Canadian legal system - definitions Flashcards
What is employment?
An organizational form through which a person (employee) sells their labour power to a buyer of labour (employer) in exchange for value and in which the relationship is governed by an employment contract.
What is a gig worker?
A worker who accepts work on a job-by-job or freelance basis, often of short duration, with no promise of ongoing or future work from the person or organization providing the work.
What is a contract?
A legally binding agreement consisting of reciprocal promises between two or more parties.
What is an employment contract?
A contract between an employer and an individual employee that defines the conditions under which the employee will provide labour to the employer in exchange for a monetary benefit (wages, salary) and sometimes other benefits (e.g., health benefits). An employment contract may be written or oral.
What is common law?
A system of judge-made rules originating in England around the 12th century, and inherited by Canada as a British colony, that uses a precedent-based approach to case law.
What does it mean to distinguish in legal terms?
To explain how a prior legal decision dealt with facts or legal issues that are different from the facts or issues in the current case.
What is a precedent?
An earlier decision by a judge that dealt with the same, or very similar, facts and legal issues as those before a judge in the current case.
What is stare decisis?
A Latin term meaning ‘to stand by a previous decision.’ It is a guiding principle in the common law regime.
What is jurisdiction?
The scope of authority over which a government, a court, or an expert administrative power has the power to govern.
What is binding precedent?
An earlier decision by a court of higher ranking dealing with the same legal issue in a case that comes before a lower court judge.
What is a tort?
A type of wrongful act done by one person to another (or to another’s property) that judges have recognized as legally actionable.
Examples are nuisance, trespass, negligence, and conspiracy.
What is a statute?
A law, or legislation, produced by a government that includes rules that regulate the conduct of business and people.
An example is the Ontario Employment Standards Act, 2000.
What is an injunction?
A legal order issued by a judge prohibiting a person from engaging in a particular course of action, such as breaching a contract, committing a tort, or violating a statute.
What is a regulation?
A government-made detailed rule introduced as a supplement to, and pursuant to authority created in, a statute.
For example, the Ontario Employment Standards Act, 2000 requires that employers pay at least ‘the prescribed minimum wage’ but does not say what that wage rate is.
What is a protective standards regulation?
A government regulation designed primarily to protect employees by imposing mandatory standards, such as minimum contract requirements and safety rules.
What is an expert administrative tribunal?
A decision-making body created by a government statute and given responsibility for interpreting and enforcing one or more statutes and any regulations pursuant to that statute.
What is judicial review?
The process through which a decision of an expert administrative tribunal is appealed to a court on the basis that the tribunal exceeded its authority (or jurisdiction) as defined in the statute that created it or that the tribunal’s decision was wrong.
What is a strike?
Legislation can assign a particular definition to the word strike. In Canada, strikes are usually defined to include both (1) a collective refusal by employees to perform work and (2) a deliberate collective slowdown by workers designed to restrict the output of an employer.
What is a collective agreement?
A contract between an employer (or employers) and a trade union (or trade unions) that sets out the conditions of employment for a group of employees.
What is an interest arbitrator?
An individual or a three-person expert arbitration board tasked with writing the terms of a collective agreement when the union and employer are unable to reach agreement through voluntary collective bargaining.
What is a labour arbitrator?
An individual or a three-person expert arbitration panel appointed to decide disputes over the application and interpretation of collective agreements.
What is a subsystem in legal sociology?
A self-contained system within the broader social system that possesses its own rules, norms, and modes of communication.
What is negotiation?
A discussion between two or more people aimed at reaching an agreement.
What is civil litigation?
The processes involved with lawsuits filed in court not involving criminal law statutes, such as legal actions for breach of contract or torts.
What is a labour injunction?
An order issued by a judge that prohibits or restricts a union and unionized workers from engaging in some type of collective action, such as a strike or picketing.
What is a workplace norm?
A norm or expectation that arises in a workplace as a result of past practices or relationships that can influence behaviour at work even though it is not codified in a contract or statute.
What is a feedback loop?
An explanatory device that demonstrates how outcomes produced by a system can influence other systems and can also ‘feed back’ into the original system as information in a process of perpetual learning, experience, and change.
What is a spillover effect?
The effects that collective agreement settlements bargained by unions and employers have on individual employment contracts in non-union workplaces.
What is union avoidance?
A management strategy designed to reduce the risks that employees will join unions.
What is an equilibrium wage rate?
A theoretical wage rate fixed through market forces in which the supply of labour equals the demand for labour.
What is a cartel?
A combination of individuals or companies that attempt to use collective force or coordination to fix market prices.
What is a mandatory floor?
A law that establishes a mandatory minimum condition that can be included in a contract.
What is a mandatory ceiling?
A law that establishes a mandatory maximum condition that can be included in a contract.
What does ultra vires mean?
Beyond one’s jurisdictional powers.
What is a bill?
A draft of a proposed law to introduce a new statute or to amend an existing one.
What is a government bill?
A bill introduced by a minister of the elected government.
What is a private member’s bill?
A bill introduced by an elected politician who is not a minister.
What is royal assent?
A largely symbolic process through which the English sovereign (the ‘Crown’) or their representative formally approves of a new law passed by a Canadian Parliament.
What is legislation?
Laws enacted by governments, including both statutes and regulations.
What is a complaint-based model?
A statutory model that depends on people filing complaints alleging that their legal rights have been violated, which initiates a government-led investigation into whether there has been a violation of the statute.
What is an adjudicator?
A person or persons who are appointed by a government or the parties to a legal dispute to hear evidence and decide a dispute involving the interpretation and application of a statute or private contract.
