As a result of COVID-19, many Canadian provinces declared a
public health emergency and either ordered (or recommended), that
Canadian employers allow employees to work from home if their tasks
could be performed remotely. A business may be faced with several
crucially important issues with regard to performing work remotely.
Can an employer establish an area or a distance within which
employees are required to perform their duties remotely? Is it
reasonable for an employer to prevent its staff from performing
their work outside of Canada, when teleworking is presently
mandatory in many Canadian provinces?
In a recent Quebec decision, an arbitrator had to decide on the
strict and automatic application of a policy prohibiting an
employee from performing their work duties from
abroad.1
