Law in Quebec

News about Quebec legal developments

Business

  • Legal and labour stakeholders alarmed by new proposed labour relations regime

    The Quebec government, under increasing fire for tabling controversial bills that expressly and intentionally rein in countervailing oversight, introduced a contentious legislative proposal that would markedly overhaul the labour relations regime by significantly handcuffing unions’ capacity to defend themselves and intercede in the public sphere, assert labour and legal experts.

    Bill 3, An Act to improve the transparency, governance and democratic process of various associations in the workplace, marks the third time this year that the Quebec government has introduced changes to provincial employment-related statutes, undertakings that have been universally panned by labour and legal experts for infringing core labour rights, including the right to strike and freedom of association.

    “Either, brick by brick, they’re dismantling Quebec’s labour laws, or brick by brick, they’re building new walls around unions to stop them from being effective movements in civil society,” remarked labour law professor Finn Makela.

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  • The legal challenges raised by AI-powered algorithmic pricing

    The days when sellers affixed prices to peddle their wares are waning. Watchdogs are concerned and regulators are caught in a bind.

    Artificial intelligence is reshaping the marketplace in ways most consumers are oblivious to.

    Through AI and algorithms, businesses can now adjust prices in real time based on market conditions and user data, including who you are, where you are, what you browse, and what companies think you are willing to pay. This often happens without the consumers’ knowledge or consent. Some retail apps even change their prices depending on whether you are inside or outside the store.

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  • Labour under the gun, again

    The Quebec government is considering adopting legislation that would allow union members to opt out of contributing financially to union activities that “are not directly related to labour relations,” marking the second time in months the provincial government is trying clamp down on the labour movement.

    Last May the Quebec government assented Bill 89, An Act to give greater consideration to the needs of the population in the event of a strike or a lock-out. The new law gives the Quebec Minister of Labour sweeping new powers to curb and limit strikes or lockouts by broadening the notion of essential services and granting the labour minister the power to refer labour disputes to an arbitrator. Critics have described the new law as a direct frontal attack on the constitutionally protected right to collective bargaining.

    Now the Quebec government is seeking to curb trade unions from mounting legal challenges. Quebec Premier François Legault has denounced the involvement of some unions in legal cases, notably the challenge to Quebec’s secularism law before the Supreme Court of Canada. The Fédération autonome de l’enseignement is a key appellant. “There is a problem, and we want to tackle it,” said Legault recently on the popular French-language television show “Tout le monde en parle.”

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  • Monday’s Medley – Issue 04

    Each Monday I intend to provide a potpourri of Quebec (and Canadian) legal developments. Issue 04 takes a brief look at a rare public stance taken by the Court of Quebec, a college ordered to pay $10,000 in damages, and a popular online food delivery company accused of drip pricing.

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  • High bar for use of biometric systems maintained by Quebec privacy regulator

    Canada’s largest printer was ordered to cease using facial recognition technology to monitor access to its facilities and to destroy all biometric information it previously collected by Quebec’s privacy watchdog in a decision that serves as a stark reminder that there is a high legal threshold for using biometric systems in the province, according to data and privacy experts.

    The use of biometrics in both the private and public sectors is on the upswing in Quebec, with the latest figures from Quebec’s privacy commissioner, the Commission d’accès à l’information (CAI), revealing that 124 entities declared they used biometrics in fiscal 2023-2024, nearly a 60 per cent jump over the previous year. Biometrics, the automated recognition of an individual’s unique body and behavioural characteristics such as fingerprints, facial and voice recognition, and retina scans, is a billion-dollar business, with the global biometrics market estimated at US$50.08 billion in 2024 and expected to surge to more than US $60 billion in 2025, according to Precedence Research. Employers are using it for access control, security, time-keeping, monitoring employee performance or safety, note pundits.

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  • Labour concerned about new bill that curbs and limit strikes

    The Quebec government tabled a bill that gives it sweeping new powers to curb and limit strikes or lockouts by broadening the notion of essential services and granting the labour minister the power to refer labour disputes to an arbitrator, proposals that critics have derided as nothing less than a direct frontal attack on the constitutional protected right to collective bargaining.

    The proposed legislation, lauded by business and decried by the labour movement, will amend Quebec’s Labour Code and introduce a wholly new and untested legal concept in labour relations. It also gives the government the power to adopt a decree to refer a labour conflict to the Administrative Labour Tribunal, and grants the provincial labour minister similar discretionary powers to those used by Ottawa to end work stoppages involving rail, port and postal workers last year.

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  • Trade wars

    The trade war U.S. President Donald Trump ignited has against America’s biggest trading partners is only the beginning. The European Union is next in his sights, as is Taiwan’s semiconductor industry.

    Yes, Trump declared a temporary reprieve of the protectionist measures against Canada and Mexico. But that is of no help to business. Uncertainty still reigns. Lawsuits will surely follow.

    In the meantime everyone is scrambling to make sense of it all and trying to figure out what’s next and what to do. Here is a brief compendium of how experts see the unfolding events.

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  • Quebec law limits employers to request medical notes

    About one-third of working Canadians were asked by their employers to produce a sick note for a short-term absence at least once in the last year.

    That will largely be a thing of the past.

    Quebec, in an effort to curb doctors’ workloads by streamlining paperwork and unnecessary clinical visits, has joined the ranks of a growing number of provinces who are doing away with sick notes under some circumstances.

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  • Method used to conduct pay equity audit is invalid, rules Labour Tribunal

    A method used to estimate wage differentials during pay equity evaluations cannot be validly used as it contravenes the Quebec Pay Equity Act, ruled the Administrative Labour Tribunal in a decision widely expected by labour lawyers to have a significant impact on estimating and assessing public sector pay equity.

    The decision, one of a handful dealing with pay equity audits in Quebec, underlines that employers cannot depart from the objectives behind the Pay Equity Act when estimating wage gaps, and provides practical guidance to employers and labour alike over the pay equity maintenance exercise, according to labour lawyers.

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  • Right to data portability in effect in Quebec

    Organizations doing business in Quebec face new compliance obligations as the right to data portability came into force at the tail end of September, spelling the end of a one-year leniency period following the entry into force of Quebec’s sweeping overhaul of its privacy regime.

    This right, part of an international trend to give individuals more control over their own data, compels business and public bodies to provide individuals computerized personal data they hold on the person in a structured and commonly used technological format. Individuals may also request that their computerized personal information be disclosed to any person or body authorized by law to collect such information.

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  • Universal life insurance policy is not income from property, rules Appeal Court

    In a decision expected by tax pundits to set a precedent, the Quebec taxman partially lost a legal battle after the Court of Appeal held that coverage provided by a universal life insurance policy does not constitute income from property even though it is a benefit for the insured taxpayer.

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  • Insurance suicide exclusion null and void, rules Quebec Appeal Court

    A year ago, Quebec Superior Court admonished the “seemingly impenetrable world of insurers to open their eyes” after it ruled that an insurance company must pay beneficiaries $1.5 million because it failed to properly reveal exclusions in an insurance policy.

    Justice Jean-Yves Lalonde warned insurers that they must clearly indicate exclusions or clauses, particularly clauses dealing with suicide, that reduce coverage under an appropriate heading or risk having the exclusion clause declared null and void.

    “It’s a ruling that changes the state of law on this issue as it is the first judgment that has annulled a suicide clause,” noted insurance law expert Jacqueline Bissonnette.

    “What’s new is that the ruling stipulates that the suicide clause should be included in the same way as the other exclusions. That’s what’s new, and that if it’s not included, the policy will be cancelled and the exclusion will be considered to be unwritten,” added Bisonnette, a Montreal lawyer with Poudrier Bradet Avocats and Chair of the executive of the insurance and civil litigation section of the Canadian Bar Association, Quebec branch.

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  • McGill law professors on strike

    Barely a month ago, McGill’s Faculty of Law boasted that it ranked among the world’s top universities, placing 28th worldwide, up one spot from 2023, according to the 2024 QS World University Rankings.

    That seems long ago.

    McGill law professors, asserting that the university is negotiating in bad faith, began an unlimited strike, demanding better pay and working conditions, a halt towards the growing inclination towards centralization at the university, and the safeguarding of collegial governance at the faculty level.

    Negotiations have been crawling ever since the Association of McGill Professors of Law (AMPL) was certified in November 2022 by the Quebec Labour Tribunal as the bargaining unit representing the McGill’s Faculty of Law tenured and tenure-track professors, a first for professors in the university’s history.

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  • Employers’ obligation to protect psychological well-being of workers expanded by Quebec bill

    The Quebec government, in an initiative welcomed by business and labour, is in the final stages of passing legislation that aims to further prevent and fight psychological harassment and sexual violence in the workplace by adding legal presumptions to make it easier to prove an employment injury or illness stemmed from violence at the hands of a co-worker or employer representative.

    Bill 42, now before the Quebec National Assembly undergoing a clause-by-clause examination, introduces a definition that encompasses all speech and language of a sexual nature, extends the time limit for filing a claim, broadens the general duties of employers’ obligation to protect the psychological well-being of employers, and introduces harsher penalties for non-compliance. The bill also compels arbitrators who take on grievances dealing with psychological harassment to take mandatory training.

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  • McGill law professors stage one-day strike to spur productive negotiations

    A newly certified bargaining unit representing McGill law professors staged a one-day strike after negotiations with the university administration over its first collective agreement stalled, the first time since the university’s founding two hundred years ago that professors erected picket lines on campus.

    The Association of McGill Professors of Law (AMPL), handed a strike mandate for a maximum of five days by its members in mid-December, asserts that the university is negotiating in bad faith in spite of the intervention of a government-appointed conciliator by arriving at bargaining sessions unprepared, refusing to meet on a frequent and regular basis, and rebuffing attempts to acknowledge that conditions that have been agreed upon cannot be unilaterally changed by the university and applied to AMPL members without their consent.

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Law in Quebec
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