Legislation Updates 2023

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The Canada Revenue Agency is currently updating its webpages and Form T2200 for the 2023 tax year. The updated form, which will be made available at the end of January 2024, along with other T1 related forms, will be easier to complete for employees who are only claiming a deduction for home office expenses.

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In October 2022, the B.C. government announced Bill 41, introducing seven amendments to the Workers Compensation Act. Three amendments took effect on November 24, 2022: indexation of benefits, compensation for non-traumatic hearing loss, claims suppression.

The remaining four amendments, independent medical examinations, interest on delayed benefit payments, fair practices commissioner, and duty to cooperate and duty to maintain employment are taking effect in 2023 and 2024. 

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Beginning in 2024, an additional maximum pensionable earnings (second higher ceiling) is introduced. Employees and employers are required to make a second additional CPP contribution (CPP2) on these earnings, beginning at the first earnings ceiling and going up to the second earnings ceiling, at a rate of 4.0%.

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App-based ride-hailing and food-delivery gig workers will soon have better working conditions with new protections, including basic employment standards.

In recent years there has been significant growth of the gig economy, where income is earned outside of a traditional employment relationship. The Province is taking action to bring fairness and predictability to these types of jobs with new proposed standards as the sector continues to expand.

After significant engagement with app-based ride-hail and food-delivery workers, platform companies, labour organizations and other parties, the Government of B.C. is proposing solutions to ensure appropriate employment standards and other protections are in place in this sector.

On November 20, 2023, Government introduced proposed amendments to the Employment Standards Act and Workers Compensation Act to implement these solutions. The amendments will enable the development of regulations establishing basic employment standards and workers’ compensation protections for this sector.

Engagement with platform companies, app-based ride-hail and food-delivery workers, and other stakeholders will continue through the regulation development process.

Changes will come into effect after the legislation is passed and new regulations are finalized. More information regarding the proposed amendments and the nature of the proposed employment standards and workers’ compensation protections can be found in the November 16 and November 20 news releases.

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Beginning with the 2023 tax year, issuers (including employers and pension plan administrators) of the T4 Statement of Remuneration Paid and T4A Statement of Pension, Retirement, Annuity, and Other Income must report on a T4 or T4A slip whether, on December 31st of the taxation year to which the information return relates, a payee or any of their family members were eligible to access dental insurance, or dental coverage of any kind, including health spending and wellness accounts, due to their current or former employment.

This reporting requirement is mandatory beginning with the 2023 tax year, and will continue to be required on an annual basis. Failing to report this information may result in financial penalties.

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Canada will soon have its first form of national dental care coverage, now that legislation implementing a benefit program for children under the age of 12, has passed.

On Thursday, the bill bringing in the dental benefit for lower-income families—known as Bill C-31— brought forward alongside a benefit for low-income renters, received Royal Assent and has become law.

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The federal government has introduced legislation to ban the use of replacement workers in federally regulated workplaces during a strike or lockout.

Ottawa made this a rule under Bill C-58.

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The Ontario government will soon introduce legislation that, if passed, would make it the first province in Canada to help even more internationally-trained immigrants work in the fields they’ve studied in by banning the use of Canadian work experience as a requirement in job postings or application forms. This change would help more qualified candidates progress in the interview process and follows historic legislation to prohibit regulated professions from requiring discriminatory Canadian work experience requirements in licensing for more than 30 occupations, which comes into effect December 2023.

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The Ontario government will soon introduce legislation that would, if passed, support injured workers by enabling “super indexing” increases to Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) benefits above the annual rate of inflation. For an injured worker who earns $70,000 a year, a two per cent increase could mean an additional $900 annually on top of cost-of-living adjustments, which were 6.5 per cent in 2023.

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The province of Ontario says it is considering a new job-protected leave that would “ensure employees who receive a diagnosis of cancer or other diseases will have the peace of mind that their job will be waiting for them while they seek treatment.”

The leave would match the length of federal Employment Insurance sickness benefits, which is 26 weeks, the province revealed in a release Wednesday morning.

The province is launching consultations on the matter.

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The Ontario Ministry of Long-Term Care now requires staff, students, support workers and volunteers in long-term care homes across the province to wear a mask when in resident areas indoors. Visitors and caregivers are strongly recommended to wear a mask in resident areas indoors.

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Businesses and not-for-profit organizations with 20 or more employees in Ontario, as well as certain public sector organizations, have until Dec. 31, 2023 to file an updated accessibility compliance report.

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Ontario is considering banning the use of non-disclosure agreements in cases of workplace sexual harassment, misconduct or violence.

Labour Minister David Piccini is set to announce consultations on the issue today, as he discusses his ministry’s next piece of legislation.

Piccini says that non-disclosure agreements should never be used to silence victims or to sidestep accountability.

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The Ontario government will soon introduce legislation that, if passed, would require employers to include expected salary ranges in job postings, giving workers more information to make informed decisions in their career search.

In addition, the legislation would make Ontario the first jurisdiction in Canada to require businesses to disclose if artificial intelligence (AI) is used during their hiring process.

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Alberta has introduced legislation to ensure that unionized and non-unionized employees receive comparable pay for comparable work.

Under the proposed Bill 5 – the Public Sector Employer Amendment Act, 2023 – the government will use a new model that would streamline and harmonize the government's direction for non-union compensation across the province’s public sector.

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Effective Wednesday, Nov. 1, 2023, B.C. employers will be required to include salary or wage information on all publicly posted jobs under B.C.’s Pay Transparency Act, which passed into law this year.

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In April 2022, the Government introduced the Temporary Foreign Worker (TFW) Program Workforce Solutions Road Map to help employers fill job vacancies in the wake of labour shortages. Today, the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Official Languages, Randy Boissonnault, announced changes to the Road Map, to better reflect current labour market conditions and the economic outlook for the future. These extended measures will be in place until August 30, 2024, and will be reviewed as labour market and economic conditions continue to evolve in the following months. They include:  

• continuing to allow employers in seven sectors with demonstrated labour shortages to hire up to 30% of their workforce through the TFW Program for positions under the provincial or territorial median hourly wage;
• maintaining the maximum duration of employment for positions under the provincial or territorial median hourly wage at up to two years; and
• adjusting the Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA) validity period from the current 18-month maximum to a maximum of 12-months to better respond to the labour market. 

Along with these temporary measures and to better support workers and address concerns of wage suppression, employers will now be required as of January 1, 2024, to annually review temporary foreign workers’ wages to ensure that they reflect increases to prevailing wage rates for their given occupation and region of work. Through periodic wage increases, these reviews will ensure that employers continue to pay temporary foreign workers at the prevailing wage level throughout their period of employment.

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British Columbia will introduce legislation to help regulatory bodies improve the credential recognition process and make it easier for people to use their skills to work in the province – wherever they were trained.

The legislation will focus on the following themes:

• Accountability: Regulators will be accountable to the government and the public for protecting public health, safety and the environment by using inclusive and fair processes that enable all qualified applicants to get certified.
• Fairness: Applicants will be treated equitably and fairly, without prejudice.
• Transparency: Regulators will give applicants all the necessary information to understand how to get certified.
• Efficiency: Applicants will get the information they need to get professional certification quickly and without unnecessary delays.

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Announced July 16, 2023.
As of Jan. 1, 2024, temporary help agencies  and recruiters are required to hold a license to operate in the province, under the Employment Standards Act, 2000 (ESA).

And their clients – meaning employers – cannot knowingly engage or use the services of one of these agencies or recruiters unless they hold a license.

Even if a temporary help agency (THA) is located outside of Ontario, but assigns employees to work in Ontario, the licensing requirements apply.

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Bill 26, Strengthening Post-Secondary Institutions and Students Act, 20221 amends the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities Act and the Private Career Colleges Act, 2005 to add new rules and requirements regarding sexual misconduct toward a student by an employee of a publicly-assisted university or college of applied arts and technology, or a private career college (“Institution”). Key changes come into effect on July 1, 2023. Bill 26 makes the following amendments:

• Introduces a new defined term, “sexual misconduct”
• Requires an Institution to have a sexual misconduct policy
• Removes an adjudicator’s power to substitute a penalty when an Institution imposes a disciplinary penalty for sexual misconduct
• Prohibits re-employment of an employee who committed an act of sexual misconduct toward a student
• Prohibits certain types of a non-disclosure agreement (“NDA”) regarding an allegation or complaint of sexual misconduct by an employee toward a student.

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The  new strategy includes new measures and improvements on existing measures to help businesses in Canada thrive in a competitive landscape. As part of Canada’s first-ever Tech Talent Strategy, Minister Fraser announced the following aggressive attraction measures:

• the creation of an open work permit stream for H-1B specialty occupation visa holders in the US to apply for a Canadian work permit, and study or work permit options for their accompanying family members
• the development of an Innovation Stream under to the International Mobility Program to attract highly talented individuals, options for which include
  • employer-specific work permits for up to five years for workers destined to work for a company identified by the Government of Canada as contributing to our industrial innovation goals
  • open work permits for up to five years for highly skilled workers in select in-demand occupations
• a return to the 14-day service standard for work permits under the Global Skills Strategy
• the promotion of Canada as a destination for digital nomads
• the creation of a STEM-specific draw under category-based selection to issue additional invitations to apply under the Express Entry program
• improvements to the Start-up Visa Program
  • We allocated more spots to this program for 2023, with further increases planned for 2024 and 2025.
  • Applicants will be able to apply for a work permit that is up to three years in duration instead of one year.
  • Applicants will be able to apply for an open work permit instead of one that limits them to working for their own start-up.
  • We’re making this three-year open work permit available to each member of the entrepreneurial team instead of only those who are essential and urgently needed in Canada.
  • We’re prioritizing applications that are supported by venture capital, angel investor groups and business incubators and have capital committed, along with applications that are supported by business incubators who are members of Canada’s Tech Network.

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