2015

"The Digital Privacy Act (Bill S-4) passed into law, introducing (among other things) significant fines and mandatory breach notification (not yet in force) into the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA). Organizations which handle personal information in the course of their commercial activities will want to undertake a review of their privacy policies and security safeguards. In light of the new power to levy significant monetary penalties, boards of directors may want to review their organization 's allocation of risk around these issues. There are four areas that will be of significant concern to organizations: consent, mandatory breach notification, penalties and confidentiality. The Digital Privacy Act modernizes the ""business contact"" carve-out from the definition of personal information."

"In the case, an adjudicator reinstated an alcoholic employee who was dismissed after he was found to be under the influence of alcohol at work. The employee had previously been disciplined for alcohol consumption, lateness|absenteeism and abandoning his shift, and on one occasion had entered into a ""last chance agreement"". The adjudicator held that the employee, as an alcoholic, suffered from a ""disability"" for the purposes of human rights legislation. The adjudicator expressed concern that the employer 's compassionate approach created the general impression in the mind of the employee that the threat of dismissal was not serious. Further, there was no aggressive behaviour from the employee in the incident that led to his dismissal. As such, the adjudicator held that the dismissal was excessive and that the employer had not yet approached the point of ""undue hardship"" in accommodating the employee's alcoholism."

An employee who smoked marijuana on the job without legal and medical authorization was not discriminated against when dismissed under his employer 's "zero tolerance" policy, the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal has held.

The employer had a policy of "zero tolerance for drugs on the work site" and gave the employee a letter stating that "if you can 't stop taking drugs on the work site" and don't attend at work, then the employee would be considered to have quit. In summary, the Human Rights Code did not require the employer to accommodate the employee by permitting him to smoke marijuana in the workplace without legal and medical authorization. The employee 's human rights complaint was therefore dismissed.