LAWS & ANNOUNCEMENTS

New Laws

Jun 3: Yukon launched a new online tool enabling proponents and the public to track placer mining and mineral exploration projects moving through the  permitting and assessment systems. PermitFlow, which includes combined government data, allows for searching and sorting individual projects by status, file number, project type, class, name, proponent, and Traditional Territory.

Health & Safety

Jun 1: The Yukon Workers’ Safety and Compensation Board’s (WSCB) began implementing its new administrative monetary penalties (AMPs) policy with penalty amounts for OHS violations ranging from $1,000 to $20,000 depending on seriousness of the offence and whether it’s a first, second, or third/subsequent violation. The agency will also publish the names of companies who receive AMPs.

Action Point: Find out how to survive surprise government OHS inspections that can result in AMPs.

Health & Safety

Jun 4: Yukon’s Wildland Fire Management Branch is prepared to respond to wildfire activity with 26 crews operating out of six regional fire centres across the territory. In addition to 92 staff manage crews, firefighters will be supported by two contracted airtanker groups, along with helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft.

Workers’ Compensation

Jun 1: Yukon employers who violate their workers’ comp duty to cooperate with and reemploy workers seeking to return to work from a work injury are now subject to AMPs under the WSCB’s new penalties regime.

CASES

Discrimination: Firing Employee for Being Domestic Violence Victim Costs University $54,738

The Yukon Human Rights Board of Adjudication found a university committed sex and family status discrimination when it terminated an employee one day after she returned from domestic violence leave. The university knew the employee was a domestic violence victim and factored this into its decision not to renew her contract despite her excellent service record, the Board concluded. Result: It awarded her $35,000 in damages for injury to dignity and self-respect (the second highest such award in Yukon history) and $19,738.88 for three months of lost wages [Antony v. Yukon University, YHRPA File: 2025-04, May 28, 2026].

Action Point: The takeaway from Antony is that unfavourably treating employees or job applicants because they are or are perceived to be domestic violence victims is illegal discrimination on the basis of sex and perhaps family status. This is true even if domestic violence victim status is just one factor in the decision. What domestic violence victims need is not exclusion but support. Find out how to protect your employees from the risk of workplace domestic violence.