thanx A.I / Checklist
Most BC employment agreements are not badly drafted. They were correct once, and the law moved. Here is what usually fails and what is usually absent.
Most BC employment agreements are not missing a signature block. They are carrying clauses that stopped being enforceable while nobody was looking. In rough order of how much they cost:
Termination. Anything paying “one week per completed year” falls below section 63 at the twelve-month mark, which makes it void and takes the cap with it. Full explanation here.
Probation. A six-month probationary period during which the employer may dismiss without notice does not survive contact with section 63, which starts creating liability at three consecutive months.
Unilateral variation. A clause reserving the right to change duties, pay or location at the employer’s discretion is the clause most likely to be read as permitting constructive dismissal.
Waivers and deductions. Overtime waivers, wage deductions and vacation-pay forfeiture provisions run into section 4, which makes the Act’s requirements unwaivable.
Non-competition. Rarely enforceable against an ordinary employee; frequently drafted far wider than any interest it could legitimately protect.
An absent clause is a finding in its own right, and these are the gaps that show up most often:
The 27-week serious illness or injury leave added on 28 November 2025. Any package drafted before that date is silent on it. What changed and when.
A temporary layoff provision. Without one, a layoff can be a termination on the first day.
A severability or savings provision, so that one void clause does not take neighbouring clauses down with it.
An intellectual property assignment, which matters more than most employers think and is hard to obtain after the fact.
Current statutory holidays, correctly enumerated. Agreements listing ten are common; the count has moved.
This is British Columbia, provincially regulated, non-union employers. It does not apply to federally regulated workplaces — banks, airlines, telecoms, interprovincial transport — which run under the Canada Labour Code, and it does not apply where a collective agreement governs.
If you are outside that scope, the answers here are the wrong answers. We turn those documents away rather than guess at them.
None of these defects appear because somebody drafted badly. They appear because a document written to be correct in 2019 was still being handed to new hires in 2026, and the statute moved in between.
Which is why “we had a lawyer do them” is not an answer to the question. It answers whether they were right once. It says nothing about whether they are right now.
Upload an agreement. We read every clause against the current Act and the decisions that interpret it, grade what we find, name the section each defect fails under, and list what is missing. About three minutes. The findings are free and there is no account.
We are not a law firm and this is not legal advice. A lawyer licensed in British Columbia must review and approve anything before you issue it to an employee — what we produce is a draft for them to check, which is a great deal cheaper than having them start from a blank page.
Describe the job in your own words. You get a straight answer and a price from the person who builds it — or an honest no if it isn't a fit.