The dos and don'ts of terminations for employer and employee

If an employer advises the employee on why they are being let go, they must be honest, write Howard Levitt and Peter Carey. Photo by Getty Images/iStockphoto

We live in an ever more complex world. Sometimes it feels as though we need a refresher course just to turn on the television.

So it is with employment law . It is more complex than it needs to be. The reasons for this are beyond the scope of this article but we can at least shed a little light on the topic.

The Employment Standards Act (the “Act”) is the legislation that governs employment conditions in the province. Except that it doesn’t. The courts have held that there are common law rights that dramatically supersede those in the Act.

The Act, according to the courts, sets out only the minimum basic entitlements. For ex