The Supreme Court of Canada recently overturned a controversial
decision of the Federal Court of Appeal (Koskie Minsky LLP
Employment Blog February 9, 2015).
Specifically, the Federal Court of Appeal held that "Unjust
Dismissal" provisions pursuant to sections 240 to 246 of the
Canada Labour Code, R.S.C. 1985, c. L-2 (the
"Code") only provided non-unionized federally
regulated employees the right to challenge a dismissal without
cause where reasonable notice had not been provided, similar to the
common law standard. Accordingly, a dismissal without just cause
was found not to be "unjust" per se.
The majority of the Supreme Court of Canada disagreed, stating
that the "Unjust Dismissal" provisions (sections 240-246
of the Code) consist of "expansive protections like
those available to employees covered by a collective
agreement" in respect of non-unionized federally regulated
employees who have completed 12 consecutive months of employment;
those protections
