Years on payroll through her own company didn't make her a contractor, court finds
A finance executive paid through her own professional corporation for years has been ruled an employee, not a contractor, and awarded damages over how her employer handled her dismissal.
In a decision dated September 9, 2026, Assistant Chief Justice D.B. Higa of the Alberta Court of Justice ruled that the chief financial officer of GFI Solutions Ltd. was an employee, not a contractor, and awarded her $69,771.84 in total: $39,771.84 for failure to provide reasonable notice, and $30,000 in aggravated damages for the manner of her firing.
The agreement, signed in 2017, called her a contractor but was titled an employment agreement and used the word employ or employment in at least six places, according to the ruling. She was paid monthly through her personal corporation while working as controller and later chief financial officer, and the company argued that arrangement made her an independent contractor rather than a staff member.
That label didn't survive scrutiny. What matters, the court said, is the total relationship between the parties, not the wording on the page. Under the agreement she answered to the company's three principals, GFI supplied her computer, software, cellphone and professional insurance, and she had no ability to hire her own help or profit beyond her fixed monthly pay.
Even the modest outside income she reported, a few thousand...
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