Labour & employment law column by Robert Smithson

The sad decline and fall of Canada’s Brigadier General Daniel Menard came to a close last week. It proved that, for everyone including generals, workplace romances remain a risky affair.

Menard was dismissed last year from duties in Afghanistan amid allegations of having engaged in an “inappropriate relationship” with a female soldier.

Press stories at the time spoke of the Canadian military’s “blanket ban on soldiers engaging in intimate relationships in a war zone”. Experts were quoted calling this rule an “unwinnable fight against human nature”.

I don’t know if it’s a sign of the times or simply that I’m getting older and crankier, but it seems like employees today have a misplaced sense of entitlement. They often seem to think their employer’s obligations extend well beyond what the law requires.

In B.C., employers’ obligations arise expressly out of statutes such as the Employment Standards Act and Workers Compensation Act and Human Rights Code. They also arise, by implication, out of the common law of employment (which is really just a specific flavour of the law of contract).

A recent edition of the Lawyers’ Weekly contained an article entitled “Human rights commissions: remove them, don’t reform them”. While I’m sometimes a critic of the work of provincial and federal human rights commissions and tribunals, eliminating them has never struck me as the solution.

Recent published reports indicate the Quebec government is getting into the business of promoting work-life balance.  Somewhat concerning is the prospect that this might be its first step towards legislation addressing that topic.

The Bureau de Normalisation du Quebec (BNQ) announced that it will be promoting work-life balance by offering four levels of certification to employers.  The idea seems to be that, by setting standards and offering voluntary certification, employers will have an official mechanism by which to show job seekers how great their company is.