Unlock eSignature Legitimateness for Termination Letter in Canada

How to eSign a document: eSignature legitimateness for Termination Letter in Canada

welcome to employee termination tips my name is christopher newfoundleuva legal and in this particular video we're going to be looking at probably one of the most overlooked aspects for canadian employees who've lost their job whether it's by firing retermination and it is something that for whatever reason seems to be consistently overlooked even by legal counsel representing fired employees in canada and part of this is because it's an aspect that's more prevalent outside of the province of ontario so you're going to see this happen actually more in provinces like alberta british columbia manitoba saskatchewan and elsewhere and what is that it's payroll and payroll is extremely problematic and it results in underpayments during the course of one's employment all too often and that is because payroll systems were designed not to pursue optimal employee payments not to ensure that the law is specifically being followed as it relates to the employees but what appears to be the prominent focus of payroll practices and payroll software is to make sure that there is compliance with respect to payroll taxes so the government is probably getting its due and the employer is satisfied that payroll taxes have been paid so that is what appears to be the primary emphasis of payroll systems payroll staffs and payroll software and this can be tracked back to where it emanates from and a lot of payroll software emanates from the united states moves over to ontario and then moves over to the other provinces and similarly a lot of the training with respect to payroll staff emanates out of ontario and then moves into the other provinces whether it's alberta british columbia saskatchewan manitoba or the maritime provinces but what is happening is that the focus is on aspects of payroll tax in the processing and this is not really of greatest concern to the employee at the end of the day it's of great concern to the employer what the concern for the employee is that their pay has been fully paid this is a weakness and in fact when it comes to employee pay the problem is that when you look at how the payroll software is designed and even the payroll systems are designed they're designed for simplicity and not for compliance with legal practices so much of the appearance that it's a payroll software that's designed to be compliant with the various provinces and we've done that that's on the payroll tax side all too often what appears to be the case with respect to the other aspects of payroll which is employee pay and the calculation of pay overtime vacation paid general holiday pay otherwise known statutory holiday pay and all other aspects you pay arrangement those are outside of the ambit of the payroll software typically it has to be done by procedures that fall upon the payroll staff and this creates its own set of issues because they're not apparently properly trained or they're relying too much upon the software and the employers are not looking to try to find and make sure there's correcting the issues they have in it the lawyers don't get involved the accountants don't get involved because the lawyers and accounts were properly involved the calculations would all too often be correct as opposed to underpayments and that is where you're getting the issues because the payroll software is the payroll trading it's sort of designed off of the basis of a u.s system and the u.s system is not statutory based because they don't have the kind of employment standards legislation that we have it's more of a contractual basis which is dictated by the employer in canada however we have a statutory basis of minimums that is far more complicated and the complexity is especially complex outside of ontario it's employment standards legislation that makes requirements those requirements are very specific as to what has to be done but if you don't know what they are you'll understand them you don't deal with them ingly what happens is you can find yourself getting underpaid as an employee and that is because the employers are not out there looking to find out where they're underpaid no they're trying to cut costs not increase costs if nobody raises it to their attention they're not going to do anything about it they're just going to proceed nobody's nobody talks about it apparently nobody understands complexities they see complex pay statements at times with lots of information lots of data coming in just because there's lots of data doesn't mean it's correct similarly there's minimal data in there the fact that there's minimal data in there it's hard to discern what's missing unless you really know what it is and clearly the lawyers are not getting involved in this the lawyers are involved in transactional side the big projects they're not there coming in and saying even the captains aren't please scrutinize my pay system to find out how i'm underpaying my employees that is not what employers do employers are constantly trying to cut costs minimize costs and they feel that their employers are getting overpaid as it is they should be happy with what they're getting so they're not going and scrutinizing the stuff they don't want to because if they did all 12 of them very well realized they're underpinning they create some mega problems for them because it's not just about underpaying one person it's about underpinning their entire employee base they can go back years there's so many more problems that arise from it but the employers are not looking into this and unfortunately employees seem to be too focused and their lawyers seem to be too focused on the termination pay and severance pay a loan but they fail to address the aspects of payroll and the money that they've already are entitled to and they've earned by law and this is a critical thing the statute says you are owed this money this is what the calculation was supposed to be this is what the numbers are supposed to be and you can't get away from it but too many employees when they lose their job whether they're fired terminated dismissed even when they quit they walk away from money that they've earned they're entitled to and the law requires to be paid to them but if you don't address it you don't raise it you don't deal with it you're leaving that money on the table even though it's your money it's left it's lost something you should be doing and as i say the problem is in part the fact that the payroll systems the payroll calculations they're very different from province of province and they're especially different as a compared to the states and so much of this emanates for united states especially the software but then beyond that so much of it the practices emitted from ontario and ontario has some very nuanced aspects to make it very close to the u.s they have some very distinct exclusions they specifically exclude stuff from being calculated that's a choice in ontario that's the choice of the legislature made it's clear and set out but simply because it's in ontario and it's not in other provinces doesn't mean it's sold in those other provinces just because it says one thing on ontario if it says something different alberta and you work in alberta you have to be paid in ance with the laws of alberta you don't get paid in ance with the laws of another province if that was the case you just why not just have one law the easiest law for employers not be at the end of it and that's not the case and that's not how things work you have one set of laws that applies to you in one province and you can't pick and choose the laws you want to apply you have to use the laws in the province within which you're working that's how it works for some reason employers seem to be all too often not doing that their focus is on their payroll taxes and not on the employee pay and the employers are picking it up the lawyers are picking up well the employers are wanting their lawyers to find the mistakes that they're making because it's going to cost them money but for whatever reason a lot of the employee lawyers are not looking at this either by now look at this they're just focused on their standardized practices and even those you look at these demand letters that are coming out from lawyers in other provinces are being submitted to legal counsel for the employer and it looks like it's a template of ontario and why is it a template for ontario when they're not even in ontario and why they're so focused simply on termination of paleo of notice in seven spay when there's a more critical aspect which is outstanding earned money that was paid during the course of one's employment that's legally entitled to that's on the books can be easily calculated if you actually know what the calculations are and what you're looking for and you pull the information up that's what you can be focusing on or at least you got to be doing it in conjunction with the other stuff you can't just leave it aside the end of the day you can't be overlooking this you cannot be overlooking it because it is money that has been earned by those employees and as i said especially those employees outside of ontario the employees in alberta british columbia saskatchewan manitoba the maritime provinces quite possibly even quebec but like we're seeing it right now over and over and over again in alberta it is absolutely ridiculous as to the non-compliance with the employment standards code of alberta that's a law that's a them how the payroll software should be done the payroll staff should be calculating stuff so on and so forth but instead what do i see i see new jersey blue laws are being technically applied or i've seen calculations done on ontario employment standards act that's not what we're supposed to be dealing with wrong province wrong country whatever you want to say if somebody's working in alberta it's the alberta employment standards code the employment standards regulations specific to the province of alberta the same goes across canada it even goes to the federal level if you are a company that's working under the canada labor code it doesn't matter what province you're in if you follow that classification if your business is subject to the canada labor code meaning it's like some business that operates across multiple provinces in a way that requires a single uniform application of employment standards legislation or just the classification of the business itself requires such you've got to be following the federal law with reply to employment standards legislation being the canada labor code and simply because you're in ontario and your employer thinks the employment standards act of ontario is more preferable yeah it is because you underpay your employees and legally if they're a provincial employee they're not subject to canada labor code that's permitted if they're not and if they're substituting the labor code they got to be paid them ing to labor code and this could mean significantly higher payments due same thing applies to alberta employees you got to apply if you're working alberta you gotta be working under the alberta employment standards code or if it's subject to canada labor code and you're working alberta it's canada labor code for making calculations that's the end of it and the fact the matter is when you lose your job when you're terminated fired or otherwise dismissed you can't just simply get up and go and walk away from it this is money that's owed to you it's your money you earned it you deserve it the law requires it to be paid to you so you should be collecting on it you shouldn't be just collecting on your termination pay we have noticed severance pay no no no that's yeah that's your money also but why are you just gonna leave 10 possibly like honestly tens of thousands sometimes over a hundred thousand dollars on the table because you didn't look into it that's ridiculous payroll is a problem in canada it's overlooked far too much especially when people lose their jobs because money that's earned as money has to be pursued because you've earned it and you're legally entitled to it and that's pretty much the end of the story so there's something that you have to deal with you need to get a lawyer who understands what i'm talking about well myself naturally but also other lawyers especially if they're in other jurisdictions who understand this whole concept who take the time to understand what the calculations really are and where the underpayments are and what's being overlooked because it's significant money that you are potentially losing out on and it's your money so take the time pursue it with the right legal counsel and get the money that you were owed because it's earned money and the law requires it to be paid to you in most of those circumstances thank you