If 2025 proved anything, it is that the balance of power in Canadian workplaces has decisively shifted — and employers who pretend otherwise are paying dearly for it.
This was the year courts stopped pretending that the employment relationship is a level playing field. Again and again, judges reminded employers that employees are vulnerable at termination, dependent on their income and entitled to be treated with dignity. Employers who acted as though contracts alone governed the relationship were swiftly disabused of that calculation.
Consistent with that, termination clauses continued their free fall in 2025. Despite years of warnings, employers persisted in relying on sloppily drafted, overreaching clauses — many written long before recent appellate guidance. Courts responded predictably by striking them down and awarding generous common-law notice. The message could not be clearer: if your termination clause is not pristine, current and conservative, it is likely worthless.
Bad-faith damages also had a banner year. Employers who delayed payments, cut off benefits prematurely, humiliated departing employees or terminated them at particularly vulnerable moments — during medical leaves, holidays or after raising complaints — were punished accordingly. Courts are no longer content to simply compensate employees for lost income. They are sanctioning employers for how dismissals are carried out.
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