British Columbia Legislation Prohibiting Sick Notes For Short-Term Absences Now In Force

In May 2025, the British Columbia government passed Bill 11, Employment Standards Amendment Act, 2025 ("Bill 11"), which amends the Employment Standards Act (the "ESA") to prohibit employers from requesting a medical note in "specified circumstances" to prove that an employee's short-term absence was related to illness or injury.

On November 12, 2025, the government passed a regulation setting out the "specified circumstances" in which employers are prohibited from requesting a medical note. Employers are now prohibited from requesting a medical note for an employee's first two health-related leaves of up to five consecutive days in the same calendar year.

Here are the key points:

• Employers are not permitted to request (and employees cannot be required to provide) a medical note, document or other record in relation to a "health-related leave", which means a leave related to the health, illness or injury of an employee or an employee's immediate family.
• A health-related leave has the following criteria:
  • the leave is not more than five consecutive days; and
  • the employee has not taken more than one other health-related leave for a period up to five consecutive days in the same calendar year.
• A health-related leave is considered to be taken in the calendar year in which the leave begins.
• A health-related leave does not include compassionate care leave, critical illness leave, or pregnancy/parental leaves. While these leaves are also health-related, they are separate entitlements under Part 6 of the ESA.
• These medical note restrictions do not apply where a medical note is necessary to assess whether the employee:
  • is fit to return to work after the health-related leave; or
  • requires accommodation in order to return to work after the health-related leave.

Takeaways

These legislative changes are part of a broader Canadian trend towards restricting the ability of employers to request medical notes for short-term absences, which we discussed in an article from earlier this year.

These changes apply to both unionized and non-unionized workplaces. Bill 11 did not amend the ESA's "meet or exceed" test, which permits collective agreement provisions on certain matters to replace the corresponding ESA requirements where those collective agreement provisions, when considered together, meet or exceed the corresponding ESA requirements. Unionized employers will therefore have to ensure that their absence management practices comply with these new medical note restrictions.

As noted, these changes do not affect an employer's ability to request medical information to manage workplace accommodations or an employee's return to work, or when an employee's leave falls outside the criteria for a health-related leave.

The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.