Show Notes:

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Lecture Slides:

Welcome to YouCounsel.

Government has announced additional changes for (C.E.R.B.) Canada Emergency Response Benefits. It has allowed additional people to be eligible.  Still not everybody’s eligible but there are more people who are eligible. Who are those people?  How has the criteria changed?  Today’s update is all about that. What we have done is we have used the slides from our previous lecture and then all the changes that the government has made, we have posted these in our slides in blue color so you can easily see what are the changes that have been made from the last time we provided a lecture on this.

We begin with our disclaimer that this lecture is not legal advice. If you have any specific questions regarding your issues you should contact a lawyer or a paralegal or Canada Revenue Agency with respect to Canada Emergency Response Benefit.

Now most of the criteria is the same—so we will not go into too much detail about that. You need to be at least 15 years old. This is straightforward.   You should be residing in Canada. Not much has changed with respect to residing in Canada, but there are some clarifications that we can post. Temporary foreign workers are eligible, international students are eligible, permanent residents are also eligible—I just wanted to point that out. The only requirement is that you should be residing in Canada and you should have a valid social insurance number and of course you meet the other eligibility requirements.

A number of people have asked this question—that they were traveling overseas and for some reason they are stuck there and they are not able to return to Canada—are they still eligible if they meet all the other conditions?  I quite frankly do not know the answer nor clarity has been given on the Government of Canada website, I would assume that the person is a resident of Canada and they have been temporarily stuck outside of Canada—so they should be eligible.  But you should contact C.R.A. to confirm the answer to this question.

The requirement for $5000 has not changed. To be eligible you should have earned $5000 gross income in the last 12 months or in 2019—that requirement remains the same.  The income should include employment income, self- employment income, if you have earned any maternity or parental benefits—all of those are included.

Previously the requirement was that you must have stopped work due to Covid-19 and that was the only requirement for eligibility and other reasons for stoppage of work would make you ineligible. So that has changed.  But stoppage of work due to Covid-19 is still one of the reasons that will make you eligible.  Some of the conditions were that “you have been let go from your job and previously it is said that your hours have been reduced to 0”—that is no longer the case because the current eligibility allows you to work certain hours based on certain income.  Or if you are in quarantine or sick due to Covid-19; you were away taking care of someone who was sick due to you Covid-19; you are taking care of children who cannot go to daycares or schools because of Covid-19—all of these are stoppage of work reasons due to Covid-19.  But more importantly what I want you to note is that these are only examples, these are not—this is not an exhaustive list that relates to stoppage of work due to Covid-19.  There may be other circumstances in your case in which you are not working somehow related to Covid-19, but the situation is not covered here and so you may still be eligible.

The key thing to note is that you have not voluntarily quit your job.  Because if you have done so, then you will not be eligible for Canada Emergency Response Benefits.

Now, the eligibility change as I noted in blue is that people who are entitled to employment insurance benefits either regular or sickness benefits, they are now eligible for C.E.R.B. What does this mean?  We’ll explain that by way of some example.  Let’s say your stoppage of work is unrelated to Covid-19 but you are eligible to receive regular E.I. benefits, then now you are entitled.  Previously, if your employment contract was ending regardless of Covid-19, you knew that your employment contract is ending on May or June or earlier then that’s the end of contract.  It had nothing to do with Covid-19 and that would make you ineligible for C.E.R.B.  But now you are eligible. Similarly you may have received the termination notice of your employment months and months ago.  You may have received the notice sometime in August of last year that your employment would end in March of 2020 and that was obviously unrelated to Covid-19.  But because of this particular change that the government has introduced now you are entitled to C.E.R.B.

Also, now if you are on E.I. sickness benefits but the reason for sickness is unrelated to Covid-19, then you will still be eligible for C.E.R.B. Previously the reason for the illness had to be related to Covid-19, but now your reason for illness is not related to Covid-19, so you will still be eligible. One more change the government has introduced for eligibility is for people who have exhausted their regular employment insurance benefits during a certain time period which is between December 29th 2019 to October 3rd 2020—these will be people who will also be eligible for C.E.R.B. Let’s explain that by way of example as well. For example, if your employment was ended and you are now looking for work, but you have received employment insurance benefits during regular benefits during this period between December 29th 2019 and October 3rd 2020 then you are now eligible for C.E.R.B. One of the examples could be that your stoppage of work occurred prior to Covid-19. For example, you were terminated from your employment in July of 2019 and you are entitled to regular E.I. benefits and those benefits continued beyond December 29th 2019, then you are still eligible. If those benefits expired prior to December 29th 2019, then you are not eligible or if you were terminated because of unrelated reasons, unrelated to Covid-19 but you received regular E.I. benefits then you will get C.E.R.B.—you’ll be eligible.

This also applies to seasonal workers who work, for example, a lot of construction workers work in the summers and then they receive E.I. benefits for a certain time period.  If those people were receiving benefits between December 29th 2019 and October 3rd 2020 and any time in that time period, then, they will still be eligible for C.E.R.B. even though their end of seasonal work was unrelated to Covid-19.

Similarly, if you had received sickness benefits which were unrelated to Covid-19, but you were entitled to sickness benefits (E.I. sickness benefits) during this time period, then you will be eligible for C.E.R.B. The key thing that struck the common thread in this eligibility is that C.E.R.B. is now being extended to people who have received E.I. regular or sickness benefits between December 29th 2019 and October 3rd 2020.

What are the changes made to the income during the C.E.R.B. period? There are certain changes. It is important to note.  Previously what was stated—that your income in the initial 4-week benefits period and initial 4 weeks benefits period if you recall started from March 15th and ran up to April 11th and then the requirement was for that for 14 consecutive days your income had to be 0 in that time period. That has changed.  Now when you’re making your 1st claim—it is not tied to that particular 1st initial period—for the 4-week benefit period your income for at least 14 consecutive days should not exceed $1000 and that is gross income. It is no longer 0.  As long as you have not made more than $1000 in 14 consecutive days in the 1st claim for your 4-week benefits period, you are now eligible for C.E.R.B.

What does this term “income” include?  This has been explained a bit more in detail.  Let’s go through that. Tips that people earn and declare as income—that is considered income; non-eligible dividends—these are basically monies that you receive from a corporation—small businesses usually; honoraria—this is usually for volunteer workers; royalties is for artists. These are some of the examples of income and, obviously, if you have earned salary or if you earned your self-employment income.  That’s all income.  The same definition is used for the $5000 requirement what is considered income the same definition applies here.

Please note that pension, student loans and bursaries are not considered employment income and they should not be included. What about subsequent periods?  Previously the requirement was that for subsequent periods your income had to be 0—that is no longer the case.  The requirement now, is that your employment income should not exceed $1000 for the entire 4-week benefits period. If it is not exceeding $1000, then you are eligible for C.E.R.B.  This is an incentive for people who are part-time or work less hours and want to continue working certain hours and earn some money.  The important thing is for people who are working part-time and earning less than $1000, the money from C.E.R.B. is not top up.  It’s not that you are going to get additional money to complete the $2000 you will get the whole $2000. If you earn $1000 and you get C.E.R.B. for $2000 that is $3000.  There is some advantage to people who continue to work part-time or for reduced hours.

Income from other benefits: what is stated is that as long as you’re getting, for example, disability payments or other provincial support payments or territorial payments, you need to look at your own provinces’ rules to see whether the rules allow you to get the support payments in addition to C.E.R.B. Each province has to decide that what the government website states is that government has encouraged the provinces to allow people to keep both payments.  My understanding is that so far only British Columbia has confirmed that it will allow temporarily people to keep C.E.R.B. and their disability payments or other social assistance payments but other provinces I’m not sure. Please check with your province to see what the rules are with respect to both payments.

We’re talking about employment insurance or C.E.R.B.—which one you choose or can you choose between the two? If you are already receiving E.I. benefits, whether regular illness, maternity or parental you will continue to receive E.I. and if you were receiving less than $2000 a month the amount will not increase to $2000 it will remain whatever you are receiving. If your E.I. expires before October 3rd 2020, as mentioned earlier, you can apply for C.E.R.B.  Previously the requirement was that your stoppage of work needed to be related to Covid-19 and now that is no longer the case. If your E.I. expires prior to October 3rd 2020, you will be eligible for C.E.R.B. If you have already applied for E.I., you should not apply for C.E.R.B. It will automatically be converted to C.E.R.B. if you applied on March 15th or later.  But if you are eligible for E.I. before March 15th you will receive your regular E.I. benefits and if you are eligible for E.I. on March 15th or later you will receive C.E.R.B. Again, the payment amount for C.E.R.B. is fixed.  It’s $500 per week and that’s what you will receive. But if your E.I. is less and you are already receiving that lesser amount, your E.I. will not increase—you will not get C.E.R.B. for that amount.

Let’s talk about this additional eligibility summary. Let’s summarize it.  Who are people who are now going to get C.E.R.B.?  (a) People who have lost their job before Covid-19 or unrelated to Covid-19 but received regular E.I. between December 29th 2019 and or later, but before October 3rd 2020. These are people who may not have previously been eligible but now are eligible. (b) People who are eligible for E.I. regular benefits. People who are terminated from employment unrelated to Covid-19 for example end of contract, they are now eligible for C.E.R.B. (c) People who are eligible for E.I. sickness, but their sickness is unrelated to Covid-19, they will be eligible for C.E.R.B. now. (d) Seasonal workers, as I indicated, who received regular E.I. until December 29th 2019 or later until October 3rd 2020, they are entitled to—they are now eligible for C.E.R.B.

Please note that there are many people who are still not eligible for C.E.R.B. Some of the people who are still not eligible—(a) people who have lost jobs before the onset of Covid-19 and did not qualify for E.I.  These are people who did not have sufficient insurable hours to qualify for E.I. and they are not eligible. (b) People who were out of employment for a certain time period and they are now looking for work – they are not eligible. So people looking for work but did not receive E.I. between December 29th 2019 and October 3rd 2020, they are still not eligible. (c) Part-time people, reduced hours people who make less than $2000 but earn more than one $1000 a month they will not be eligible for C.E.R.B. and, of course, (d) people who did not earn $5000 in the last 12 months of 2019 – they are still not eligible for C.E.R.B. Finally, (e) people who are receiving E.I. but their E.I. is less than $2000 a month you’re not getting a top up, they’re not getting C.E.R.B.—E.I. is what they are going to get.

Hopefully, this gives you some more clarity about what are the changes that have been made. I understand that a lot of people may still not be eligible and we hope that there may be additional changes that will cover people who are in the need of these payments and who may not be otherwise eligible.

Thank-you for watching.

Show Notes:

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Lecture Slides:

Welcome to YouCounsel.

Many people who do not have a lot of experience in our judicial system (in our court system) have some fundamental misconceptions / misunderstandings, about how judges decide on different cases.  In those misunderstandings what happens is that they end up losing their case, even though they may have good merit—they may have a good case but because of their basic misunderstanding of how judges decide, they at times end up losing their case.  In this lecture I want to explain some of these fundamental misconceptions and then explain how judges make decisions in our court system.

Before we do that I want you to know that this lecture is not legal advice.  If you have any specific questions you should contact a lawyer or a paralegal or the Law Society of Ontario for a referral.

We’ll talk about these fundamental misconceptions and then I will explain to you, how the actual decision-making is done in our courts. Now, with respect to fundamental misconceptions, I am going to give you some of the items that I believe are fundamental.  I have defined it and labeled them in certain ways.  

Number 1: This is called the character reference. Now character reference is where a litigant basically says to the court I’m a good person / I’m an honest person, I’ve never lied, I’m a religious person, I believe in God; whatever, anything that talks to their character.  On the basis of that character, they want the judge to rule in their favor. The argument, essentially, is that I am a good person, I never lie, I am an honest person, therefore you should rule in my favor.  It is very important to understand that character references are 99 percent of the time irrelevant.  The courts do not take that into consideration unless character is one of the issues in that specific case. 

For example, if you are in a breach of contract case – whether you are a good person or not, or whether you are an honest person or not, that people like you is irrelevant.  The question for the court is whether you breached that specific contract in which you are here.  Your character reference and I’ve seen a lot of people even my clients, try to argue this and that, because I’m a good person the judge should believe me, that is not how it works and that is one of the fundamental misconceptions people have about how judges decide.

Number 2: Reference to personal circumstances: For example, if the case against you is that you had a credit card and you took money and paid for certain items and now you are not paying the credit card company which has sued you—making reference to your personal circumstances is not going to help you.  For example, if you come to the court and say I am poor, I don’t have enough money or I have lost my job or I am a single father or single mother or I have little kids and therefore, you should get me off the hook for this payment on this unpaid credit card—that is not going to help you.  Personal circumstances are irrelevant in the decision-making process.  Unless, of course, personal circumstances is one of the key issues in the case, but they are very rare.  A good example that I gave you, was about the unpaid loan kind of stuff, personal circumstances are not what is going to make a judge’s mind about ruling in your favor or against you.

Number 3: People believe that since all judges are honest people, somehow they are going to divine the injustice behind it or behind their situation.  Regardless of the fact that they may not have strong evidence, regardless of the fact that they may not have presented their case in the best light and with the best evidence, somehow the judge is going to see through all of the facts and figure out what is happening behind the scene.  That is not the judge’s role.  That is not what judges do. Judges are not seers.  They are not clairvoyant.  It is not their job to figure out what is happening behind the scene in the absence of evidence. They have to figure out the truth of the matter based on the evidence. They’re not going to discover some reality that exists outside of the evidence that is presented to the judges. 

Number 4: Relating to this point is that somehow people believe that because I’m a good person and because of my personal circumstances and because judges can see through somehow, the judge will become my advocate. The judge is going to come down from the pulpit and help me in succeeding with my case because of all these things, regardless of the fact that my case and also the way it has been presented, i.e., the evidence that has been presented is not helpful to me. That is not what the judges do. The most that I have seen in my experience is that the judge will make a comment to a party saying that: “Mr. So and so / Miss So and so, I suggest that you should seek some professional help, with respect to this case”.

That could mean one of 2 things. One is that your case is terrible. If you continue to proceed in fighting with this case and then proceeding to trial, I won’t have any other chance, but torule against your favor. Why don’t you go talk to a professional and understand how the system works and understand your exposure so that you can prevent that from happening.  Or the judge may believe, that this seems like a better case, there may be some merits to do it. It sounds good but the way you are presenting it, it’s not going to help you. Go find some professional help and try to understand how we decide our cases so that you can present your case properly and that does not mean “go hire a lawyer”, but at least get an understanding, a professional understanding of the system, on how to present your evidence and how to present your case so that you allow the judge to rule in your favor.

 Number 5: Finally, the fifth circumstance is what I call, the David vs. Goliath circumstances. The underlying argument here is that because I am David, therefore, you should rule in my favor. I am David, I am the little guy, I’m fighting against Goliath, this big bad corporation or big bad institution or big bad person or whatever it is, but because I am David, somehow you need to help me out here. That is not what judges do.  Judges do not treat David and Goliath differently. In the eyes of the Judge, David and Goliath have the same values, same respect and same significance. If David has better evidence, David is going to succeed, but if Goliath has better evidence Goliath is going to succeed. It is not a situation where the judges are going to come down from their pulpit and help David because of the smaller size or the smaller resources of David as opposed to Goliath. Ok, so we talked about the fundamental misconceptions.

  Let’s talk about how the actual-decision making works:

1) First point that I want to explain is, that it is important to understand our judicial system is based on adversarial process. The opposite of that is the inquisitorial process in adversarial process, the fundamental concept is that both sides have their own lawyers or own legal professionals or  own case. They are going to present their case to the judge, pursuing their own interest.  When all parties are pursuing their own interests, presenting their best evidence, to get what they want from the court, the truth is going to emerge from that fight between the adversaries. The truth, is going to emerge from that exercise when each party is trying to present their best case, in the best possible manner to the judge.  Once the truth emerges, obviously, the judge  figures that out and then judge rules on that and in the favor of the party that has more merit,.

2) Now, inquisitorial process is different. In the inquisitorial process there is no adversary or adversaries. In that case it’s essentially one person or one body that is tasked to find the truth. Their goal is the search of the truth. For example, in our Canadian system, we have these commissions of inquiry that are made. They are created by the government, oftentimes, e.g.,  Gomery Inquiry or Truth and Reconciliation Commission or the Walkerton Inquiry.  These inquiries follow the inquisitorial process, usually run by a retired judge or someone of that caliber. Their goal is to follow all the evidence. They go where the evidence leads them and then their end game is to find out what happened.Their end game is the truth.  They are not resolving a dispute.  What government does with the final fact finding is is up to the government. The goal of that commission, the goal of that inquiry, is to find the truth.

Adversarial process is not the same. An adversarial process is when 2 parties or 3 parties or even multiple parties are fighting and presenting their case and we’re hoping that the truth will emerge. Now in many cases a truth will emerge in an adversarial process, but in some cases it won’t. So there are advantages and disadvantages of adversarial processes. I’m not going to discuss that today. The point here is that in an adversarial process one of the challenges of the process is that one party may have a lot of resources—financial , they may have competent lawyers, high caliber lawyers, or even a team of lawyers and the other side does not have enough resources. They do not have enough competence or the capability to present their case, in the best light. The challenge in that situation, is that it is possible—not always—but it is possible that the weaker side may not be able to present its case in the best light and therefore  their truth does not emerge the way it ought to have been done, if both parties had  equal fighting capability.  

That is one of the weaknesses of the adversarial process, but that is the process. It is important to understand that, whether you like it or not, that is the process and that is how courts function. In the adversarial system, evidence is the king. I cannot emphasize this enough. Judges make decisions on the evidence that is presented to them. If your uncle who lives in the Bahamas  and you tell the court that my uncle who lives in Bahamas, who is sick and cannot come to the court, but he knows the truth,.he saw the specific instance that you’re presenting to the court and therefore you believe that you should be believed.  The court is not going to rule in your favor because the evidence of that uncle who is sitting in the Bahamas is not before the court. The court is not going to divine some evidence that may have existed. That is not the role of the court. The court is going to make its decision on the basis of evidence.  May the best evidence win.. Therefore, if you are not presenting evidence to the court and you just believe in your heart that unfairness was done to you, that is not sufficient for the court to rule in your favor.

Finally, on this point, I wanted to explain that justice is not the prime goal of the judicial system and this I don’t mean to be crass! I don’t mean to minimize the value of our prejudicial system, but it is a point that it is important for the general public to understand.  This is not a new thing that I’m posting. Legal scholars know about it, academics know about it, judges and lawyers know about it also. Everybody who’s in the judicial system, knows that justice is one of the goals; an important goal, but it’s not the prime goal because the role of the court is resolution of the disputes that is before it.  on the basis of evidence that is presented.  That’s what it is.  In that process sometimes, not a lot of times  but, sometimes the result may not be just.  That is the best system we have and we need to recognize that—that  the role of the court is to resolve disputes on the basis of the evidence that has been presented.

That’s the crux of how the decisions are made. I am really hopeful that if you are a self-represented litigant or you are a person, who has not had a lot of experience with courts, to really understand that this is how the courts function. This is how the judges make their decisions—so that you can present your case on the basis of the evidence you have and present it in a way that you are successful only on the merits of your case.

Thank-you for watching.

Show Notes:

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Lecture Slides:

Welcome to YouCounsel.

The government has posted new information about how to apply for Canada Emergency Response Benefit. I will provide the link for the government website, the C.R.A. website and all of the links that are relevant. If you have already seen the website and got the information, then you don’t need to watch this video. If you have not or you don’t understand some of the things, then this video may be helpful.

This video is not legal advice. If you have any specific questions—in this case you should contact C.R.A.  If you require legal assistance, you should contact a lawyer or a paralegal or the Law Society of Ontario for a referral.

Today will talk about some of the steps that you should take before April 6th. These are important. Then we’ll talk about steps that you will take on April 6th and onward.  We will indicate to you that you will have to reapply for these benefits.

First of all, you will need to determine how are you going to apply for C.E.R.B.? Are you going to apply online or you’re going to apply by phone? If you apply online, the number one thing that you have to do is make sure that you have a C.R.A. My Account. If you already have one, that’s great. If you don’t have one, please create it now. You do not need to wait till April 6th to create an account. I think you’ll be better off creating one now, so that you are ready to file your application as soon as April 6th comes on. I have provided the link below that will show you how you go about creating a C.R.A. account.

This is the website that the Canadian government has posted.  I will provide the link. This is the website, which is on the C.R.A. page.  It talks about how you go about applying for C.E.R.B.  I’ll provide some of the information from here.  Finally, this is the website (this is the link) where if you don’t have an account—see My Account at C.R.A. How do you go about creating it? There are a few options here.  This is the one—where if you just want to create an account, if you don’t have one you simply click on it C.R.A. register and it will ask you for some information for example, your social insurance number and whatnot and you will be able to open an account. If you have created a new account or if you have an old account please make sure that your contact information—your address/ postal code is accurate because if you are receiving payment through cheque by mail, then this needs to be correct information. If you are receiving payment by direct deposit, you need to make sure that your banking information is correct.

Number 2, you need to determine and I think it’s a good idea for you to determine beforehand, what is the time period for which you are applying for benefits. Now the benefits will be paid for every 4 weeks—starting from March 15th 2020. The first 4-weeks period is March 15th 2020 to April 12th 2020. You need to determine beforehand whether you are expecting to be off from March 15th to April 12 2020—the entire time period and you will not earn any income.  If that is the case, then that will be the time period for which you will be applying for.

If it is a lesser time period, remember that for the first 4-weeks period you need to have at least 14 consecutive days for which you did not get any income and that makes you eligible. If it is less than this 4-weeks period, then any 14 days, at least 14 days between March 15th to April 12th 2020 will make you eligible. Make sure that you figure those out.

Now there was somebody who asked me this question, so I want to clarify it right here. If you had worked for example until March 14th, but the payment for that work you will receive towards the end of March or maybe early April, the question was: I am receiving payment during this time period, am I still eligible? Yes, you are.  If you are getting payment for the work that you had already done prior to March 15^th—no matter when you get the payment—you are still eligible. Because you are not getting paid for the time period after March 15th. It’s important to know that it doesn’t matter when you’re getting paid in your salary, it is for what time period you’re getting paid.

Number 3 you should choose that day for your application based on the month of your birth. Now C.R.A. has provided this information.  If you’re born in January/February/ March then Mondays are the days that you should apply starting April 6th. If you are born in April/ May/June, then Tuesday starting April 7th. For July/August/ September, Wednesday starting April 8th. For October/November/ December, Thursdays.  You can apply on Friday, Saturday or Sunday regardless of the month of your birth. Also I think it will be a good idea for you to choose the time of your application. Please note that the website for C.R.A. will be down between 3 am and 6 am for each day for maintenance, but otherwise it is open 21 hours a day, 7 days a week. It is a good idea for you to figure out what would be an appropriate time when you should log on to your, My C.R.A. Account website and fill out your application.

If you’re applying by phone; what are some of the things that you should do before April 6th. Number one, obviously you should note down the phone number that you’re going to call.  It is 1-800-959-2019.  It is on the website—the link that I provided. Make sure that your social insurance number is readily available.  Make sure that you have your postal code for your residence ready and written and you need to make sure that C.R.A. has accurate address information and banking information for you—because if you are getting payment made by direct deposit then your banking information needs to be up-to-date.  If you’re getting a cheque, then your address has to be up-to-date.

What are the steps you take when April 6th comes or onwards?  If you’re using online system, then you should log into C.R.A. My Account.  Then you go to this Covid-19 Canada Emergency Response Benefit, it is in the alert banner at the top of the page. Look for it, go click on it, select the period for which you are applying, declare that you’re qualified for the benefits or notice that the only thing government is requiring at this time is yourself declaration. It’s based on an honor system that you qualify for these benefits.

Now the government may ask for additional information later.  You may have to provide documentation.  But for now you just need to declare it and you need to confirm that C.R.A. has the right payment information for you—whether it’s direct deposit or by cheque.

Finally, once you have submitted your application you will receive payment within 3 days if you have selected direct deposit / within 10 days if you have selected by cheque. Please make sure that you reapply every 4 weeks, if you are still eligible for C.E.R.B. You will only get one payment every 4 weeks and there are total 4 payments that you will receive. Please note that even if you know that you will not be getting any income for the next 4 months or 16 weeks, you will not be able to get all the payments at one time or just applying once. You will have to log in every 4 weeks and make sure you apply. It is important because the process is that those who apply will get the benefits.

Please check the websites that I have provided links for.  If you have further questions post it in the comments and we’ll try to answer those questions.  The application process is straightforward. In other lectures we will talk about eligibility and some of the questions people have raised and I know that from the information the government has now provided there are a lot of questions that are being answered, so I will post separate lectures for that.

Thank you for watching.

Show Notes:

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Lecture Slides:

Welcome to YouCounsel.

You may have noticed that Amazon has been in the news lately.  In the United States some of its workers have walked out of their warehouses because they were concerned that there weren’t enough safety measures to protect them from the transmission of Covid-19. We have already posted a lecture on this topic but, because of this recent instance that occurred at Amazon, I thought it was appropriate to revisit this topic again—in light of what is going on in the U.S. with Amazon stores and then talk about the right to refuse work, in general, in Canada.

Please know that this lecture is not legal advice so if you have any specific questions you should contact a lawyer or a paralegal and in this case the Ministry of Labor of your province.

We will talk about Amazon.  We will talk about employer’s safety obligations towards employees in general. Can employees refuse work due to their concerns that they may contract Covid-19 virus? And then what are some of the procedures for refusing to work in Ontario?

This is an article from The Guardian.  It had indicated that this person, Chris Smalls, an assistant manager at one of the warehouses in Staten Island at Amazon had arranged to walk out because of the concerns that there were a few employees who had contracted coronavirus and other employees he believes were not protected. He had arranged to walk out and then he was terminated from his employment.  Amazon states that Mr. Smalls was terminated because he was not following some of the safety policies.  He had come in contact, close contact with a diagnosed associate.  He was asked to remain home with pay for 14 days—which he did not. Mr. Small claims otherwise.  He believes that he was terminated because he had arranged to walk out due to concerns over Covid-19.

Now, I understand, from the news that there are similar walk outs being arranged in Michigan and in Chicago in Amazon warehouses because of the concerns over there. We also know from this article in Reuters that Amazon workers in one facility had gone on strike.  You would know in Italy, it states that parcel and mail delivery is considered essential and has not been halted. But the requirement is that people should stay—employees should stay one meter safety distance and workers should wear face masks and gloves. Now several employees had claimed that the face masks were not—they were using the same face masks for a number of days and were not getting a new face mask each day. These are some of the concerns that have been raised, with regards to Amazon’s operations and as you know, you and I, all of us we have significant deliveries that we receive from Amazon even now it during this time, the operations are ongoing. If Amazon employees are exposed to corona virus, then invariably a lot of consumers who are receiving merchandise from Amazon are potentially at risk too.

The employers obligation with respect to providing a safe work environment in Canada, come from provincial health and safety legislation.  In the case of federal government, federal employees, federal health and safety legislation. Each province has its own health and safety legislation that essentially requires that it is an employer’s job to ensure that its employees have a safe working environment.  It applies to Amazon in Canada, it applies to Wal-Mart, it applies to all bigger employers, it applies to your corner grocery store, your law firms, your factories—every single employer is bound by the applicable legislation for health and safety.

What should an employer do?  Like Amazon?  First of all they need to make sure that they have appropriate Covid-19 protection policies in place and those policies need to be specific to the workplace. For example the policies that would apply to Amazon would be different than a policy that would apply in an office environment and that would be different than the policy that would apply in a retail environment and will be different from a policy that will apply in a production environment  The concern—the underlying concern is that you want to protect your workers your employees from the spread of corona virus, from Covid- 19. But how in your specific environment you will ensure that protection that needs to be considered and made part of a specific policy. Then those policies also should include, what kind of sanitation standards are being followed, so that employees understand what kind of sanitation standards are being used in your employment workplace. Employers should communicate those policies to employees because then employees need to understand what kind of measures their employers are taking to protect them and if they have any concerns then they could raise those concerns with those employers.

Now in fairness to employers, I was looking at what kind of guidelines the Ministry of Labor, at least in Ontario, may have provided for employers to enact those policies or provide guidelines.  Unfortunately, I did not find much information. I googled Covid-19 and Ministry of Labor. I found this page which is Ministry of Labor’s page in Ontario.  It has only one Covid-19 notice which is relating to construction site health and safety during Covi-19.  When you look at this particular pamphlet—this particular information—it again has very generic information about how do you protect yourself on a construction site from Covid-19.  It’s by washing your hands, and sneezing and avoiding high touch area—where possible and things like that. But there isn’t much of a guideline provided by the Ministry of Labor with respect to different kinds of workplaces. Ministry of Labor does not only monitor construction sites but it monitors every single employer. Ideally, there should have been information about health and safety precautions in retail sites and health and safety precautions in industrial sites and what not but unfortunately, I have not found much information.

The other link re corona virus takes you to this link which is information from the Ministry of Health.  Again it’s very generic information which talks about best practices—basically including what are the everyday actions that you need to do and then social distancing of 2 meters. In that situation, obviously, the employers have to do their own work to figure out what may work based upon at least the guidelines (the generic guidelines) that are available—how different kind of scenarios may play out in their workplace and how they’ll go about protecting their employees.

Can employees refuse work if they are concerned? Absolutely yes.  If you, as an employee, believe that you may contract Covid-19 because of improper policies or insufficient policies to protect you in the workplace, then the answer is yes. But your right to refuse work is subject to the occupational safety legislation. It’s not that you can just simply say no, I’m concerned.  You need to look at the specific legislation and see what that legislation say’s about right to refuse work. If you are in a province other than Ontario then you need to look at legislation for your own province and then follow the procedure. With respect to the procedure for refusal to work in Ontario, as I said, I have a separate lecture which I posted a few days ago, that has a bit more detailed information.  Please check that out.

Generally speaking, if you’re concerned you raise the concern with the employer.  The employer is required to investigate and resolve your concerns about the workplace safety. If you, during the time that the employer is investigating and resolving the issue, if you are expected or you’re required to stay home, then the employer is bound to give you your regular wages for that time. If you are not satisfied with the employer’s resolution then you contact the Ministry of Labor. The Ministry of Labor will send an inspector to check the workplace environment and then decide whether the employer is making sufficient or taking sufficient measures or not.

As you can imagine if the number of cases for Covid-19 grows in our country, then obviously, we will have more concerns about right to refuse work in our work place. I noticed that in downtown Toronto a lot of condo development is still ongoing—the buildings are still being built.  I don’t understand how condominium development is considered essential services, but this is something that I noticed personally. I’ve also been to a few grocery stores.  While the grocery stores have enacted certain policies about allowing a certain number of customers to go inside the store, I did not see a lot of measures to protect their employees with respect to providing them masks or gloves or keeping them at all times at a distance of more than 2 meters from its customers.

These are the issues that, unfortunately, will become subject of much debate in the coming days. I suspect we will be visiting this topic again.  Please stay safe.

Thank you for watching.

Show Notes:

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Lecture Slides:

Welcome to YouCounsel.

Government has announced additional changes for C.E.R.B. (Canada Emergency Response Benefits). It has allowed additional people, to be eligible. Still, not everybody’s eligible, but there are more people who are eligible. Who are those people? How has the criteria changed? Today’s update is all about that. What we have done is, we have used the slides from our previous lecture and then all the changes that the government has made we have posted these in our slides in blue color, so you can easily see what are the changes that have been made from the last time we provided a lecture on this.

We begin with our disclaimer that this lecture is not legal advice.  If you have any specific questions regarding your issues you should contact a lawyer or a paralegal or Canada Revenue Agency with respect to Canada Emergency Response Benefit.

Most of the criteria is the same, so we will not go into too much detail about that.

• You need to be at least 15 years old. This is straight forward.
• You should be residing in Canada. Not much has changed with respect to residing in Canada. But there are some clarifications that we can post.
• temporary foreign workers are eligible
• international students are eligible
• permanent residents are also eligible.

I just wanted to point that out. The only requirement is that you should be residing in Canada and you should have a valid social insurance number and of course you meet the other eligibility requirements.

A number of people have asked this question: that they were traveling overseas and for some reason they are stuck there and they are not able to return to Canada. Are they still eligible if they meet all the other conditions? I quite frankly do not know the answer. No clarity has been given on the Government of Canada website. I would assume that, the person is a resident of Canada and they have been temporarily stuck outside of Canada, so they should be eligible. But, you should contact C.R.A. to confirm the answer to this question.

• The requirement for $5000 has not changed. To be eligible, you should have earned $5000 gross income in the last 12 months or in 2019. That requirement remains the same. The income should include employment income, self-employment income, if you have earned any maternity or parental benefits, all of those are included.
• Previously the requirement was that you must have stopped work due to Covid-19 and that was the only requirement for eligibility and other reasons for stoppage of work would make you ineligible. That has changed. But stoppage of work is still “stoppage of work due to Covid-19”.  It is still one of the reasons that will make you eligible.
• Some of the conditions were you have been let go from your job and previously it said that your hours have been reduced to 0. That is no longer the case because the current eligibility allows you to work certain hours based on certain income.
• if you are in quarantine or sick due to Covid-19 or
• you were away taking care of someone who was sick due to Covid-19, or
• you are taking care of children who cannot go to daycare or schools because of Covid-19,

All of these are stoppage of work reasons due to Covid-19.  But, more importantly, what I want you to note is that these are only examples.  This is not an exhaustive list that relates to stoppage of work due to Covid-19.  There may be other circumstances in your case in which you are not working somehow related to Covid-19, but the situation is not covered here and so you may still be eligible. The key thing to note is that you have not voluntarily quit your job.  Because, if you have done so then, you will not be eligible for Canada Emergency Response Benefits.

• Now the eligibility change as I noted in blue is that people who are entitled to employment insurance benefits either regular or sickness benefits are now eligible for CERB What does this mean? We’ll explain that by way of some examples. Let’s say your stoppage of work is unrelated to Covid-19, but you are eligible to receive regular E. I. benefits, then now you are entitled. Previously if your employment contract was ending, regardless of Covid-19 you knew that your employment contract is ending on May or June or earlier. Then that’s the end of contract. It had nothing to do with Covid-19 and that would make you ineligible for CERB, but now you are eligible.
• Similarly, you may have received the Termination Notice of your employment months and months ago—you may have received the Notice sometime in August of last year—that your employment would end in March of 2020. That was obviously unrelated to Covid-19.  But, because of this particular change the government has introduced, now you are entitled to CERB Also, if you are on sickness, E.I. sickness benefits, but the reason for sickness is unrelated to Covid-19, then you will still be eligible for CERB Previously the reason for the illness had to be related to Covid-19, but now if your reason for illness is not related to Covid-19, you will still be eligible.
• One more change the government has introduced for eligibility is for people who have exhausted their regular employment insurance benefits, during a certain time period which is between December 29th 2019 to October 3rd 2020, these will be people who will also be eligible for CERB let’s explain that by way of example as well.

For example, if your employment was ended and you are now looking for work but you have received employment insurance benefits (regular benefits) during this period (between December 29th 2019 & October 3rd 2020), then you are now eligible for CERB One of the examples could be that your stoppage of work occurred prior to Covid-19.  For example, you were terminated from your employment in July of 2019 and you are entitled to regular E.I. benefits.  Those benefits continued beyond December 29th 2019—then you are still eligible. If those benefits expired prior to December 29th 2019, then you are not eligible.  Or, if you were terminated because of unrelated reasons, unrelated to Covid-19 but you received regular E.I. benefits, then you will get CERB—you’ll be eligible.

• This also applies to seasonal workers. For example, a lot of construction workers work in the summers and then they receive E.I. benefits for a certain time period. If those people were receiving benefits, between December 29th 2019 and October 3rd 2020 any time in that time period—then they will still be eligible for CERB even though their end of seasonal work was unrelated to Covid-19.
• Similarly, if you had received sickness benefits which were unrelated to Covid-19, but you were entitled to sickness benefits, E.I. sickness benefits during this time period then you will be eligible for CERB

So the key thing—the common thread in this eligibility is that CERB is now being extended to people who have received E.I. regular or sickness benefits between December 29th 2019 and October 3rd 2020.

What are the changes made to the income during the CERB period? There are certain changes.  It is important to note.  Previously what was stated was that your income in the initial 4-week benefits period. An initial 4-week benefit period, if you recall, started from March 15th and ran up to April 11^th.   Then the requirement was for 14 consecutive days your income had to be 0 in that time period. That has changed now,  Now when you’re making your 1st claim—so it is not tied to that particular 1st initial period—for the 4-week benefit period, your income for at least 14 consecutive days should not exceed $1000.00 and that is gross income. It is no longer 0, as long as you have not made more than $1000.00 in 14 consecutive days, in the 1st claim for your 4-week benefits period, you are now eligible for CERB

Now what does this term ‘income’ include? This is been explained a bit more in detail so let’s go through that.

• tips that people earn and declare as income – that is considered income;
• non-eligible dividends: these are basically monies that you receive from a corporation, small businesses;
• honoraria: this is usually for volunteer workers royalties;
• royalties for artists

These are some of the examples of income.  And obviously if you have earned a salary or if you have earned your self-employment income – then that’s all income

The same definition is used for the $5000 dollar requirement, what is considered income—the same definition applies here.

Please note that pension, student loans and bursaries are not considered employment income and they should not be included.

What about subsequent periods? Previously the requirement was that for subsequent periods your income had to be 0 that is no longer the case.  Now the requirement is that your employment income should not exceed $1000 for the entire 4 week benefits period. If it is not exceeding $1000, then you are eligible for CERB This is an incentive for people who are part-time or work less hours and want to continue working certain hours and earn some money.

The important thing is for people who are working part-time and earning less than $1000, the money from CERB is not top up.  It’s not that you are going to get additional money to complete the $2000 you will get the whole $2000. If you earn $1000 and you get CERB for $2000 that is $3000, so there is some advantage to people who continue to work part-time or for reduced hours.

Now income from other benefits, what is stated is that as long as, if you’re getting, for example, disability payments or other provincial support payments or territorial payments you need to look at your own provinces’ rules to see whether the rules allow you to get the support payments in addition to CERB And so each province has to decide that.  What the government website states is that government has encouraged the provinces to allow people to keep both payments.  My understanding is that so far only British Columbia has confirmed that it will allow temporarily people to keep CERB and their disability payments or other social assistance payments.  But for other provinces I’m not sure.  Please check with your province to see what the rules are with respect to both payments.

We’re talking about employment insurance or a CERB—which one you choose? Or can you choose between the two? If you are already receiving E.I. benefits whether regular illness, maternity or parental, you will continue to receive E.I.  If you were receiving less than $2000 a month, the amount will not increase to $2000 it will remain whatever you are receiving. If your E.I. expires before October 3rd 2020, as I have mentioned earlier, you can apply for CERB. And previously the requirement was that your stoppage of work needed to be related to Covid-19 and now that is no longer the case.  If your E.I. expires prior to October 3rd 2020 you will be eligible for CERB. If you have already applied for E.I. you should not apply for CERB.  It will automatically be converted to CERB if you applied on March 15th or later.  If you are eligible for E.I. before March 15th you will receive your regular E.I. benefits and if you are eligible for E.I. on March 15th or later you will receive CERB.  Again the payment amount for CERB is fixed—its $500 per week and that’s what you will receive. But if your E.I. is less and you are already receiving that lesser amount, your E.I. will not increase, you will not get CERB for that amount.

Let’s talk about this additional eligibility summary.  Let’s summarize it. Who are people who are now going to get CERB?

• People who have lost jobs before Covid-19 or unrelated to Covid-19 but received regular E.I. between December 29^th 2019 and/or later but before October 3rd 2020. These are people who may not have previously been eligible but now are eligible.
• People who are eligible for regular E.I. benefits—people who are terminated from employment unrelated to Covid-19, for example, end of contract, they are now eligible for CERB.
• People who are eligible for the E.I. sickness but their sickness is unrelated to Covid-19 they will be eligible for CERB now.
• Seasonal workers, as I indicated, who received regular E.I. until December 29th 2019 or later—they are until October 3rd 2020 they are entitled to, they are now eligible for CERB.

Please know that there are many people who are still not eligible for CERB. 

• Some of the people who are still not eligible are those who have lost jobs before the onset of Covid-19 and did not qualify for E.I.  These are people who did not have sufficient insurable hours to qualify for E.I. and they are not eligible.
• People who were out of employment for a certain time period and they are now looking for work—they are not eligible. People looking for work but did not receive E.I. between December 29th and October 3rd 2020, they are still not eligible.
• Part time people, reduced hours people, those who make less than $2000 but earn more than $1000 a month—they will not be eligible for CERB and, of course,
• People who did not earn $5000 in last 12 months of 2019 they are still not eligible for CERB
• And, finally, people who have who are receiving E.I., but their E.I. is less than $2000 a month, you’re not getting a top up—they’re not getting CERB; E.I. is what they are going to get.

Hopefully this gives you some more clarity about what are the changes that have been made. I understand that a lot of people may still not be eligible and we hope that there may be additional changes that will cover people who are in the need of these payments and who may not otherwise be eligible.

Thank you for watching.

Show Notes:

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Lecture Slides:

Welcome to YouCounsel.

Based on the inquiries that I have been receiving lately from employees and various employers, I believe there is some confusion about the right of an employer to temporarily lay off an employee. I wanted to post a lecture about this, although we had posted a lecture on this topic back in 2017—which is still available—but there is some additional information in this lecture.

As usual we begin with our disclaimer that this lecture is not legal advice. If you have any specific questions regarding your issues, you should contact a lawyer or a paralegal or the Law Society of Ontario for a referral.

In today’s lecture we will explain the difference between a layoff, which is termination and temporary layoff. We will talk about, under what circumstances can an employer temporarily layoff someone’s employment.  What to do if someone is laid off temporarily and that temporary layoff is unlawful?  What are the entitlements on a temporary layoff?  Now a lot of people when they are terminated from their employment they use this term / they say that “I have been laid off”. Technically, normal people say that; but legally speaking that is not an appropriate term. When an employment has ended completely, that is termination or dismissal or severance of employment.

But, what is important to note, is that in that case the end of employment is permanent. You’re not going back to that employer after a certain period—if their business improves or corona virus ends or whatever.  This is a final and a complete severance of ties with that employer. That is essentially termination which is different than layoff, which is a temporary layoff thing.  By temporary it means that there is a temporary interruption in your employment. You are still an employee.  Employment has not ended as under the Employment Standards Act. The temporary layoff could be up to 13 weeks in 20 consecutive weeks or in certain circumstances, it could be up to 35 weeks in 52 consecutive weeks. That is the length of the temporary layoff.  If the employer does not recall an employee within that time period, then that temporary layoff automatically becomes termination of employment and triggers termination of employment rights. A temporary layoff is slightly different than the layoff that we normally use, which is the end of employment.

Can my employer temporarily lay off my employment? The answer is yes and no.  In Scenario number one, there is a specific right, there’s a specific clause in your employment contract, that allows the employer to temporarily lay off an employee in certain circumstances or if you are a unionized employee, then it should be in your collective agreement or there has been past practice. For example, if you work in a factory and during downturns the factory lays off certain employees and it happens all the time, you have been laid off previously, then in those specific circumstances the employer does have a right to temporarily lay off employees and that would apply in today’s world where because of coronavirus, the businesses may be slow and you and your employer may not have sufficient work. But if there is no specific right in the employment contract or on the basis of past practice then the employer does not have an automatic right to temporarily lay off an employee. If an employer does that, then essentially the argument from the employee side is that, this is triggering the terminations, by sending me away even though you are saying that we are temporarily laying you off because the employer does not have that right that can potentially trigger termination rights for that employee.

Ok, so then if you are temporarily laid off and it is unlawful because the employer does not have that right, then what do you do? You essentially have 3 options.

Option number 1: is that you accept the temporary layoff and you do nothing. By doing nothing I mean that you do not dispute the employer, you do not challenge the employer’s decision and then you go and apply for your E.I. or Canada Emergency Relief Benefits and what not. But the problem with that is, in that case what you’re risking is the change of term in your employment agreement—essentially by accepting that temporary layoff. If there is another scenario, different scenario, not necessarily a pandemic situation, but an employer’s business maybe slow for some other reason, then the employer now potentially has a right to temporarily lay you off again because now by accepting a temporary layoff, it does become a past practice and then the employee can use that in a different scenario.

Option number 2: is you dispute or you challenge the employer. You say, that you do not have the right to temporarily lay me off based on my employment contract. Then what do you do? Essentially what you’re saying is that by temporarily laying me off you are terminating my employment.  Therefore, give me my termination rights—whether it’s termination pay, severance pay and / or reasonable notice. These are 3 different scenarios in combination or separate that you may be entitled to.  Therefore, you know you need to give me that money. Now the difficulty with that, is that, if the employer disputes that or if the employer is not willing to make your payment for the severance because either the employer does not have sufficient money because of the economic situation, then you are in a potential legal fight.  And if you know anything about courts—these days the courts are working on a reduced scale because of the environment / because of the circumstances of coronavirus.  Courts are dealing with emergency matters.  It may take a long time for you to resolve your dispute—a legal dispute with your employer.  Now, aside from worrying about your health issues and other circumstances, you are stressed out about a potential legal fight with an employer. There could be a 3rd option.

Option number 3: Not a lot of people have talked about it. I believe that this is possible—which is that you agree on a one time basis with your employer. This is a “Without Prejudice” basis.  Essentially the agreement is between the 2 parties—employer and the employee in writing and is on a Without Prejudice basis—that considering the circumstances, the health environment, the outbreak of Corona virus we both are agreeing that there is no change in the employment terms. This is one time exception because of the dire circumstances of the situation.  The employment rights are not changing and therefore you are preserving your rights.  You are saying that, “you the employer do not have any future right whether it’s because of a pandemic or another issue but my employment contract is not changing. I’m retaining the right. I’m just making this one time exception.  I believe that if there is a written agreement between employer and employee that agreement will be honored by the court.

Let’s talk about entitlements. Essentially you have 2 kinds of entitlements; one is to apply for Canada Emergency Response Benefits and I have a separate lecture on that.  You get $2000.00 per month up to 16 weeks.  That lecture was posted yesterday. By all means check that out.  These are the benefits that you may get with respect to the temporary layoff or permanent end of employment, and/or you apply for the employment insurance benefits which are regular benefits.  Again, your temporary layoff is up to 13 weeks in 20 consecutive weeks or 35 weeks in 52 consecutive weeks.  During this time you will get your employment insurance regular benefits. But, remember, that if at the end of 13 weeks or by 13 weeks the employer does not recall you, then essentially that temporary layoff turns into termination.  In some circumstances, there are specific conditions in the Employment Standards Act where the temporary layoff could be up to 35 weeks.  For those employees if the employer does not recall them within 35 weeks, then that temporary layoff turns into termination of employment. But with respect to applying for benefits, I’ve posted two separate lectures. By all means check those out.

I hope that this clarifies the rights and obligations with respect to temporary layoff and what are some of the things that employees can do to preserve their rights.  Or, if the employer does have the right, how do you proceed with respect to obtaining your benefits. Now one final point that I wanted to add was that in certain circumstances even though the employer may not have a right to terminate, the government can enact a statute or enforce a statute such as the Emergencies Act, which basically orders the employers to shut down their business. Now that decision is really not made by the employer.  It essentially is flowing from the application of a specific legislation and in that case then even if there is no right in this specific contract, the employer by virtue of that statute may still be able to temporarily lay you off. Hopefully this clarifies the issue.

You’re welcome to post your questions and I’ll try to answer as soon as possible.

Thank you for watching.

Show Notes:

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Lecture Slides:

Welcome to YouCounsel.

So far we have posted 2 lectures about arbitrations. The first lecture was about arbitrations in general, how arbitrations are scheduled and what is the framework of an arbitration. The second lecture was about arbitration clauses in consumer contracts.  In that lecture we explained that all of us, in some ways, are affected by arbitration clauses in so many contracts that we enter into and we don’t even know that arbitration clauses are applicable to our circumstances. We then argued that arbitration clauses in consumer contracts are unfair and problematic.  In today’s lecture we will discuss 3 cases—recent cases in Canada—that discuss the issue of arbitration clauses in contracts.  Then we will explain how Canadian courts have dealt with arbitration clauses in these decisions.

We begin our lecture with our usual disclaimer that this lecture is not legal advice. If you have any specific questions, regarding your issues you should contact a lawyer or a paralegal or the Law Society of Ontario for a referral.

The 1st case we will talk about is Telus v. Wellman.  The case was decided by the Supreme Court of Canada in 2019. The 2nd case will be Heller v. Uber.  This was decided by the Ontario Court of Appeal in 2019 and was appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada. We will discuss that as well.  Then finally there was also a case from Ontario Superior Court of Justice in 2019, Evans v. Mattamy Homes.

The story of Telus v. Wellman case is that this was a class action lawsuit that was brought against Telus by approximately 2,000,000 users.  Their essential allegation against Telus was that, Telus was overcharging them, overcharging all of these customers without disclosure.  How Telus was allegedly overcharging was that it was rounding up the calls to the next minute. For example, if you had a call which lasted 2 minutes and 45 seconds, Telus rounded it up to 3 minutes and charged you and other customers for that additional amount of time which was not part of your call. This was not disclosed to the customers and therefore this class action lawsuit was brought.

All of the Telus agreements with subscribers (with individual customers) had a mandatory arbitration agreement. Telus brought a motion before the court and argued that the courts do not have jurisdiction to deal with all of these complaints. They should not be part of a class action.  All of these individuals need to attend before an arbitrator separately. This was further complicated because Telus argued that there were 2 kinds of users out of these 2,000,000 users. Some of them were individual consumers and some of them were commercial consumers.  Why was the distinction made?  Because there is a legislation in Ontario called Consumer Protection Act.  That legislation basically provides that mandatory arbitration agreements in contracts, such as the one between Telus and its consumers, was unlawful.  Therefore, the mandatory arbitration agreement would not apply to ordinary consumers.

Telus brought this motion before the Superior Court of Justice in Ontario.  They lost that motion.  The judge reviewed the case on the basis of the Arbitration Act and basically decided that the 2 matters, i.e., the matters with respect to the consumers generally and with respect to the commercial or business consumers were related and they should be part of the same class action.  The judge made that decision by applying a specific provision of the Arbitration Act in interpreting that provision in a certain way.  It will be interesting for you to review the Superior Court judgement to understand how the judge made that decision. I will provide the link for the case below in the description of this video.

Now, Telus lost at the 1st instance at the motion.  Then they appealed at the Court of Appeal level. They lost at the Ontario Court of Appeal again.  Then they appealed to Supreme Court of Canada and interestingly they won at the Supreme Court of Canada. The decision at Supreme Court of Canada was quite divided.  There were 5 judges who ruled in favor of Telus and there were 4 judges who dissented.  It is an interesting discussion for you to read that case and understand how the Supreme Court of Canada was grappling with this issue. The majority (5) of the judges in Telus v. Wellman basically held that the Arbitration Act was enacted by the legislature and it dealt with the arbitration issues.  It allowed for the bifurcation of certain cases—where some part of the case could be argued before a court and some could be argued before an arbitrator.  If that can be done, then that should be done.  In this case, the consumers who were exempt from mandatory arbitration agreement because of the application of the Consumer Protection Act, should be able to proceed with a class action lawsuit before the courts.  But the other consumers who were not ordinary consumers should not be allowed and they should go to arbitration.

The fundamental reason why the majority judges came to that conclusion was that they believed that the language of the Arbitration Act was quite clear.  The discretion that was awarded to the courts was quite limited.  The discretion could not be exercised in the way the lower courts had decided on this case. The dissenting judges, had a different view.  Obviously, they disagreed with the 5 judges. The dissenting judges basically stated that the Arbitration Act allowed that level of discretion for the court.  And for the interest of justice and for public policy reasons, the court should use that discretion and then allow the class action to proceed for all of the subscribers. But I would suggest that you read this case and see the discussions between the justices of Supreme Court of Canada on this topic.

Let’s talk about Heller v. Uber. This was also a class action lawsuit.  It was brought against Uber by Uber drivers, who basically argued that they were employees and not independent contractors of Uber.  If that was correct, then Uber had violated the Employment Standards Act, in so many ways. All of these contracts that Uber drivers had with Uber had mandatory arbitration agreement.  It stated that you will have to bring an arbitration in Netherlands and the laws of the Netherlands would apply. Again, the issue was whether the courts have jurisdiction on this matter or not. When Uber brought its motion before the Superior Court of Justice, they were successful at that motion and the judge ruled in their favor—that yes, based on the application of the Arbitration Act and by reviewing the individual contracts the judge agreed with Uber that the court had no jurisdiction.

Then the matter was appealed to Ontario Court of Appeal which overturned the motion judge’s decision and basically ruled that Uber had violated the Employment Standards Act because the arbitration agreement, the mandatory arbitration agreement in the contract was in itself a violation of the Employment Standards Act.  That was one reason why the arbitration agreement would not be of help.  Secondly, the judges stated that the arbitration agreement was unconscionable because it required the individuals to spend money for the arbitration.  The cost was much higher for them and for that reason the agreement was unconscionable. When Uber was unsuccessful at Court of Appeal in Ontario, they then appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada.  That appeal was heard back in November of last year.  We are expecting the decision from the Supreme Court of Canada any time now.  It will be interesting to see how the Supreme Court of Canada rules on this issue.

The final case we’ll talk about today is Evans v. Mattamy Homes. This was also a class action lawsuit.  It was brought by various purchasers of Mattamy Homes.  All of their Agreements of Purchase and Sale had mandatory arbitration agreement. The case was also argued in 2019.  Mattamy Homes then brought this motion to argue that these consumers, these purchasers of homes did not have a right to go to court and bring a class action lawsuit.  The only option they have was to go to arbitration.  In this case the court held that the agreement was not unconscionable and the mandatory arbitration agreement was upheld and those individuals’ cases were thrown out of court.

As I said in the end of my last lecture, that the way the 1st world, the Western world has treated mandatory arbitration agreement, is quite different. In most of Europe, in Australia and in New Zealand, also I believe the mandatory arbitration agreements in consumer contracts are unlawful. In the United States they are prevalent and they are enforced.  Canada is now grappling with this issue.  Increasingly consumer contracts have this arbitration, mandatory arbitration agreement, which a lot of us are not even aware of.  The courts are now grappling with the issue whether those arbitration agreement should be enforced or not.  So far the courts have ruled in the favor of the mandatory arbitration agreements but we will see because the law will continue to develop on this matter.

Thank you for watching.

Show Notes:

N/A

Lecture Slides:

Welcome to YouCounsel.

In our last lecture we talked about arbitrations in general and we explained arbitration clauses in various contracts. We also discussed arbitration clauses and consumer contracts and we stated that, we find that there is a big problem with arbitration clauses in consumer contracts.  These are fundamentally unfair to consumers. In today’s lecture we will explain why these arbitration clauses are unfair in consumer contracts.

Please note that this lecture is not legal advice.  If you have any specific questions, regarding your issues, you should contact a lawyer or a paralegal or the Law Society of Ontario for a referral.

In today’s lecture will talk about 3 things. 1st of all I will explain what are consumer contracts.  Then we’ll talk about the normal dispute resolution process that is available in Canada (in Ontario) and in most of the democratic world.  Finally we will talk about what are some of the issues with respect to arbitration clauses in consumer contracts.

• Consumer Contracts are essentially contracts between one entity, one big supplier, one big developer, one big service provider, on one side and many, many, many consumers on the other side. For example, if you are a subscriber to Amazon then you are this one subscriber let’s say ‘A’ and you have an individual contract with Amazon which will be a consumer contract.  Like you many, many hundreds of thousands of people (millions of people) will have a similar contract with Amazon. Essentially it’s the same contract which is prepared by Amazon and when you agree to the terms of the uses of Amazon’s product or delivery process, then you are essentially agreeing to that contract. Each one of us has an individual contract with Amazon or any other party that we are engaging in business with and that contract is considered binding.  That contract has in it an arbitration clause or is going to have an arbitration clause in it and which is what we believe is problematic.
• In a normal dispute resolution process in Canada, if you as an individual have a case, a dispute with another party, then you can simply go to courts or tribunals and have your case argued there and get the decision from the court. If you have a case that is common with multiple users, for example, hundreds or thousands of users have a common issue with one party on the other side, then you can bring a class-action lawsuit and have all of these cases combined in one case and let the court decide the fairness of that case (of the dispute in question). Class actions are hugely, hugely important in a democratic society. We will have a separate lecture on class actions, but briefly speaking you can understand class actions in this way.

Let’s say that if you have a dispute with your telephone provider or service provider, which is worth $20.00 dollars.  The nature of the dispute is such that it’s not only you who has the same issue but 2,000,000 other people or 3,000,000 other people have the same problem because of the way that telephone provider is dealing with that specific service. As an individual if the dispute is worth $20.00 it may not make sense for you to go to court and have that case argued on an individual basis—it will cost you more, it will take a lot of your time, it will take a lot of courts time and so it wouldn’t make sense. But if 3,000,000 people have the same issue which is worth $20.00 each, then it makes sense to have all those issues combined together in one case and let the court decide. That is what a class action is.  Class action is a very important tool in a democratic society because a lot of people who have smaller issues with one entity, they can have those issues litigated in a cost-effective manner and in a manner that can apply to a large number of people. The results can apply to a large number of people. That is sort of the normal process, in our Canadian system which is how disputes are resolved.  Some of the key features, of our dispute resolution process is that it is a public process. You can walk into any court sit down, see the process unfold and so the idea of justice not only to be done, but to be seen is important and that is why it is a public process. Arbitral process is not at all a public process.  It is a confidential process.

Now again the 2nd item that you want to remember about our judicial system is that it’s subsidized by the state. We pay taxes which fund our judicial system. We have courts that are available to us for free, we have judges who are available to us for free, court staff who are available to us for free. With respect to the judicial system, we pay a minimal cost for the resolution. Yes, we have to pay significant amount of monies to our lawyers, but that you will have to pay in an arbitral process as well. But the judicial process itself is subsidized by the state in a democratic society and in Canada as well.

Another item of the judicial system is that it plays a significant role in the development of law. Many people who understand how judges make decisions, they understand that judges are not just applying the law, by interpreting different legislation, by applying it to different circumstances, they’re actually developing the law. In some cases there are new causes of actions that are created by judges because of the unfairness of a case that they may be dealing with. This is not something that may be available in an arbitral process. Also judicial system deals with public policy matters. That is one of the important functions of our appellate courts and Supreme Court of Canada that they deal with public policy issues all the time.  Then finally access to justice is part of the mandate of the judicial system. We can argue that our judicial system has a lot of problems and it is not performing all of these functions to the satisfaction of the general public, but that’s a separate debate. The question here is that, whether the arbitral system that you may end up subscribing to unknowingly, is that a better system than the court system and I submit, that it’s not.  It’s actually for the consumers, for the ordinary people, largely problematic.

• Okay, so what are some of the issues with the arbitration clauses in consumer contracts? Number one as I had mentioned in a previous lecture you have no right to go to court. The only place that you can go is before an arbitrator.  You cannot appeal that decision.  There is no oversight to that arbitral decision or very, very minimal oversight. The courts will try to be hands-off with respect to arbitral decision. Secondly, you have no right to have a class action. I will be very surprised if an arbitral agreement will allow for class actions, because the whole idea is to make it difficult for people, for ordinary consumers, to bring these cases against the providers.  There is no class action lawsuit that you can bring together.  Then most importantly, arbitral agreements in consumer contracts are not negotiated.

If there is a dispute between Microsoft and Amazon or Microsoft and Apple and they come to an agreement that they should resolve the dispute by arbitration, that’s fine.  But in consumer contracts you cannot. When you are subscribing to Amazon or when you’re subscribing to a Fortnight or any other service provider or buying any product you cannot say to the other side, say to Amazon that I’m okay to subscribe I’m willing to pay the money but, I’m not agreeing to the arbitration agreement in this contract.  That option is not open to you. You will simply not be able to subscribe.  It’s simply a one-sided contract which is enforced simply because you accept the terms and conditions and you don’t have a choice, you don’t have a say in this matter.

I’ve also mentioned that arbitration agreements end up costing more to the consumers because you will have to pay for the arbitration. Whereas in the court system you’re not paying for the judges and so some people argue that arbitration will be—considering the overall cost—cheaper, I completely disagree.  I believe that arbitration costs will be significantly higher. In arbitration each consumer if they have a dispute even though the dispute may be common to 20,000,000 people, each consumer will have to prepare his own case separately, bring it before the arbitrator and argue it. It is sort of divide and conquer policy. Each defendant on the other hand will have a similar defense to each case. If you have an issue of $20.00 worth based upon a policy of the telephone service provider or any other party and the other person will have a similar case—but these 2 people will not be working together in a class action lawsuit.  They’re working separately. Whereas the defendant has the same defense or similar defense for each of the cases.  It is much easier for the defendant to defend it. There’s also a problem that all of these cases, 20,000,000 of these will be going to the same arbitrators or a few arbitrators.  There is a concern that the process of decision making may not be fair.

I previously mentioned there’s lack of transparency in arbitration process. First of all it’s confidential so other people, who are not party to the arbitral process they may not know what the dispute is, they may not know what the decisions are.  Within the arbitration process the arbitrators, generally, do not provide detailed reasons for every single decision that they make in that arbitral process. There is relatively more lack of transparency in arbitration system, than in courts.

Public policy is not the main concern of arbitration process.  It is a dispute between 2 specific parties and that’s what they’re going to focus on.  In the interest of justice it is important that the arbitral process for the consumer contract is something that should not be in the arbitral system.

What you want to understand is that in most of the Western world (in most of the 1st world), especially in Europe, the arbitration agreement in consumer contracts are unlawful.  The main problem of arbitration agreement in consumer contracts exists in the United States and to some extent and increasingly so in Canada. In the United States, most of the arbitration agreements whether they are with consumers or whether they’re with commercial entities—they’re all enforceable. Now there are few cases (mostly in California) where the courts have held that those arbitration agreements were unconscionable but then those are the cases on the fringes.  The majority of the cases in the United States—the arbitration agreements are enforced.

Now, Canada has a similar issue. In Canadian courts, in Canadian law there is an Arbitration Act, as I mentioned in Ontario, which allows the parties to have the arbitration agreements and take away their ability to go to court.  The arbitration agreement does not distinguish between consumers or any other person.  Although there is a Consumer Protection Act that does provide some protection from the arbitration agreements in consumer context, but very, very limited.

In the next lecture we will talk about how the Canadian courts have been dealing with arbitration agreements.  I will talk about some of the latest cases and then we’ll discuss this matter further.

Hopefully this gives you some understanding of the arguments against arbitration agreements in consumer contracts, which will help you in making decisions with respect to your own cases.

Thank you for watching.

Show Notes:

N/A

Lecture Slides:

Welcome to YouCounsel.

In today’s lecture, we will talk about arbitration. Most people have heard of arbitrations but they don’t have a clear understanding of what arbitrations are about. How are arbitrations scheduled? Are they even relevant to everyday people? A lot of people have this misunderstanding that arbitrations are something to do with large commercial entities—which is not correct. Today’s lecture is going to provide a fundamental understanding of arbitrations. Then the next lecture, I will explain why arbitrations are hugely important for everyday people with respect to consumer contracts.

Please note, that this lecture is not legal advice. All of the opinions in this lecture are my personal opinions and you don’t need to agree with them. If you have any specific questions, regarding your own issues, you should contact a lawyer or a paralegal or the Law Society of Ontario for a referral.

Today, I will talk about (1) what is an arbitration; (2) what are some of the advantages and disadvantages of arbitration and we’ll talk briefly about (3) different kinds of arbitration agreements.

(1) Arbitration is essentially an alternative dispute resolution process. The courts have very minimal role in arbitration. Alternative dispute resolution, as the name implies, is a process which is alternative to our regular judicial system. Disputes in our system, legal disputes in our country, are usually resolved by courts and tribunals—that is our judicial system. But then there are processes that are alternative to that traditional approach of resolving disputes which is called alternative dispute resolution. Arbitration is one of those processes. Mediation is another process that you can have. It is important to understand that arbitration is not a court process. It is a process that is outside of the court and it is arranged by the parties to a dispute. What parties do is that parties agree to hire a neutral decision maker, which is called an arbitrator.

Most of the arbitrators in Canada are either senior lawyers or retired judges who are hired by parties as arbitrators, to hear their disputes and provide their decision. An arbitrator listens to the case, listens to the evidence and then decides a case. That decision is called an arbitral award, which is like a judgment. That decision is binding on parties. As I mentioned earlier, the courts have a very limited role in arbitration, so arbitral awards are final awards.

Most of the arbitration agreements will indicate that whatever the arbitrator’s decision is, that is final. Parties have no right to appeal. They cannot go to court and appeal that decision. They cannot ask the court to judicially review that decision. In most of the cases that is how arbitration agreements are laid out. Once an arbitrator has issued an award, if a party needs to enforce that award, they can enforce it like a court judgment. They have to file that award with the court and then that becomes a judgment. They can go and enforce it. All of these things of arbitration that happe, are based upon the Arbitration Act which is a legislation in Ontario, that governs how arbitrations are dealt with in Ontario.

(2) Let’s talk about some of the advantages and disadvantages of an arbitration process. The biggest advantage of an arbitration process is the speed with which an arbitration can be conducted. If you go to court i.e., if you start a court action, you have to file your claim, the other party files a defence, then you have to go through examinations for discovery and certain motions and stuff and it may take parties 2 years or longer to get to trial and have their disputes resolved. If they choose to go to arbitration, they could have an arbitration scheduled as quickly as in 2 months time or even faster depending upon the issues that are in dispute. Speed is one of the biggest advantages of an arbitration process—that you can get your issues resolved very, very quickly.

The 2nd advantage is that parties have huge control over the process of arbitration. Arbitration is not run under the Rules of Civil Procedure and so parties can decide—mutually agree—on what process they want to adopt with respect to that arbitration. Also because the arbitration is not bound by the Rules of Civil Procedure, the process of arbitration is quite informal with respect to the acceptance of evidence and hearing of evidence in an arbitration process. Also arbitrations are often times private. Actually, most of the arbitrations are private and confidential. Whatever the dispute is, it is not open to public and the decisions, the awards are not provided to public.

Some people argue that arbitrations have lower cost. I highly doubt it. I believe that is not correct. In my view, in majority of the cases, the arbitration will be more expensive than the court process. Remember, that in arbitration process, the parties are paying the costs of the arbitrator. A decent arbitrator in Ontario may cost you anywhere from $5000 to $10,000 or more per day. What people argue is that, the overall cost of the arbitration is less because you may not need to go through examinations for discovery and you can control the number of days that you have to go for a hearing and whatnot. But, in my personal view, I believe that the majority of the arbitrations will in the end be more expensive, more costly, with respect to a court process.

Disadvantages: In my view, cost is a bigger disadvantage for an arbitration process because you’re not relying on the public resources, the court system to have that dispute resolved. Another disadvantage of arbitration is that there is no right to appeal. In some cases it’s a good thing but in most cases, it takes away the right for a party to have that decision reviewed by a higher court. There is a lack of formal discovery process, which in some cases is a disadvantage. Also there is a bit of a more lack of transparency in arbitration process. The courts, the judges, are required to provide reasons for why they have arrived at certain conclusions. In an arbitrator’s case that is not true in all of the cases. Many of the interim decisions that the arbitrator may make may not be supported with reasons and so there is relatively less transparency in arbitration process. Costs are higher as I’ve said, but the biggest issue with arbitration, in my view, with respect to consumer issues is the access to justice. The lack of access to justice in arbitration, in my view, is a huge problem with respect to consumer issues which we will talk about in the next lecture.

(3) Let’s talk about arbitration agreement. By arbitration agreement what I mean is how parties get to an arbitration. How do parties end up in arbitration as opposed to a court? There are 2 ways that parties end up in an arbitration. I’ve said the 1st option is the “post-dispute arbitration” which essentially means that parties have a dispute, they realize that they have a dispute and now they have a choice to make, whether to go to court or tribunal depending upon the dispute or to hire an arbitrator and go through the arbitration process. Post dispute means, that the decision to go to arbitration is more of a voluntary decision. Parties look at the pros and cons of different options of this dispute solution and then they decide mutually that the best approach for them is to go to an arbitration. They want a speedy resolution, they want to get the decision made quickly in a matter of months, so they can get on with their businesses as usual.

The other one is called the “pre-dispute arbitration” which is a mandatory process. Pre-dispute arbitration essentially is that parties have already agreed to a contract in which they have agreed that if there is going to be a dispute between the parties the only way they are going to resolve that dispute is by going to an arbitration and they cannot go to a court. That is sort of a mandatory agreement to go to arbitration even before any dispute has arisen.

The most problematic example of mandatory arbitration agreements is in consumer contracts. A lot of people don’t realize that in a lot of their consumer contracts, they’re already bound by mandatory arbitration agreements. Which means, that if they have a dispute with that provider on the other side, they cannot go to court. The only option, they have is go to an arbitrator.

For example, home developers in most of the cases, whether you’re buying a house from Mattamy or another developer—when purchasing a new house in the Agreement of Purchase and Sale there is (in 99 percent of the cases that I know) an arbitration agreement clause that basically says that you the buyer, you the purchaser if you have any issues with the developer, you cannot go to court. You have to hire an arbitrator, pay the cost of the arbitrator and have that dispute resolved. If you buy stuff from Amazon—which we all do, if we have a dispute we cannot go to court. In Amazon there are certain circumstances in which you can go to Small Claims Court, but you have to go to the arbitral process. You have to hire an arbitrator and have your disputes resolved. I briefly looked at the Amazon’s arbitration agreement and I believe that in small claims matters you can still go to court and also you don’t need to pay the cost of the arbitrator unless the arbitrator finds that the issues that you have raised was frivolous.

There are certain things good things in that agreement too. Also if you purchase stuff like online games and stuff like that, you will find if you read the fine print of the contract it will say that all of the disputes are subject to arbitration. A lot of employment contracts that I see have this arbitration clause that employees will not be able to go to court and have the matter resolved in a court process. They will have to go through the arbitration process.

Therefore, it is important for everyday people to understand that a lot of consumer deals that they have, may have a mandatory arbitration agreement in it, which takes away the consumer’s rights to go to court and have their matter heard by a judge in the court system. They will have to incur (in most cases) the cost of arbitration which as I mentioned was going to be significant. They will not have the right to commence class action proceedings—join a number of causes together in a class action and have that matter resolved by the courts. Each party will have to go through separate arbitration with respect to their case. There are huge problems in my view with arbitration agreements (mandatory arbitration agreements) and consumer contracts which I will discuss in the next lecture.

Thank-you for watching.

Show Notes:

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Lecture Slides:

Welcome to YouCounsel.

Today’s lecture explains some of the options with respect to employment insurance benefits that may be available to various employees, due to the recent outbreak of Corona virus.

Please note that this lecture is not legal advice. If you have any specific questions, regarding your issues, you should contact a lawyer or a paralegal or the Law Society of Ontario for a referral.

We’ll talk about 4 kinds of benefits that may be available under the Employment Insurance Act:

1st is illness benefits;

2nd is temporary layoffs;

3rd is care giving benefits; and the

4th is work sharing program.

• With respect to illness benefits: (a) first you need to make sure that you are eligible for illness benefits under the Employment Insurance Act. What are some of the criteria that is for the illness benefits: (i) Number One you should be working for an employer that pays employment insurance premiums for you.  (ii) Secondly you are unable to work due to injury, illness or quarantine.  (iii) Number three, your weekly earning (the regular weekly earning) is decreased by more than 40%.  If you’re not working at all, then obviously the weekly earning is 0.  (iv) And, then you have 600 insured hours of work in the last 52 weeks. It is important to know that the time period to calculate is last 52 weeks.

For example, if you are one of the people who have just returned from parental leave or maternity leave and you do not have sufficient 600 insurable hours in the last 52 weeks, then you will not be eligible. Now there are 2 scenarios: one is the quarantine scenario. If you are in quarantine because of your own trip, recent trip or exposure to coronavirus or because of a family member, then you are able to get 2 weeks of employment insurance benefits through, E.I. illness program.  For that you do not require a doctor’s note or medical certificate.  But, if you need to extend the quarantine for longer than 2 weeks, then you would require a certificate from a physician.

Now with respect to illness, if you are ill or you have to stay in quarantine for longer than 2 weeks, then as I indicated, you will require a medical certificate. The illness benefits under the Employment Insurance Act can be up to 15 weeks and the income that you earn during the illness program is 55 percent of your income—up to a maximum of $573.00 per week. It comes out to be about, if you’re earning about $52,400.00 annually, then that’s what you get for $573.00 per week, but not more than that.

• Let’s talk about temporary layoff. A temporary layoff happens when there is shortage of work, for whatever reason at your workplace and the employer is temporarily laying you off. Your employment is not terminated. Temporary layoff is not the same as termination of employment.  So an employee can be laid off temporarily from his or her employment for up to 13 weeks in 20 consecutive weeks.  That is one scenario or it could be longer than that.  It could be up to 35 weeks in 52 consecutive weeks.  There is specific requirement to be entitled to 35 weeks of temporary layoff and those are stipulated in Employment Standards Act.

Now just as a side note, not every employee can be temporarily laid off. An employer does not have an automatic right under Employment Standards Act to temporarily lay off employees. That right needs to be specified in the individual employment contract of that employee. If your employment contract does not stipulate that your employment can temporarily be laid off, then your employer does not have the right to temporarily lay you off and your temporary layoff maybe considered termination, depending upon the circumstances.

With respect to eligibility, it’s quite similar to the eligibility for regular benefits.  Obviously you should be working for an employer who pays premium on your behalf for employment insurance benefits and then your insurable hours can range from 420 to 700 hours depending upon the area that you live in. These are different hours.

• The third kind of benefits are caregiver benefits. Now there are 3 kinds of caregiving benefits; (i) family caregiver for children, (ii) family caregiver for adults and then (iii) compassionate care giver benefits. For family caregiver for children, the child has to be under 18 years of age. The person should be either critically ill or injured. Under certain circumstances of Corona virus, the person can be considered critically ill. The benefits can be up to 35 weeks and then the person, you don’t have to be related to that person who is ill, as long as that person considers you family and you don’t need to be living with that person to be a family caregiver. With respect to family care benefits for adults. Now the adult has to be 18 years or over.  The benefits are up to 15 weeks and again you don’t have to be related to that person. With respect to compassionate care, this applies only if you are looking after someone for their end-of-life care and age is not relevant and the benefits are up to 26 weeks.
• The last category is a work sharing program. This is a specific program under the Employment Insurance Act; there is a 3 way agreement essentially in this program. The agreement is between employer, employee and Service Canada. All 3 of the parties have to agree to work sharing program. The essential goal of this program is to avoid temporarily laying off employees.  Essentially in this program if you are approved / if your company is approved for work sharing programs and you as an employee have signed up for the program, then essentially you work reduced hours and you share all of the work with other employees who are in that program. There is more detail about this work sharing program that I will include in a separate lecture.

Hopefully this gives you a sense of some of the benefits that are available under Employment Insurance Act. Obviously there are specific requirements with respect to each category of benefits so please make sure to check the Employment Insurance Canada website, the Service Canada website or contact their phone number.  In the following lectures I will try to cover the Corona Virus issues with respect to Employment Standards Act, Privacy Act and human rights issues. I also wanted to mention some of the measures taken by Government of Canada with respect to illness benefits. 

There is a posting on the Government of Canada website, which is entitled “Canada’s Covid Economic Response Plan”. You can Google it. In here you will see that, the Canadian government is introducing emergency care benefits, which will be introduced. The legislation is still not approved, but it will be done hopefully by April and under these emergency care benefits people will be entitled to $900.00 bi-weekly for up to 15 weeks. This is a flat payment.  This would apply to people who are self-employed and people who otherwise will not qualify for sickness benefits. Similarly for individuals, including self-employed, who are taking care of a family member who is sick with covid and they are not entitled to E.I. sickness benefits or people who will not earn any employment income because they are taking care of their children who are at home due to school or daycare closures.

Please bookmark this page and keep an eye on it. It will have further information about this and you will see that emergency care benefits are expected to be approved by early April 2020.

Thank you for watching.