings.  The article below helps to explain who is affected and what you’re going to need to do.

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Effective January 1, 2026, new rules related to job postings and the hiring process will take effect in Ontario. 
 
Please note these new rules do not apply to an employer that employs fewer than 25 employees on the day the publicly advertised job posting is posted.
 
The Ontario Employment Standards Act defines a “Publicly advertised job posting” as an external job posting that an employer or a person acting on behalf of an employer advertises to the general public in any manner.

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We often see employers struggling with the limited information some doctors notes provide when an employee is absent.  This article provides information on what employers are entitled to (and not).

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At e2r™, we regularly find ourselves speaking with clients about what to do when their employee submits a note from their physician seeking a medical leave of absence.

Often, the note provided by the employee will say something akin to “needs to be off work for medical reasons”. Understandably, the lack of detail concerning the nature of, or justification for, the leave of absence can be both confusing and frustrating for employers who need to understand how they are going to fill the labour gap left by the employee and, often more importantly, how long they should expect to do so.

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We regularly caution employers about the risks associated with Independent Contractors, that could create issues at termination (and other times).  Specifically the risk of enrolling them in employee benefit plans (which we do not allow), that can be one more nail in the coffin of them being deemed employees or even Personal Service businesses (PSB’s).

The article below provides a bit more detail of yet another case where an employer is forced (by the courts) to pay severance on termiantion.

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Many organizations mistakenly believe that engaging a worker as an “independent contractor” or allowing them to file taxes as a contractor insulates them from employment law claims…

https://www.mondaq.com/canada/employee-rights-labour-relations/1666724/canadian-contractors-may-actually-be-employees