He called it a stipend himself - weeks before filing abuse claims
A consultant’s $160,000 salary claim fell apart after his own text to his father confirmed he was on a $3,000 monthly stipend.
The consultant had been working with B-Line Technologies Inc., a Halifax-based AI startup focused on smart building automation, since mid-2023. He signed on as a consultant with the title of Vice President of Operations. Both sides agreed on a monthly stipend of between $2,500 and $3,000. He never signed an employment contract. He billed through his American company and went back and forth between Canada and the US.
A letter meant for immigration, not employment
In early 2024, a cancelled government contract cost the company over two million dollars in anticipated revenue. The consultant needed help regularizing his immigration status, and the founder assisted. What followed was a letter dated May 7, 2024, titled “Invitation for Intra-Company Transfer,” referencing a $160,000 annual salary.
The consultant argued it was an employment offer. The founder denied signing it, noting every other employment contract at the company carried an electronic signature that did not resemble the one on the letter. The Nova Scotia Labour Board, in a decision dated November 4, 2026, found the letter was not an employment offer at all - it was a document created to support an immigration application, “a self-serving document authored by the Respondent to achieve his own ends.”
Then came the text
Beginning in late 2024, the company and the consultant were trying to attract investment from the consultant’s father, a venture capitalist. As part of that conversation in early January 2025, the consultant told his father: “I have a $3000 CAD monthly stipend but that’s obviously going to turn into a real salary with a fund raise or if the company is sold.”
Days later, when his father pulled out, he texted the founder: “Dude this sucks but this may be what needs to happen.”
As late as January 2025, the consultant acknowledged he was on a stipend, not a salary. The parties agreed they were still friends through December 2024.
From friends to ‘pure fiction’
Within weeks, the consultant filed a submission with Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada accusing the company of “severe abuse and exploitation.” The Board found those claims unsupported and described the submission as appearing “to be pure fiction” - hard to square with the consultant’s own testimony that he and the founder were friends during the entire period of alleged abuse.
The original Labour Standards decision had awarded $43,506.65 in unpaid wages and $3,200 in notice pay, all based on the $160,000 salary finding. The Board set that aside entirely. No employment contract. No payroll record. No complaint about missing wages during the eight months the salary was supposedly owed. E-transfers through December 2024 were still labelled “Payment for Consulting Services.” The company was selling off its pens and paper pads.
For HR teams at startups, informal arrangements - VP titles handed out for optics, stipends paid without contracts, immigration letters drafted loosely - create exactly the kind of ambiguity that ends up before a labour board. Documenting terms from day one is cheaper than litigating them later.
See B-Line Technologies Inc. v Grooms, 2026 NSLB 133
