He said he'd resigned as director months before the wage order landed
Signing a resignation letter isn't enough. An Ontario labour board says a company director remains personally liable for unpaid wages until the resignation is actually received, no matter what the paperwork claims.
In an August 17, 2026, decision, Vice-Chair Bonnie Bidgoli of the Ontario Labour Relations Board partially granted a director's application to review a wage order, finding he remained personally liable for wages owed to a former employee of Tasteco Supermarket Inc. for all but the final two days of the assessed period.
A wage order followed a departed director
An Employment Standards Officer issued a Director Order to Pay against the applicant on January 16, 2026, making him personally liable, as a director of Tasteco Supermarket Inc., for wages and vacation pay owed to a former employee for the period from April 23 to May 17, 2023. The order totalled $998.50.
The applicant sought a review, arguing he had resigned as a director on May 15, 2023, two days before the end of the liability period the order assessed. He testified that his lawyer emailed a resignation letter to the employer's counsel that day, copying the other directors and the corporation's own email address, and separately sent a signed copy by Canada Post.
Canada Post tracking records showed the mailed letter was signed for on May 18, 2023, three days after the date on the letter itself. The applicant also filed a Notice of Change under the Corporations Information Act, submitted to the corporate registry in January 2026, recording his resignation as effective May 15, 2023, after what he described as concerns he raised the previous year.
Cross-examination tested resignation timeline
Under cross-examination by the Director of Employment Standards, the applicant testified that he had located the Notice of Change only recently on his computer and had not produced it earlier. He acknowledged that a Corporate Profile Report listed him as a director as of April 23, 2023, and agreed that neither the employer nor its counsel ever responded to the May 15 email.
He also testified that he could not recall whether he or his lawyer had followed up on the resignation between 2023 and 2025, though he believed his lawyer had done so. Asked directly whether he was a director during the disputed period, he replied that he was "a director on paper."
The Director of Employment Standards took no position on when the resignation took effect, but argued that a person listed as a director in corporate filings is presumed to hold that role until clear and reliable evidence shows both an intention to resign and steps taken to carry it out. It also pointed to a 2020 Board decision in which a similar resignation email was found never to have reached the company at all.
The board trimmed, but upheld, the liability
Vice-Chair Bonnie Bidgoli found that the applicant resigned effective May 15, 2023, the date his lawyer's email reached the employer's counsel and the corporation's own email address. Under the Business Corporations Act, Bidgoli noted, "a resignation takes effect upon receipt by the corporation," and no party challenged the applicant's evidence about when that email arrived.
That finding trimmed the liability period by two days, from 25 days to 23, and the wage order was reduced from $998.50 to $918.62. Bidgoli rejected the applicant's request to divide the liability among the company's other directors, finding that directors are jointly and severally responsible for the full amount and that any contribution from co-directors would have to be pursued separately.
The applicant was ordered to pay the reduced amount to the Director of Employment Standards in trust within 30 days of the decision. The former employee whose wages triggered the order did not appear at the hearing.
