Judge awards caregiver $10,000 after recruiter failed to get her a job

A foreign caregiver brought to Canada with a job offer from a "ghost employer" has been awarded $10,000 in damages in what is believed to be the first court victory against a nanny recruiter.

See the article in Toronto Star

Woman Loses Long Term Sick Benefits Because of Facebook Photos

A Quebec woman on long-term sick leave is fighting to have her benefits reinstated after her employer's insurance company cut them, she says, because of photos posted on Facebook. Nathalie Blanchard, 29, has been on leave from her job at IBM in Bromont, Que., for the last year and a half after she was diagnosed with major depression.

Manulife wouldn't comment on Blanchard's case, but in a written statement sent to CBC News, the insurer said: "We would not deny or terminate a valid claim solely based on information published on websites such as Facebook." It confirmed that it uses the popular social networking site to investigate clients

See the full story on the CBC

http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2009/11/19/quebec-facebook-sick-leave-benefits.html

Woman Fired Over Pregnancy Wins $35,000 in Rights Case

The Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario orders beauty salon to pay former worker damages

From the Toronto Star October 30, 2009

Jessica Maciel was four months pregnant when she started working as a
receptionist at the salon in August 2008. She didn't mention her pregnancy
during her job interview, knowing that if she divulged that information, she
wouldn't have gotten the job. There is no requirement under the Ontario's Human
Rights Code to advise prospective employers about a pregnancy.

Kate Sellars said Ontario's Human Rights Legal Support Centre, which
handled Maciel's case, receives about 40 calls per week from women facing
similar discrimination. "What happened to Jessica isn't unique, but it is
illegal," Sellars said. "It takes a lot of courage and conviction to see the
matter through. And she did that."

News article available: www.torontostar.com

Read the full decision on CanLII

Arrested While Delivering Newspapers Wins $5,000 Award

Sharon Abbott was out delivering newspapers to a west Toronto neighbourhood, a job she has held for 12 years when she was arrested. The Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario found that race and gender played a role in her arrest by the Toronto Police.

Read the newspaper article.

Read the full decision on CanLII.

Ontario Suspends Self-Employment Benefits Program

According to this article in the Toronto Star, the government of Ontario is suspending it’s “Self-Employment Benefits" program for workers laid off in the recession. It is to be suspended until at least next April.

This program is designed to help laid off workers who are on Employment Insurance start their own business. The program helps some 3000 people in Ontario annually.

*EDIT: This post has been edited to correctly identify the Self-Employment Benefits program as the program that was suspended, it was not the Second Career Program as previously posted. The Second Career Program is still running. More information can be found at http://bit.ly/3JoRLN

Changes Proposed to Federal Temporary Foreign Worker Program

This past weekend, the Canadian government proposed regulatory amendments to the Temporary Foreign Worker Program. These changes include:

• a more rigorous assessment of the genuineness of the job offer;
• limits to the length of a worker’s stay in Canada before returning home; and
• a two-year prohibition from hiring a temporary foreign worker for employers found to have provided significantly different wages, working conditions or occupations than promised

Employers who are prohibited from hiring temporary foreign workers will be listed on the Citizenship and Immigration Website http://www.cic.gc.ca. For more information, see the official press release.

WSIB Chair Apparently Overbilled Government

Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) chair Steve Mahoney, a former Liberal cabinet minister, is paid $550 a day for the part-time job, and billed taxpayers $141,000 last year, "more per diems than there are working days in the year," complained the Progressive Conservatives. Check out the full article on the Toronto Star website.