Last week, I sat on a panel with Dan Demers of Cann/Amm Testing Services Inc., a noted expert in workplace impairment, and Norm Keith, the author of Workplace Health and Safety Crimes and Alcohol and Drugs in the Canadian Workplace. Because of my involvement in the Canadian Standards Association’s Technical Committee for the development of a national standard to address workplace impairment (CSA Z1008.1), I am familiar with both experts, and their presentations last week were excellent. I decided that I should share some of the highlights with you. Here is just a high-level overview of some key concepts that may interest you with respect to your rights as an employer to require drug or alcohol testing.

The Mian v. Expro Group case illustrates an increasingly common scenario:  the remote worker who, when a conflict with their employer arises, sues in the place they live rather than in the employer’s home jurisdiction.  Is that allowed?  As is true in many legal claims, the answer is “it depends.”

I have the good fortune of meeting with large groups of people who are interested in employment law. Whether it’s a large meeting hall full of company workers in Ontario, a Zoom room of executives in New York, or a classroom full of law students in New Brunswick, all of them understand that certain kinds of bad behaviour can justify firing an employee. The hard question is “When is bad behaviour bad enough to get fired?” That line has shifted over the decades that I’ve been a lawyer, and it appears to be taking another shift right now.

Every fall I turn into a matchmaker.

At the start of each university semester, I warn law students that I want to cause them to fall in love with my friend, Employment Law. They’re about to spend the next 40 years (and an extraordinary amount of time) wrapped up in some field of law, and I want them to choose their “law life mate” wisely. Employment Law is often overlooked, and it shouldn’t be.