Age Discrimination at Work in Ontario: Fired, Laid Off, or Left Behind in a Relocation
When an Ontario employer relocates or restructures, older workers are often the ones cut loose. Here is how to spot age discrimination, why age increases (not decreases) your severance, and the two legal routes to compensation.
Key takeaways
- Age is a protected ground under s. 5(1) of Ontario's Human Rights Code. An employer cannot use a relocation or restructuring as cover for clearing out older workers.
- Age only needs to be a factor in why you were selected, not the only reason or even the main one. 'We're going in a younger direction' comments, or a cut list skewed toward older staff, are classic evidence.
- Being older increases your severance. Age is a core Bardal factor, and Ontario's Court of Appeal has confirmed long-service older employees sit at the high end of reasonable notice, up to 24 months in cases like Dawe v. Equitable Life.
- You have two remedy tracks: an HRTO application (1-year deadline, no costs risk, dignity damages plus lost wages) or a civil wrongful dismissal claim that adds human rights damages on top of full severance (2-year deadline).
- Do not sign the severance release until the package has been reviewed. A signed release almost always ends both your severance claim and your human rights claim.
In this article
- Can my employer target older workers in a layoff or relocation?
- How do you spot age discrimination in a layoff or relocation?
- Does being older shrink your severance? No. It increases it.
- HRTO application or wrongful dismissal lawsuit: which route?
- What are age discrimination claims actually worth in Ontario?
- How does age discrimination interact with the severance package and release?
- First steps if you are over 50 and just got termination papers
✅Quick answer. Ontario employers cannot select you for termination, layoff, or exclusion from a relocation because of your age, even partly. Age is a protected ground under s. 5(1) of the Human Rights Code, and age only needs to be one factor in the decision for it to be discrimination. Better still for you, age works in your favour on severance: courts give older, long-service workers longer notice periods, up to 24 months. If you are over 50 and just got termination papers in a restructuring, get the package reviewed before you sign anything.
Can my employer target older workers in a layoff or relocation?
No. Section 5(1) of Ontario's Human Rights Code gives every employee the right to equal treatment in employment without discrimination because of age. That protection covers hiring, pay, and promotion, and it squarely covers who gets terminated when a plant closes, an office relocates, or a company restructures. Ontario abolished mandatory retirement years ago; there is no age at which this protection runs out.
Here is the part employers rely on and workers misunderstand: a restructuring itself is legal. An employer can close a location, move work to another city, and eliminate positions. What it cannot do is use age to decide who goes and who stays, who gets offered a spot at the new location and who does not, or who gets pushed toward 'retirement' instead of a transfer. The business decision can be legitimate while the selection decisions inside it are discriminatory.
The legal test is deliberately employee-friendly on one key point: age does not have to be the only reason or even the main reason for your termination. It only has to be a factor. In Yanover v. The Otter Guy Inc., 2024 HRTO 731, a 72-year-old driver was let go after the CEO said the company was 'going with younger people now'; the Tribunal found discrimination and awarded lost wages plus $10,000 for injury to dignity. The employer's other complaints about him did not matter once age was in the mix.
How do you spot age discrimination in a layoff or relocation?
Ask yourself three questions. First, were you treated worse than others: selected for the cut list, not offered relocation, offered a weaker package, or nudged toward retirement? Second, is there anything connecting that treatment to your age? Third, does the employer's explanation actually hold up, or does it look like a story built after the fact? You do not need a confession. Discrimination is almost always proven by circumstantial evidence and patterns.
- Comments about age or retirement. 'When are you thinking of retiring?', 'we need fresh energy', 'the new office has a younger culture'. In Weiler v. Farncomb Kirkpatrick, 2009 HRTO 528, repeatedly pressing an employee to name a retirement date was itself found to be age discrimination.
- A cut list that skews old. If the workers let go in the relocation are disproportionately the oldest, and the ones offered spots at the new site are younger, that pattern is evidence.
- Your duties survived, you didn't. If your 'eliminated' job is quietly being done by a younger hire or a younger retained employee, the redundancy story weakens badly.
- Retirement framing on your exit. Packages dressed up as 'retirement transition' offers, or an ROE and exit paperwork that mention age, workload, or energy.
- Sudden performance concerns. Years of clean reviews, then criticism appears right before the restructuring, with no progressive discipline. In Felton v. Toronto Singles, 2020 HRTO 169, a 60-year-old was terminated for 'poor sales' while younger staff with equal or worse numbers stayed; the Tribunal awarded $20,000 for injury to dignity plus lost wages.
Be honest about the other side too. If the employer can show the selection was genuinely age-neutral (the whole department went, the position truly disappeared, objective criteria were applied consistently), a claim will fail. In Klimaszewska v. ADESA Auctions Canada, 2011 HRTO 74, a 59-year-old's discrimination claim was dismissed because the evidence showed a real economic restructuring and her position was never refilled. That is exactly why the evidence-gathering steps at the end of this article matter.
Does being older shrink your severance? No. It increases it.
Employers sometimes price packages as if an older worker is 'near the end anyway' and will take less. The law runs the opposite way. Your common-law severance (reasonable notice) is set by the Bardal factors: character of your employment, length of service, your age, and the availability of similar work. Age pushes notice up, because courts recognize that workers in their 50s and 60s face a harder job market and longer searches.
The Court of Appeal confirmed this in Dawe v. The Equitable Life Insurance Company of Canada, 2019 ONCA 512, involving a 62-year-old senior executive with 37 years of service; his reasonable notice was set at 24 months, the practical high-water mark reserved for exactly this profile of employee. You do not need to be an executive to benefit from the principle. A 58-year-old machine operator with 20 years at a relocating plant is in a completely different severance bracket than a 30-year-old with 3 years, and any package that ignores that is underpriced. We cover the age effect in detail in severance pay for older employees, and you can pressure-test any offer with our free severance review.
HRTO application or wrongful dismissal lawsuit: which route?
Ontario gives you two tracks, and you must choose; you cannot run the same complaint in both places at once. The good news is you do not have to give up the human rights piece to sue for severance: under s. 46.1 of the Code, a court hearing your wrongful dismissal claim can award human rights damages on top of your notice period. For most terminated older workers with real severance value, the civil route captures everything in one claim. The HRTO makes sense when the severance piece is small but the discrimination is clear.
| HRTO application | Civil court (wrongful dismissal + s. 46.1) | |
|---|---|---|
| Deadline | 1 year from the last incident | 2 years from termination (see our limitation period guide) |
| What you can win | Lost wages, injury-to-dignity damages, interest, policy remedies (s. 45.2) | Full reasonable notice damages, plus human rights damages, plus bad-faith damages where conduct warrants |
| Severance value | Not designed to price common-law notice | Captures the full notice period, often the biggest number for older workers |
| Costs risk | No adverse costs; you don't pay the employer's lawyers if you lose | Loser generally contributes to winner's legal costs |
| Lawyer needed? | Self-representation is possible, though respondents lawyer up | Realistically yes |
| Speed | Slow (often 1 to 2+ years to hearing) | Slow, but most claims settle well before trial |
What are age discrimination claims actually worth in Ontario?
Two buckets. The first is your severance: for an older, long-service worker, reasonable notice commonly lands in the 12 to 24 month range depending on the Bardal factors, and that is usually the largest dollar figure in the case. The second is human rights damages for injury to dignity, feelings and self-respect under s. 45.2, plus any lost wages the discrimination caused.
Recent HRTO decisions in age-in-termination cases give a realistic sense of the dignity-damages band: $5,000 in Banning v. KA Gas and Variety Store, 2023 HRTO 821; $10,000 in Yanover (2024); $20,000 in Felton (2020), where the Tribunal also found reprisal for complaining about the discrimination. Most single-termination age cases land somewhere in the $5,000 to $25,000 range for the dignity component, with more for egregious or prolonged conduct, and lost wages on top. Stack that on a properly priced notice period and the total case value for an older worker is often several multiples of the employer's first offer. For a deeper dive into how these damages work in a lawsuit, see human rights damages in employment cases.
How does age discrimination interact with the severance package and release?
Almost every restructuring package comes with a full and final release, and that release will waive your Human Rights Code claims along with everything else. Sign it, and both tracks close, usually permanently. That is precisely why employers attach short deadlines ('this offer expires Friday') to packages handed to older workers: the discrimination claim is often worth more than the package, and they want it extinguished before you get advice. Deadlines like that are pressure tactics, not law; a properly raised claim does not evaporate because an arbitrary offer date passed.
A credible age discrimination angle is also negotiation leverage. Employers settle discrimination-flavoured terminations at a premium because human rights damages are not capped by the notice period, the optics are bad, and at the HRTO they cannot recover costs even if they win. You do not need to file anything to benefit from that leverage; you need the claim identified and asserted before you release it. Before signing, read should you sign the severance offer and get the numbers checked.
First steps if you are over 50 and just got termination papers
- 1.Do not sign anything at the termination meeting, and do not agree verbally to the package. Take the documents home. You lose nothing by pausing.
- 2.Write down everything while it is fresh: who said what at the meeting, every age or retirement comment from the past two years, who made the selection decisions.
- 3.Quietly note who else was cut and who was kept or offered relocation, with rough ages and service. A cut list that skews old is core evidence.
- 4.Preserve your paper trail before your accounts are shut off: performance reviews, the termination letter, the relocation announcement, any emails about the restructuring or retirement.
- 5.Diarize both deadlines: 1 year for an HRTO application, 2 years for a civil claim. Then ignore the artificial deadline printed on the offer.
- 6.Apply for EI right away; it does not hurt your claim.
- 7.Get the package and the discrimination angle reviewed together. Pricing the severance without the human rights claim, or vice versa, leaves money on the table.
Bottom line: a relocation or restructuring does not give your employer a free pass on age. If the oldest workers keep ending up on the cut list, the law calls that discrimination, and it compounds rather than discounts what you are owed. Start with what your severance should actually be in our guide to severance pay in Ontario, see how these claims run in wrongful dismissal, and if you are holding an offer right now, send it through our severance package review before any deadline the employer invented.
Frequently asked questions
Does age discrimination have to be the main reason I was terminated?
No. Under Ontario's Human Rights Code, age only needs to be a factor in the decision, not the sole or primary reason. An employer can have genuine business reasons for a restructuring and still be liable if age influenced who was selected to go.
Can my employer offer me a 'retirement package' instead of severance during a relocation?
They can offer it, but framing your termination as retirement does not reduce your entitlements, and pressuring you to retire can itself be age discrimination. Treat a 'retirement transition' offer as what it is, a severance package, and have it priced against your real common-law entitlement before responding.
How long do I have to bring an age discrimination claim in Ontario?
An HRTO application must generally be filed within 1 year of the last discriminatory incident. A civil wrongful dismissal claim, which can include human rights damages under s. 46.1 of the Code, generally must be started within 2 years of termination. You cannot pursue the same complaint in both forums at once.
What if the whole plant closed and everyone lost their job, not just older workers?
A genuinely across-the-board closure with no selection decisions is usually not age discrimination, and tribunals have dismissed claims where the restructuring was truly age-neutral. But look closely: if some workers were offered relocation, redeployment, or rehire and the older ones were not, selection happened, and that selection is where discrimination lives. Either way, you are still owed full severance, which age increases.
Daniel Carter
Legal Writer, Mirza Law
Daniel Carter is a legal writer at Mirza Law in Toronto. He writes about layoffs, employment contracts, and the steps to take before you sign anything from your employer.
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