Saturday, November 7, 2026
The Niagara Independent
Saturday, November 7, 2026

Sheryl Johnson

Columnist
Business

What being in Stage 3 currently means for employers in Ontario

With the growing concerns regarding the recent uptick in cases, the Ontario Government passed the Reopening Ontario (A Flexible Response to COVID-19) Act, 2020, Ontario Regulation 364/20 “Rules for Areas in Stage 3” on Friday, September 25, 2020 effective Saturday, September 26, 2020 at 12:01 am. Hand in hand with these “new rules” Ontario’s Ministry of Health through the province’s Chief Medical Officer released a screening “recommendation” along with a “COVID-19 Screening Tool for Workplaces (Business and Organizations)”.

Sheryl Johnson
Business

Added certainty and flexibility for employers in these uncertain times

As you recall, when the deemed termination provisions of the Ontario Employment Standards Act, 2000 (“ESA”) related to temporary leaves of absences caused by the March 17, 2020 declared state of emergency loomed on the horizon, an important new regulation that materially amended the ESA was passed – the Infectious Disease Emergency Leave (“IDEL”) Regulation. This Regulation applied to non-unionized workplaces retroactively and created the concept of the “COVID-19 Period”. The COVOD Period ran from March 1, 2020 until six weeks after the state of emergency is extinguished or Sept. 4, 2020 – until Sept. 3, 2020.

Sheryl Johnson
Business

Time to revisit employee contracts after recent court decision

Labour costs in Canada increased to 112.10 points in the first quarter of 2020 from 110.94 points in the fourth quarter of 2019. Added to this are the losses in revenue and increased costs of doing – or not doing business – during the COVID-19 pandemic and the declared state of emergency.

Sheryl Johnson
Business

“Persons Responsible” Beware

COVID-19 and the province’s Declared State of Emergency (in place currently until June 30, 2020) has caused the rules of employment law to be in a state of flux, with business and employment relationships changing how they operate. There are, and will be, many unknowns as we move forward. Some certainty have been provided by amendments to employment legislation and the enactment of new regulations providing new standards during or related to the Declared State of Emergency. Such regulations are not themselves static. They have been passed, updated and will likely be updated moving forward as the economy re-opens. One is Regulation 82/20 – Closure of Places of Non-Essential Businesses passed on May 18, 2019, which is reviewed in this article.

Sheryl Johnson
Business

Working Together During COVID-19: The Need for Personal Accountability by All

While we are being reassured that the Ontario and Federal governments have implemented measures to protect Ontarians from COVID-19 as well as to assist with flatten the epidemic (EPI) curve of COVID-19, to do so truly requires every Canadian to conduct themselves in a socially conscious and responsible manner. This can be easier said than done – especially given economic considerations at play.

Sheryl Johnson
Special

Workplace Gender Equality in the Niagara Region – Are we up for the challenge?

March 8 is International Women's Day a global day celebrating the contributions of women and renew our efforts of achieving gender equality. This year’s campaign theme is #EachforEqual. The terms “gender equality” and “gender equity” are sometimes used interchangeably, but there are very significant differences between them. Where “gender equality” focuses on providing the same starting circumstances for everyone no matter where an individual is on the gender spectrum between male and female, the goal of “gender equity” is to provide all genders with the same end results (that is, to truly amount to equality between all genders). That is why gender equity sets the stage for gender equality.

Sheryl Johnson
Business

Breaching Employees’ Privacy Expectations

Are you breaching your employees’ privacy expectations when you use their personal contact, health information or emergency contact information when you conduct employee wellness checks at home? We have been taught under PIPEDA (recall the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act) that you must generally obtain an individual's consent when you collect, use or disclose an employee’s personal information – and such personal information must only be used by an employer regulated by PIPEDA or who adopted a policy that follows PIPEDA’s principles for the purposes for which it was collected. If you are going to use it for another purpose, you must obtain consent again.

Sheryl Johnson
Business

What’s Really “Crazy”?

When I was at a hearing the other day an organizational people leader present loudly declared: “Everyone can go get their own lunches today, I am not dealing with feeding you crazy people”. She was referring to me. I have Celiac Disease and was cross-contaminated the day prior. "Crazy" means not "normal," in a "bad" way. In this one thoughtless statement this “leader” both stigmatized my disease and mental illness. Insulting someone by using the word “crazy" should not being occurring in an awakened society.

Sheryl Johnson
Business

What every employer needs to know about the Novel Coronavirus

The Novel Coronavirus virus involves a respiratory infection closely related to SARS and MERS and has been declared a global health emergency by WHO. Researchers are trying to work out the ways that it is transmitted and employers are wondering how the virus may affect their workplaces. This article provides some general information and reminds employers to educate their employees and keep up to date on the latest developments surrounding this virus.

Sheryl Johnson
Business

Clean as a whistle?

In Canada, federally regulated public sector employees are protected from reprisals from their employers under the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act when they make in good faith disclosures of internal incidents or practices to their supervisors, or others “further up the ladder”, even if they do not make a corresponding disclosure to law enforcement officials.

Sheryl Johnson