Fixed-Term Contracts and Principle of Equal Treatment in Canada

Canada is best characterized as a liberal market economy which lightly regulates employment relations and, in particular, the duration of employment contracts.1 As such, many of the kinds of protections that might be found in other countries included in this dossier are not present in Canada. There are, however, a few older statutory provisions that limit the length of fixed-term contracts and impose formalities for their creation because of a concern about the creation of disguised forms of unfree labour. There is also a small body of common law that reflects a preference for contracts of indefinite hiring over fixed term contracts and that provides for damages when fixed-term contracts are prematurely terminated without just cause. These are discussed in more detail below

Federal Enforcement of Migrant Workers’ Labour Rights in Canada: A Research Report

Although Canada’s migrant labour program is seen by some as a model of best practices, rights shortfalls and exploitation of workers are well documented. Through migration policy, federal authorities determine who can hire migrant workers, and the conditions under which they are employed, through the provision of work permits. Despite its authority over work permits, the federal government has historically had little to do with the regulation of working conditions. In 2015, the federal government introduced a new regulatory enforcement system - unique internationally for its attempt to enforce migrants’ workplace rights through federal migration policy - under which employers must comply with contractual employment terms, uphold provincial workplace standards, and make efforts to maintain a workplace free of abuse. Drawing on enforcement data, and frontline law and policy documents, we critically assess the new enforcement system, concluding that it holds both promise and peril for migrant workers

Using Tickets in Employment Standards Inspections: Deterrence as Effective Enforcement in Ontario, Canada?

It is widely agreed that there is a crisis in labour/employment standards enforcement. A key issue is the role of deterrence measures that penalise violations. Employment standards enforcement in Ontario, like in most jurisdictions, is based mainly on a compliance framework promoting voluntary resolution of complaints and, if that fails, ordering restitution. Deterrence measures that penalise violations are rarely invoked. However, the Ontario government has recently increased the role of proactive inspections and tickets, a low-level deterrence measure which imposes fines of $295 plus victim surcharges. In examining the effectiveness of the use of tickets in inspections, we begin by looking at this development in the broader context of employment standards enforcement and its historical trajectory. Then, using administrative data from the Ministry of Labour, we examine when and why tickets are issued in the course of workplace inspections. After demonstrating that even when ticketable violations are detected, tickets are issued only rarely, we explore factors associated with an increased likelihood of an inspector issuing a ticket. Finally, we consider how the overall deterrent effect of workplace inspections is influenced by the use or non-use of deterrence tools

CellLab-CTS 2015: continuous-time stochastic cellular automaton modeling using Landlab

CellLab-CTS 2015 is a Python-language software library for creating two-dimensional, continuous-time stochastic (CTS) cellular automaton models. The model domain consists of a set of grid nodes, with each node assigned an integer state code that represents its condition or composition. Adjacent pairs of nodes may undergo transitions to different states, according to a user-defined average transition rate. A model is created by writing a Python code that defines the possible states, the transitions, and the rates of those transitions. The code instantiates, initializes, and runs one of four object classes that represent different types of CTS models. CellLab-CTS provides the option of using either square or hexagonal grid cells. The software provides the ability to treat particular grid-node states as moving particles, and to track their position over time. Grid nodes may also be assigned user-defined properties, which the user can update after each transition through the use of a callback function. As a component of the Landlab modeling framework, CellLab-CTS models take advantage of a suite of Landlab's tools and capabilities, such as support for standardized input and output