Employers In Québec Have Additional Duty To Accommodate

Until a recent decision of the Québec Court of Appeal, there was no requirement for employers to consider Charter issues (and in particular the duty to accommodate) when dealing with an employee's right to come back to work after recovering from an occupational injury. When asked by the workers compensation board (called the "CSST" in Québec) whether there was a job available in the business that conformed to the workers limitations, the employer was not required to analyze all the possible jobs. This differed from workers with disabilities when an analysis of all jobs was required in accordance with the duty to accommodate.

Workers returning to work with functional limitations clearly had a disability under the common understanding of the term, but the statute was read as constituting an accommodation in and of itself.