Watson Goepel is proud to announce that eight of our lawyers have been recognized in Best Lawyers in Canada™ 2025 and Best Lawyers: Ones to Watch™ in 2025 for their outstanding achievements in their practice area.
COVID-19 has shuttered my business – should I lay off staff, or even bother continuing my lease? For answers to questions like these, visit our website.
The presumption is that parties are to be held to their contractual agreements. However, express contractual provisions and common law doctrines may provide relief from contractual performance in specific circumstances.
On March 27, 2020, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Canada would be creating a 75% wage subsidy for all employers who can demonstrate a reduction in revenue of 30% or more due to COVID-19. This benefit has since been named the “Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy” or “CEWS”.
Whether it is meeting the challenge of working from home, or setting guidelines for employees who continue to attend on-site as permitted by government order, employers should develop policies to mitigate risks and better manage their workforce.
Managing parenting time schedules during a pandemic is an issue that has come to the fore, and parents are quite rightly asking what they should be doing to maximize safety while each still getting the appropriate amount of time with their children.
Many individuals are encountering difficulties when attempting to access the special programs and policies the Government of Canada has put in place to assist affected individuals.
On March 23 the Ontario and Quebec governments ordered that “non-essential” businesses close down, shortly followed by a list of “essential” businesses that were exempt from the mandatory closure. Quebec took a more cautious approach and ordered that all non-essential construction sites close.
The federal government has existing programs to assist workplaces. Both the federal and provincial governments have also added a few additional programs and made amendments to current programs to streamline the application process to address the current crisis.
Earlier today the provincial government released its list of essential services which includes lawyers and paralegals. As the government noted: “Essential services are those daily services essential to preserving life, health, public safety, and basic societal functioning.
The novel coronavirus, or COVID-19, pandemic has disrupted Canadian life in ways that our citizens and residents have not experienced since World War II. Mobility has been restricted to unprecedented levels, but still, commerce continues, albeit conservatively.
