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If you work for an airline, an airport, a bank, a telecom or an interprovincial trucking company, you are federally regulated. The Employment Standards Act does not apply to you at all, and the rights you do have are in some ways considerably stronger.
Start My Enquiry →Our Mississauga office, 90 Matheson Blvd W | Federal and provincial employees | Peel courts, 7755 Hurontario St | Initial Assessments
Most Ontario workers are covered by the Employment Standards Act. A significant number of Mississauga workers are not, and they usually do not know it until something goes wrong.
The Employment Standards Act does not apply where the employment relationship is within the legislative jurisdiction of the Parliament of Canada. Section 3(2). That captures air transportation, banks, telecommunications, broadcasting, interprovincial and international trucking, rail, shipping, and works declared to be for the general advantage of Canada. Canada Labour Code, section 2. With Pearson on the city’s northern edge and a corridor of freight and financial employers around it, Mississauga has more of these workers than anywhere else in the region.
The practical consequence is blunt. A federally regulated employee has no Employment Standards Act claim, cannot complain to the Ontario Ministry of Labour, and will lose time discovering it. They deal with the federal Labour Program and the Canada Industrial Relations Board instead, on a deadline of ninety days.
The compensation is that the federal right is stronger in the way that matters most. A non managerial, non unionised federally regulated employee with twelve months of service can complain that a dismissal was unjust, and the Board can order reinstatement. No Ontario employee has that.
A Mississauga employment matter can go to one of three places, and choosing wrongly can cost you the claim. There is no courthouse in Mississauga; provincial civil claims are heard in Brampton.
Unjust dismissal complaints by non managerial, non unionised employees with at least twelve months of continuous service. Canada Labour Code, section 240. The Board may order compensation, reinstatement, or any other thing it is equitable to require in order to counteract the consequences of the dismissal. Section 242(4).
Wrongful and constructive dismissal claims at common law, for provincially and federally regulated employees alike, above the Small Claims limit. Claims of up to $50,000 go to the Small Claims Court in the same Hurontario Street complex.
Our Mississauga office at 90 Matheson Boulevard West is the closest of our four offices for Peel clients, with same-week appointments.
The test is the employer’s undertaking, not where you physically work. An air carrier, an airport authority, ground and cargo handling, air navigation, a bank, a telecom, a broadcaster, and trucking or rail that crosses a provincial border are all federally regulated. A shop, restaurant or hotel inside the same terminal ordinarily is not. That distinction is fact specific and it is worth settling at the outset.
If you are federally regulated, the Employment Standards Act does not apply to you. Section 3(2). No Ontario Ministry of Labour complaint, no employment standards officer, no Ontario order. What you have instead is the unjust dismissal regime: twelve months of continuous service, not a manager, not covered by a collective agreement, and a complaint within ninety days of the dismissal. Canada Labour Code, sections 240 and 167(3).
The important point, and the one employers most often get wrong, is that a federally regulated employer cannot simply dismiss you without cause by writing a cheque. The Supreme Court of Canada held that the unjust dismissal provisions displace the common law ability to dismiss without reasons on reasonable notice. Wilson v. Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., 2016 SCC 29. The employer has to justify the dismissal.
Federal notice and severance are separate again, and were strengthened recently. Graduated notice of two to eight weeks by length of service came into force on 1 February 2024. Canada Labour Code, section 230(1.1). Severance is the greater of two days of wages per completed year and five days, with no statutory cap, and it starts at twelve months of service rather than five years. Section 235(1). Amendments in force on 20 June 2024 confirmed that paying notice and severance does not answer an unjust dismissal complaint.
For provincially regulated Mississauga workers the analysis is the familiar one. The Employment Standards Act sets a floor and the common law usually sets a much higher figure, and which of the two you get turns on whether the termination clause in your contract is enforceable.
Constructive dismissal is the harder call. A significant unilateral change to pay, duties, reporting or location can end the contract, but resigning on a wrong assessment of that is expensive. We would rather look at the change with you before you respond to it than afterwards.
Discrimination and failure to accommodate are dealt with under human rights legislation, and which regime applies again depends on whether the employer is provincial or federal. The duty to accommodate to the point of undue hardship exists in both, and the evidence a claim needs is broadly similar.
Reprisal for asserting a workplace right is separate from, and often stronger than, the underlying complaint. If something changed shortly after you raised an issue, tell us the sequence and the dates.
Our Mississauga office is at 90 Matheson Boulevard West, Suite 101, off Hurontario at Matheson, with same-week appointments as well as telephone and video meetings. Most matters qualify for a no-obligation initial assessment. If you have just been dismissed, tell us who your employer is before anything else. Whether they are federally or provincially regulated decides everything that follows, including a ninety day deadline.
90 Matheson Blvd W, Suite 101
Mississauga, ON L5R 3R3
Off Hurontario at Matheson, same-week appointments
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