There’s a problem with trying to describe the state of work in Canada. The country is too big, the labour markets are too different and the things that matter in one province can look almost irrelevant in another. That’s also what makes the exercise useful. If you read Ontario on its own, you could easily conclude that Canadian HR is spending most of its time inside labour arbitration and workplace safety disputes. Read British Columbia and disability, injury and accommodation suddenly seem much more prominent. Alberta brings grievance procedure and union representation into the picture. Yukon is worried about how to use a constrained immigration program when employers still need people. The Northwest Territories is trying to train workers for jobs that don’t exist yet but soon might. Saskatchewan is putting public money behind disability employment. Prince Edward Island is investing in Indigenous employment support. None of those developments tells us what is happening everywhere. Put them beside one another, though, and a few things start to look less local. Accommodation is one of them.
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