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.
A contractor label that didn't hold up
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 dollars a year preparing tax returns for friends and keeping books for one principal's company, did not change that picture. And even if she had fallen short of employee status, the court said, she would still have qualified as a dependent contractor, an intermediate category for workers who depend economically on a single business and are entitled to notice regardless.
Eight months of notice, cut down by a fast rehire
With the employment question settled, the next issue was how much notice she should have received. Weighing her length of service, her age and the seniority of her role, the court set a reasonable notice period of eight months.
But the award was reduced because she mitigated her losses quickly. She was advised on March 11, 2024, that her employment would end, and started with a new employer on July 15, 2024, about four months later. The court noted GFI had not shown comparable work was available to her any sooner, and assessed her damages at four months' pay rather than eight.
A bonus was not part of the award. Bonuses at the company were discretionary and tied to profitability, and she had not received one in the year before her termination, so the court found no basis to add one on top of the $39,771.84 owed for pay, benefits, and cellphone and insurance costs over the four-month period.
Accused of negligence, then offered a goodwill payment
A separate finding centred on how the dismissal itself was handled. After telling her by phone that her role would end, the company asked her to keep working through April to help train her replacement. She logged 25 to 30 hours that month and was never paid for it.
More than a month after the termination call, the company's president and CEO emailed her alleging numerous accounting errors and overpayments to the tax authority, without providing specifics or the spreadsheet he said documented them. In the same message he wrote, "As a gesture of goodwill, we have offered to pay you for April."
Framing money already owed to her as a gesture of goodwill, the court found, compounded by unspecified accusations of negligence, amounted to misleading and unduly insensitive conduct that caused her mental distress beyond the normal upset of being let go. The result was $30,000 in aggravated damages on top of the notice pay. She testified that her mental health suffered, saying she is "still consumed by it to this day."
