Canadian Employers Have a Duty to Accommodate Family Caregivers

Canadians who are raising their children and helping their aging parents at the same time have found themselves struggling with balancing work tasks and their home life over the past several years. They are often called the “sandwich generation,” a growing workplace demographic of middle-aged adults who feel overworked and overwhelmed.

As a result, more than a third of Canadian employees who take care of both their children and parents have adjusted their working schedules. Around 35 percent of caregivers have changed their hours on the job, while more than 25 percent cut back on hours, according to a survey by Statistics Canada.  

Canadian employers have a legal obligation to provide accommodations for employees with family-related needs, such as offering flexible working hours, granting time off to attend to sick children or providing access to resources for elder care, explained Andrew Monkhouse, an attorney with Monkhouse Law in Toronto.

“Employers are prohibited from engaging in discriminatory practices during hiring, promotions, training, benefits administration, working conditions or termination of employment based on an individual’s role in caring for a child or parent,” Monkhouse said.

Employers who fail to meet these obligations may be accused of discrimination under the Canadian Human Rights Act.

“These protections are in place because there are often stereotypes about people who are caregivers—they may be seen as less ambitious or less committed, or even less competent because of additional responsibilities at home,” said Gayle Wadden, chief legal officer and co-founder of Compliance Works in Toronto.

Employees: Having the Accommodation Conversation

If an employee in Canada needs to request family status accommodations, their first step is to explore all caregiving options before having a conversation with their employer, Wadden said. Then the employee can approach their employer with a proposal, along with any required documentation.

“The accommodation arrangement doesn’t have to be perfect, but it should be realistic and flexible,” said Cissy Pau, principal consultant at Clear HR Consulting in Vancouver, British Columbia. “Employers need to be respectful about the request, as they haven’t walked in the other person’s shoes.”

The accommodations process is collaborative and will require a dialogue between the employee and employer to find a satisfactory solution, Monkhouse said.

“To ensure transparency and clarity, employers should document in writing each accommodation request and the mutually agreed-upon accommodations between the employer and employee,” he added.

Employees with parental responsibilities in Alberta, British Columbia and Ontario do not need to secure child care before asking their employer to accommodate their request.

Employers: Meeting Accommodation Needs 

Legal experts advised employers in Canada to accommodate an employee’s family obligations by proposing several options, depending on the circumstances:

• Allow time off so an employee can attend a child’s and/or parent’s medical appointments.
• Change an employee’s work shifts or job-sharing or task-sharing arrangements.
• Grant flexible start times or altered work hours for school drop-offs.
• Transfers to different work locations.
• Approve a remote-work or hybrid option.
• Provide lactation rooms for breastfeeding mothers.
• Propose an unpaid leave of absence when paid-leave provisions have been exhausted.

An employer in Canada has a duty to accommodate to the point of undue hardship, according to the Canadian Human Rights Commission. If companies can prove that the accommodation is too expensive, or if it creates serious health and safety hazards, they then can refuse the request, Wadden noted.

Besides accommodations under human rights law, employment standards legislation in every Canadian jurisdiction provides for leaves of absence related to family members, Wadden explained.

All Canadian provinces and territories, along with the federal government, can give unpaid time off for compassionate care and critical illness. Employees may take a job-protected leave of absence to care for a family member, ranging from 27-28 weeks for compassionate care leave to 16-36 weeks for critical illness leave.

Human Rights Obligations in Canada

Human rights legislation is similar across Canadian provinces and territories, Pau said.

A landmark court ruling in British Columbia in 2023 requires employers in the province to be more flexible when it comes to granting parents and caregivers workplace accommodations. The court determined that employees can qualify for a workplace accommodation when any condition of their employment has an adverse effect on an important parental duty, according to the B.C. Office of the Human Rights Commissioner.

Despite similarities in human rights legislation across Canada, employers should be aware that the test for family status discrimination differs by jurisdiction, said Delayne Sartison, an attorney with Roper Greyell in Vancouver.

Under the Ontario Human Rights Code, individuals engaged in a parent-child relationship are entitled to special protections in the workplace.

Some provinces have exceptions that allow discrimination based on family status in certain circumstances, Wadden said. In Alberta, the protected grounds of age and family status do not apply to pension, retirement or insurance plans made in good faith.

HR: Addressing Workplace Challenges

Human resources professionals play a key role in preventing family status discrimination, beginning with the hiring process, Wadden explained.

“They should also ensure there’s no family status discrimination in workplace policies and practices,” she added. “Discussions about family status accommodation can come up at any stage of the employer-employee relationship.”

HR practitioners can host training sessions for employees and hold conversations with managers about human rights obligations, said Ben Currie, an attorney with SpringLaw in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

HR also serves as a gatekeeper of employees’ personal information, Wadden added.

“HR should have an understanding of how much information an employer can request about an employee,” she said. “They also play a role in keeping that information private and safe, and limiting access to only those who need it.”

Catherine Skrzypinski is a freelance writer based in Vancouver, B.C.