In the summer of 2024, a former employee of Google Canada sued the tech company for wrongful dismissal and a breach of the Ontario Human Rights Code. Sarah Lilleyman, then thirty-nine and who worked for Google Canada for around two and a half years, claimed that she had been terminated because she was pregnant; she had been fired just days after telling her bosses she was expecting.
Lilleyman was reportedly told by Google Canada that her firing was due to “restructuring” and “workforce reduction” and “changing business needs.”
In its statement of defence, as reported by the National Post, Google Canada stated that the company “denies it discriminated against Lilleyman in her employment or on termination on the basis of sex, gender, or any other protected ground under the Ontario Human Rights Code.” Furthermore, the company claimed, “Lilleyman’s allegations, even if true (which are expressly denied), do not amount to a violation of the Code . . . First, ‘pregnancy’ is not a protected ground under the Code.”
In fact, pregnancy is protected under the province’s human rights legislation: it is illegal to refuse to hire, to fire, to demote, or to lay off (even with notice) a person because they are or may become pregnant. But is Google’s claim, while untrue in a legal context, completely off the mark?
“It is a scary thing to put yourself out there to take on this gigantic company that does have so much power,” Lilleyman’s lawyer Kathryn Marshall told the National Post. “But...
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