News
Companies are implementing vaccine mandates. Can employees reject them? – CBC.ca
Federal and provincial governments, private businesses as well as Canada’s biggest banks have in recent weeks announced plans to implement mandatory vaccination policies for many of their returning staff.
These vaccine mandates require their employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19. But do employers have the right to impose such mandates? What if employees refuse?
CBC News looks at the legal issues these mandates raise.
Do companies face legal hurdles in imposing vaccine mandates?
That will likely depend on the particular circumstances that an employer and employee find themselves in, says Toronto-based employment lawyer Alex Lucifero. And the law will differ, he says, based upon a number of factors — for example, the particular industry, or whether the employees are unionized.
“There’ll be a bunch of different factors that will be taken into consideration,” he said. “I imagine eventually there will potentially be different laws for different industries or groups of employees. For that reason, it makes it extremely complex and there is no ‘one size fits all’ answer.”
Employment lawyer Adam Savaglio, a partner with Scarfone Hawkins LLP in Hamilton, Ont. told CBC News that there are many misconceptions and incorrect assumptions about the law around vaccination mandates.
“They can’t necessarily compel, but they can certainly ask for evidence of vaccination because they have an underlying obligation to that worker and others in the workplace to provide a healthy and safe workplace,” he said in an interview.
However, Toronto-based employment lawyer Howard Levitt said that in Canadian law, safety always trumps privacy. That means employers will be permitted by the courts and arbitrators to have compulsory vaccination policies, except for religious and medical exemptions.
Can a company fire an employee who refuses to get vaccinated?
“I believe they have the rights as an employer to mandate it and to terminate people who won’t comply,” Levitt said.
Lucifero said someone who refuses to adhere to an employer’s vaccine mandate because of a medical condition or religious belief cannot be fired because that would be considered discrimination under the human rights code.
“But the reality is that your employer can let you go because you haven’t been vaccinated. An employer can actually let you go for no particular reason at all. That’s what we call a ‘without cause’ termination,” he said.
“Your employer doesn’t even need a reason to let you go as long as the proper amount of severance is paid.”
What about charter rights to protect me if I don’t want to be vaccinated?
What’s important for people to understand, says constitutional expert Wayne MacKay, professor emeritus of law at Dalhousie University, is that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms only applies to government action. That means, when it comes to vaccine mandates, the charter only applies for government workers refusing such a decree.
“It doesn’t apply to private businesses or [a] private individual’s actions,” he said. “Statute law does, privacy laws, human rights codes, those kind of things. But only government action is restricted by the charter.“
What charter rights might apply to vaccine mandates?
There are potentially at least three sections of the charter that could be used by a government employee to challenge a vaccine mandate, including Section 7 — the right to life, liberty and security of the person.
That could be cited to challenge “a policy that seems to coerce people into getting vaccinated,” wrote University of B.C. law professor Debra Parkes and University of Ottawa law professor Carissima Mathen in a recent editorial.
However, Bryan Thomas, adjunct professor at the University of Ottawa’s Centre for Health Law, Policy & Ethics, says he believes challenges under Section 7 are unlikely to be successful because that section doesn’t protect an individual’s economic interests or “your ability to retain a job.”
Section 15, which offers protection from discrimination, could also be invoked but Thomas says he believes it would fail as an argument because an employer is not actually discounting anyone’s interests.
WATCH | All kinds of employers grappling with vaccine mandates
![](https://thumbnails.cbc.ca/maven_legacy/thumbnails/1007/623/vaccines-workplace-hansen-160821.jpg?crop=1.777xh:h;*,*&downsize=510px:* 510w")
Some Canadian companies have imposed their own COVID-19 vaccine requirements on employees who want to return to the workplace, while others are hoping the federal government’s new mandate will be applied to them. But some employment lawyers say though vaccine mandates are legal, they’re not simple. 2:04
“[They’re] making up kind of this a legitimate form of discrimination and saying, you know, you unvaccinated person pose a great risk to yourself and to others by entering the workplace,” said Thomas.
Section 2A, the so-called religious exemption, or freedom of conscience, could also be applicable.
Parkes and Mathen wrote that this an underdeveloped area of charter law, but could be relevant “where a person has a sincerely held belief that the vaccination is harmful to their health or, in some other way, deeply wrong.”
But Thomas said someone who is vaccine hesitant, for example, couldn’t claim that’s a freedom of conscience issue.
“The courts have a more rigorous test or standard for conscience,” he said. “It has to be something that’s akin to a religion in your life.”
More money will land in the pockets of Canadian families on Friday for the latest Canada Child Benefit (CCB) installment.
The federal government program helps low and middle-income families struggling with the soaring cost of raising a child.
Canadian citizens, permanent residents, or refugees who are the primary caregivers for children under 18 years old are eligible for the program, introduced in 2016.
The non-taxable monthly payments are based on a family’s net income and how many children they have. Families that have an adjusted net income under $34,863 will receive the maximum amount per child.
For a child under six years old, an applicant can annually receive up to $7,437 per child, and up to $6,275 per child for kids between the ages of six through 17.
That translates to up to $619.75 per month for the younger cohort and $522.91 per month for the older group.
The benefit is recalculated every July and most recently increased 6.3 per cent in order to adjust to the rate of inflation, and cost of living.
To apply, an applicant can submit through a child’s birth registration, complete an online form or mail in an application to a tax centre.
The next payment date will take place on May 17.
News
Capital gains tax change draws ire from some Canadian entrepreneurs worried it will worsen brain drain – CBC.ca
A chorus of Canadian entrepreneurs and investors is blasting the federal government’s budget for expanding a tax on the rich. They say it will lead to brain drain and further degrade Canada’s already poor productivity.
In the 2024 budget unveiled Tuesday, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland said the government would increase the inclusion rate of the capital gains tax from 50 per cent to 67 per cent for businesses and trusts, generating an estimated $19 billion in new revenue.
Capital gains are the profits that individuals or businesses make from selling an asset — like a stock or a second home. Individuals are subject to the new changes on any profits over $250,000.
The government estimates that the changes would impact 40,000 individuals (or 0.13 per cent of Canadians in any given year) and 307,000 companies in Canada.
However, some members of the business community say that expanding the taxable amount will devastate productivity, investment and entrepreneurship in Canada, and might even compel some of the country’s talent and startups to take their business elsewhere.
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland unveiled the government’s 2024 federal budget, with spending targeted at young voters and a plan to raise capital gains taxes for some of the wealthiest Canadians.
Benjamin Bergen, president of the Council of Canadian Innovators (CCI), said the capital gains tax has overshadowed parts of the federal budget that the business community would otherwise be excited about.
“There were definitely some other stars in the budget that were interesting,” he said. “However, the … capital gains piece really is the sun, and it’s daylight. So this is really the only thing that innovators can see.”
The CCI has written and is circulating an open letter signed by more than 1,000 people in the Canadian business community to Trudeau’s government asking it to scrap the tax change.
Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke and president Harley Finkelstein also weighed in on the proposed hike on X, formerly known as Twitter.
We need to be doing everything we can to turn Canada into the best place for entrepreneurs to build 🇨🇦<br><br>What’s proposed in the federal budget will do the complete opposite. Innovators and entrepreneurs will suffer and their success will be penalized — this is not a wealth tax,…
—@harleyf
Former finance minister Bill Morneau said his successor’s budget disincentivizes businesses from investing in the country’s innovation sector: “It’s probably very troubling for many investors.”
Canada’s productivity — a measure that compares economic output to hours worked — has been relatively poor for decades. It underperforms against the OECD average and against several other G7 countries, including the U.S., Germany, U.K. and Japan, on the measure.
Bank of Canada senior deputy governor Carolyn Rogers sounded the alarm on Canada’s lagging productivity in a speech last month, saying the country’s need to increase the rate had reached emergency levels, following one of the weakest years for the economy in recent memory.
The government said it was proposing the tax change to make life more affordable for younger generations and fund efforts to boost housing supply — and that it would support productivity growth.
A challenge for investors, founders and workers
The change could have a chilling effect for several reasons, with companies already struggling to access funding in a high interest rate environment, said Bergen.
He questioned whether investors will want to fund Canadian companies if the government’s taxation policies make it difficult for those firms to grow — and whether founders might just pack up.
The expanded inclusion rate “is just one of the other potential concerns that firms are going to have as they’re looking to grow their companies.”
He said the rejigged tax is also an affront to high-skilled workers from low-innovation sectors who might have taken the risk of joining a startup for the opportunity, even taking a lower wage on the chance that a firm’s stock options grow in value.
But Lindsay Tedds, an associate economics professor at the University of Calgary, said the tax change is one of the most misunderstood parts of the federal budget — and that its impact on the country’s talent has been overstated.
“This is not a major innovation-biting tax change treatment,” Tedds said. “In fact, when you talk to real grassroots entrepreneurs that are setting up businesses, tax rates do not come into their decision.”
As for productivity, Tedds said Canadians might see improvements in the long run “to the degree that some of our productivity problems are driven by stresses like housing affordability, access to child care, things like that.”
‘One foot on the gas, one foot on the brake’
Some say the government is sending mixed messages to entrepreneurs by touting tailored tax breaks — like the Canada Entrepreneurs’ Incentive, which reduces the capital gains inclusion rate to 33 per cent on a lifetime maximum of $2 million — while introducing measures they say would dampen investment and innovation.
“They seem to have one foot on the gas, one foot on the brake on the very same file,” said Dan Kelly, president of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business.
Some business groups are worried that new capital gains tax changes could hurt economic growth. But according to Small Business Minister Rechie Valdez, most Canadians won’t be impacted by that change — and it’s a move to create fairness.
A founder may be able to sell their successful company with a lower capital gains treatment than otherwise possible, he said.
“At the same time, though, big chunks of it may be subject to a higher rate of capital gains inclusion.”
Selling a company can fund an individual’s retirement, he said, which is why it’s one of the first things founders consider when they think about capital gains.
Mainstreet NS7:03Ottawa is proposing a hike to capital gains tax. What does that mean?
Tuesday’s federal budget includes nearly $53 billion in new spending over the next five years with a clear focus on affordability and housing. To help pay for some of that new spending, Ottawa is proposing a hike to the capital gains tax. Moshe Lander, an economics lecturer at Concordia University, joins host Jeff Douglas to explain.
Dennis Darby, president and CEO of Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters, says he was disappointed by the change — and that it sends the wrong message to Canadian industries like his own.
He wants to see the government commit to more tax credit proposals like the Canada Carbon Rebate for Small Businesses, which he said would incentivize business owners to stay and help make Canada competitive with the U.S.
“We’ve had a lot of difficulties attracting investment over the years. I don’t think this will make it any better.”
Tech titan says change will only impact richest of the rich
Toronto tech entrepreneur Ali Asaria will be one of those subject to the expanded capital gains inclusion rate — but he says it’s only fair.
“It’s going to really affect the richest of the rich people,” Asaria, CEO of open source platform Transformer Lab and founder of well.ca, told CBC News.
“The capital gains exemption is probably the largest tax break that I’ve ever received in my life,” he said. “So I know a lot about what that benefit can look like, but I’ve also always felt like it was probably one of the most unfair parts of the tax code today.”
While Asaria said Canada needs to continue encouraging talent to take risks and build companies in the country, taxation policies aren’t the most major problem.
“I think that the biggest central issue to the reason why people will leave Canada is bigger issues, like housing,” he said.
“How do we make it easier to live in Canada so that we can all invest in ourselves and invest in our companies? That’s a more important question than, ‘How do we help the top 0.13 per cent of Canadians make more money?'”
More money will land in the pockets of Canadian families on Friday for the latest Canada Child Benefit (CCB) installment.
The federal government program helps low and middle-income families struggling with the soaring cost of raising a child.
Canadian citizens, permanent residents, or refugees who are the primary caregivers for children under 18 years old are eligible for the program, introduced in 2016.
The non-taxable monthly payments are based on a family’s net income and how many children they have. Families that have an adjusted net income under $34,863 will receive the maximum amount per child.
For a child under six years old, an applicant can annually receive up to $7,437 per child, and up to $6,275 per child for kids between the ages of six through 17.
That translates to up to $619.75 per month for the younger cohort and $522.91 per month for the older group.
The benefit is recalculated every July and most recently increased 6.3 per cent in order to adjust to the rate of inflation, and cost of living.
To apply, an applicant can submit through a child’s birth registration, complete an online form or mail in an application to a tax centre.
The next payment date will take place on May 17.
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