Tax & Trade Blog

On October 23, 2018, the Conservative-led Government of Ontario announced Bill 47, Making Ontario Open for Business Act, 2018. If Bill 47 passes, it would make a number of significant changes to the Employment Standards Act, 2000 and the Labour Relations Act, 1995, including repeals of many of the workplace reforms made last year by the then-Liberal government.

Amendments to Canada’s federal privacy legislation, the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), are coming into force on November 1, 2018. These amendments impose upon organizations mandatory reporting, notification, and record-keeping requirements in the event of a privacy breach. The new rules are intended to ensure that Canadians receive sufficient information about privacy breaches regarding their personal information, to promote better data security practices by organizations, and to harmonize with the privacy laws in other jurisdictions (most notably with the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation).

The distinction between employees and independent contractors has always been an important one in Ontario because while employees are covered by the protections of the Employment Standards Act, 2000 (e.g. sick pay, maternity leave, etc.), independent contractors are not.

While there is no simple formula to determine whether a worker is an employee or an independent contractor, the Ontario government has outlined some factors to consider when trying to make this determination.