Labour Code: New Record‑Keeping and Complaints

Summary#

These final rules — Regulations Amending Certain Regulations Made Under the Canada Labour Code (SOR/2022-41) — update several sets of labour regulations to support changes already made to the Canada Labour Code. They add specific record-keeping duties for employers, allow some complaint deadlines to be extended, and make related technical fixes. The instrument was registered on March 4, 2022, and some parts come into force 90 days later (about May 3, 2022).

What it does#

• Adds new record-keeping obligations (mainly to the Canada Labour Standards Regulations and the Standards for Work-Integrated Learning Activities Regulations):
  • Employers must record unforeseeable emergencies that justify not giving 24 hours notice of a shift change.
  • Employers must record when a scheduled 30-minute break is postponed or cancelled.
  • Employers must record exceptions to the minimum 8-hour rest period between shifts.
  • Employers must keep copies of medical-break certificates and any employer requests for those certificates. A certificate must show the start and end dates of the period when medical breaks are needed.
  • For unpaid interns, employers must keep every written work schedule, any schedule changes, and any refusals to work when the intern did not receive 96 hours written notice.
• Lets the Labour Program extend some complaint deadlines:
  • More time can be granted to correct or refile monetary or non-monetary complaints, and to refile unjust dismissal or genetic testing complaints when the original filing contained an error or was withdrawn.
• Amends the Administrative Monetary Penalties (Canada Labour Code) Regulations so some of the new record-keeping failures can be enforced with an administrative penalty (classified as Type A).
• Makes other technical and clarifying changes, for example:
  • Replaces older terms (e.g. “sick leave” → “medical leave”; “qualified medical practitioner” → “health care practitioner”).
  • Clarifies overtime pay where hours are averaged and an employee is laid off during the averaging period.
  • Allows substitution of any day for a general holiday where a collective agreement so provides.
  • Specifies that an employer’s obligation to accommodate a returning employee starts on the date a plan-authorized health practitioner says the employee is fit and ends 18 months after that date.

Who's affected#

• Employers and workers in federal jurisdiction: about 19,000 employers, 950,000 employees, and 1,300 unpaid interns in industries such as interprovincial transportation, banks, telecom, ports, air transport and others covered by the Canada Labour Code.
• Small federally regulated businesses: the government estimated 17,858 small businesses would be affected and included a small-business cost estimate.
• The changes do not apply to workplaces under provincial labour law (that is, most Canadian workplaces fall outside these rules).

Why it matters#

• Employers will have to keep more detailed records. The government estimates additional costs over the implementation period (present value) at roughly $7.5 million to $7,895,262, or about $1.1 million per year, mostly for administrative time and training.
• Some record-keeping failures are now enforceable with administrative monetary penalties (added as Type A violations), which gives inspectors a tool to promote compliance.
• The new rules make it easier for inspectors to check whether exceptions to scheduling and break rules were justified. That should help protect employees’ rights to predictable schedules, rest and medical breaks.
• The deadline-extension rules give employees a second chance to correct honest filing errors so they do not lose the ability to have their complaints considered.