Can an employer discipline you for social media posts on the Israel-Hamas war? Lawyers say it depends

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The Israel-Hamas war has provoked strong feelings in Canada and around the world, raising questions about the extent that employers can go to limit what employees say in and out of the workplace.

On Monday, the issue became centre-stage at the Ontario legislature, with the NDP expelling Hamilton-Centre MPP Sarah Jama from caucus after the fallout over comments she made about the war.

The majority Progressive Conservative government at Queen's Park later voted to censure the MPP. Members of the NDP voted against the censure.

Two weeks ago, Air Canada fired a pilot accused of sharing anti-Israel social media posts of himself during a protest in Montreal. And last week, a Toronto-area realtor was suspended by his brokerage over a social media post making fun of the destruction in Gaza.

Paul Champ, an Ottawa-based human rights, employment, labour and constitutional lawyer, told CTV National News that cases such as these could have a "chilling effect" beyond politics.

"It's a very divisive issue and we're seeing it play out in workplaces across Canada," he said.

In most cases, what an employee does in their private time, referred to in employment law as "off-duty conduct," should not be the business of an employer, Champ said.

An exception could be if the off-duty conduct affects an employer's reputation in a significant way, in which case it may be viewed as relevant to the workplace.

"We're starting to see complaints where employees are concerned that employers are telling them that their off-duty conduct, whether it's attending protests or their social media activity, is offensive to the employer and they may be subject to discipline if they don't take their messages down or if they do this or that," Champ said.

However, he says for most employers, it would be inappropriate to discipline an employee who expresses an opinion on their own private time.

"I think an employer who thinks that they disagree with their employee on those issues and what they're doing on their own private time – that that's enough to discipline them – I think they will find that that's not something they can legally justify."

Muneeza Sheikh, a labour, employment and human rights lawyer in Toronto, says while Canadians have a Charter right to freedom of expression, an employer can curb that right if a social media post, for example, is "operationally interfering with the business" or is "objectively discriminatory or inciting hatred towards any one group."

An issue, though, is if employers are pressuring employees not to post anything at all, "even if it is something that qualifies objectively as peaceful advocating on any one side," or such a policy is not applied consistently.

"If you're going to curb someone's right to express themselves freely in the workplace, it has to be because you're doing so in good faith to keep the business running, to keep the employees protected, and not because you wish to silence certain voices in the workplace," Sheikh said.

With files from CTV News Toronto Multi-Platform Writer Katherine DeClerq, CTVNewsMontreal.ca Digital Reporter Joe Lofaro and CP24 Web Content Writer Joanna Lavoie