Looking for new employees? Follow these hiring requirements

Following a wave of new legislation in most provinces, employers in Canada must navigate a labyrinth of differing rules, many of them new that govern recruitment and hiring. Core themes include pay transparency, disclosure of job status, regulation of use of AI, protection of personal information in recruitment, language requirements, and liability for misrepresentations. This article outlines mainly new and some longer standing hiring rules in British Columbia, Ontario, Alberta, and Québec. 

Pay transparency has recently been passed in two of the provinces: 

• British Columbia: The Pay Transparency Act requires salary ranges in job postings and bans questions about current or past pay. Employers with 50 or more employees must file annual gender pay gap reports by Nov. 1, 2026. In addition, employers and recruiters may not ask candidates about their past pay. 

• Ontario: Working for Workers Four Act, 2024 requires salary ranges in job postings and prohibits including requirements for Canadian work experience in postings or application forms. This requirement comes into force on Jan. 1, 2026. Since 2023, employers and recruiters may not ask about past pay. In addition, as of that date, employers are prohibited from requiring “Canadian experience” in job postings or recruitment. 

• Alberta and Quebec currently have no pay transparency statute. 
   

Employment standards hiring stage obligations 

British Columbia Employment Standards Act 

• Section 8 - No False Representations: Under this unique and seldom invoked section, employers who make false representations about the availability of a position, the type of work, wages, or conditions of employment during hiring can be investigated and ordered to compensate the employee for the misrepresentation. 

• Section 10 - No Charge for Hiring or Providing Information: Employers and recruiters cannot charge fees to applicants for being hired or for providing information about job opportunities. This is particularly relevant to those recruiting foreign workers where the charging of fees is relatively common. 

Alberta – The Employment Standards Code  

• Section 127 – Premium for Employment Prohibited: Employers may not receive a payment directly or indirectly from a person for the purpose of employing that person. This provision protects workers, especially vulnerable job seekers, during the hiring stage, including from “pay-to-work” schemes and from hidden or unfair deductions.  

Ontario - Working for Workers Four Act, 2024  

• Under recently passed ESA amendments, effective Jan. 1, 2026, employers must disclose in job postings if they use AI in hiring and must inform candidates of the status of their application within 45 days of the last interview. For larger employers and all recruiters, this means implementing software to issue or prompt review of whether a notice of status has been sent. 

Quebec – Act Respecting Labour Standards  

• Section 92.12 – No employer may charge a temporary foreign worker fees related to their recruitment, other than fees authorized under a Canadian government program.  

Post-hire obligations re terms of hire 

British Columbia: All new hires must receive a copy of the government-mandated ESA summary. 

Ontario: Employers have long been required to deliver a document summarizing ESA rights to all new hires. Under recent amendments, employers with over 25 employees must also communicate specified basic terms of employment on hiring. Some of the data required, such as where the employee will start work, is not always included in template employment agreements or letters of hire. 

Quebec: Employers are required to provide employees with an information document summarizing labour standards provided by the Commission des Normes du Travail.  

Alberta: Currently has no such requirement. 

Human rights rules on hiring 

Each province has its own human rights legislation, which applies during hiring. Human Rights Codes generally also prohibit discriminatory job advertisements, application forms, and interview questions. If employers become aware an employee has a protected characteristic, they must accommodate applicants to the point of undue hardship, both in the interview process and with respect to the job requirements themselves.  

These statutes generally protect against discrimination based on grounds such as race, colour, ancestry, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, disability, marital and family status, and religion, and impose a duty on employers to accommodate individuals in both recruitment and employment unless doing so would cause undue hardship. 

Ontario’s Human Rights Code goes further in specifically banning questions about protected ground status during hiring, such as asking if someone is married. In other provinces, asking is not banned per se but is risky since it can then support an inference of discrimination. 

Privacy in recruitment 

British Columbia and Alberta: Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA): The PIPA defines "employee personal information" as personal information (PI) about an individual. Generally, employers are only entitled to collect, use, or disclose PI which is reasonably related to the “establishment, management or termination” of the employment relationship and then only with the individual’s consent or, in some cases, with notice to them. For recruitment, this means the bulk of information received from or collected about candidates, including résumés, cover letters, references, interview notes, education and employment history, background checks, and test results, are PI and governed by PIPA.  

Employers must: 

• Collect only what is reasonably related to the job being filled for recruitment purposes. For example, an Alberta Privacy Commissioner decision held collecting credit history and rating information was not permissible for most jobs. 

• Notify applicants of the reasons for collection and how the data will be used. With the advent of AI driven automation of early recruitment steps, this requirement is being overlooked, with AI programmes pulling information on candidates available online with no notice such information is being collected, much less used for hiring. 

• Securely safeguard, retain for a year, and dispose of personal information. Recruiters receive huge volumes of personal information in applications and interviews. Many are not aware of their obligations to: 

• Safeguard this from wrongful access. 

• Keep all PI used to make a hiring decision for a year to allow a candidate to potentially access it. 

• Then dispose of it securely unless there is a real business reason for retaining it. For example, you plan to review the unsuccessful candidate’s data for another role in future. Many recruiters and HR teams stockpile PI long past the point where it has any utility. 

Québec: Act respecting the protection of personal information in the private sector: Québec imposes the strictest privacy rules for PI. Applicant data includes résumés, references, interview notes, testing results, and background check data.  

• Personal information includes any information about an identifiable individual. “Sensitive personal information” (medical, biometric, intimate) receives enhanced protection.  

• Consent must be clear, free and informed and be given for specific purposes. Where sensitive personal information is involved, express consent is required.  

• Collect only information necessary to assess suitability. 

• Employers and their recruiters must inform applicants about use, storage, and retention. 

• They must avoid requesting intrusive or unrelated data (such as health information unless job-related). 

Ontario currently has no private sector privacy legislation but does have rules for provincial public sector employers in the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA). 

There is a wide variety of other requirements, such as workplace safety training and language requirements in Quebec, that we do not have space to cover here. 

Best pan-Canadian practices for employers and recruiters  

For multi-provincial employers who want to meet all these standards, we recommend a full legal review of hiring practices and hiring data retention policies, including: 

• Draft pay transparency compliant job ads which avoid references to protected grounds unless a bona fide occupational requirement. In Québec, publish French-first. Make sure a rate or range for base pay is stated. State whether AI will be used in the recruitment process. Do not ask candidates about past pay. 

• Avoid misrepresenting the job and do not allow recruiters to charge, especially those recruiting foreigners to charge any fees to applicants for applying for a job.  

• Diarize deadlines for updating candidates who are interviewed. This upcoming Ontario requirement is good HR practice and public relations. Ensure all managers, HR or recruiters who do interviews are reminded to update all interviewees on the status of their application within 45 days of their last interview. In Ontario, failure to do so may lead to a fine of thousands of dollars. 

• Be selective and intentional about collecting/use/retention of candidate PI. Limit information collection to what is necessary for the specific job. Get written consent if collecting third-party information such as social media scans or references checks from persons who are not nominated by the candidate.  Set deadlines for deleting old unsuccessful candidates’ PI after one year from the date of non-hire unless you really may consider them for a future opening. 

• Ensure all new hires receive statutorily mandated information. Ensure employment agreements and letters of hire include all required basic data re: work including data required by Ontario. In BC, Ontario and Quebec, send ESA summaries within 30 days. 

J. Geoffrey Howard is the founder of Howard Employment Law in Vancouver. Ian Jung is an employment lawyer at Ascent Employment Law in Vancouver.