Ontario Government Announces Minimum Wage Will Rise to $17.95 Per Hour on October 1st
Many Ontario employers, including charities and not-for-profits that pay any employees the minimum wage, will need to adjust payroll before October 1, 2026, when Ontario’s general minimum wage rises from $17.60 to $17.95 per hour. The Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development announced the increase on April 1, 2026, which applies across Ontario, and is expected to benefit more than 700,000 workers. The provincial government described the change as an annual inflation-linked adjustment, tied to a 1.9 per cent increase in Ontario’s Consumer Price Index.
Under the Employment Standards Act, 2000, most employees are entitled to at least the applicable minimum wage, whether they are full-time, part-time, casual, hourly, salaried, paid by commission, or paid by piece rate. Compliance is assessed on a pay-period basis.
The October 1 changes will also affect specialized rates. The student minimum wage will rise to $16.90 per hour, the homeworker rate to $19.70 per hour, and hunting, fishing and wilderness guide rates to $89.75 per day for less than five consecutive hours and $179.50 per day for five or more hours. Organizations should update payroll systems, funding applications, and employment templates before the new rates take effect.
After-Acquired Cause Defeats Long-Service Employee’s Wrongful Dismissal Claim, says ONSC
Employee privacy breaches can undo an otherwise generous termination package where employee misconduct strikes at the core of the employment relationship. In Birnbaum v. Dr. Chan, released April 15, 2026, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice dismissed claims for wrongful dismissal and human rights damages of a 70-year-old medical secretary with approximately 19 years of service. The Court found that the defendant had just cause for dismissal based on after-acquired evidence of serious privacy and confidentiality breaches. For charities and not-for-profits, the decision provides an example of how long service, age, and health-related accommodation issues do not necessarily prevent an employer from relying on serious pre-termination misconduct of an employee discovered after dismissal, particularly where the employee’s role involves confidential records, vulnerable clients, patients, donors, members, or service users.
After-acquired just cause refers to serious employee misconduct that occurred before dismissal but was discovered by the employer only after the dismissal. If the misconduct is sufficiently serious, the employer may rely on it to defend a wrongful dismissal claim, even if the employee was originally terminated without cause.
The plaintiff, Elka Birnbaum (the “Employee”), had worked for Dr. Victoria Chan and Dr. Victoria Chan Medicine Professional Corporation (the “Employer”), operating a small medical clinic, since 2001, first full-time and later part-time after her position was reduced in 2016. In 2019, the Employee had double bypass surgery following a heart attack and later returned to work gradually. When the COVID-19 pandemic began in March 2020, the Employer moved to virtual and telephone appointments, adopted health and safety measures, and arranged for the Employee to work separately from other staff. The Employee then advised that, because of her age and health concerns, she did not feel safe attending the clinic and requested to work from home. The Employer provided a two-week paid leave and then terminated her employment without cause, offering 12 months’ salary continuation. When the Employee commenced litigation for wrongful dismissal, the Employer withdrew that offer and alleged after-acquired just cause based on the Employee’s misuse of the clinic’s electronic medical records system.
The Court considered whether the Employer breached the Human Rights Code by failing to accommodate the Employee’s disability-related request to work remotely, whether the termination was discriminatory or a reprisal contrary to the Occupational Health and Safety Act, whether the Employer acted in bad faith, and whether the Employer could rely on after-acquired cause. The Employee sought wrongful dismissal damages based on 24 months’ notice, general and human rights damages for injury to dignity, compensation for lost income, and “moral or punitive damages for the [Employer’s] breach of their duty of honesty and good faith in the performance of contractual and statutory duties owed to the [Employee],” seeking a total of $200,000 plus pre-judgment and post-judgment interest.
The Court accepted that employers must accommodate employee medical conditions to the point of undue hardship but emphasized that accommodation is contextual and does not require an employer to provide an employee’s “preferred form of accommodation.” The Court found that the Employer had taken reasonable steps in the circumstances of a small medical clinic at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, including isolating the Employee at work, providing protective measures, and granting paid leave. The Court accepted the Employer’s concerns about patient confidentiality, computer security, reduced workload, and the lack of an established remote-work system. It held that the Employee’s human rights claims had not been proven on a balance of probabilities.
The Court then found just cause for dismissal. The evidence showed that the Employee had improperly created patient charts for herself and her daughter in the clinic’s electronic medical records system, caused personal health information to be sent to the clinic by listing the Employer as a physician involved in her care, although Dr. Chan denied acting in that capacity, and accessed or modified records in the system without proper authorization. The Court accepted that the Employee had been warned in 2014 not to use the clinic’s electronic medical records system to access or receive personal health information for herself or family members, had received privacy and confidentiality training, and nevertheless continued the misconduct. Because confidentiality and proper use of the clinic’s database were fundamental to the employment relationship, the Court found the misconduct “sufficiently serious that it strikes at the heart of the employment relationship.” The action was therefore dismissed, with costs payable to the Employer.
For charities, not-for-profits, and employers generally, the case reinforces three practical points. First, accommodation must be serious and individualized, but it remains grounded in operational realities. Second, confidentiality obligations are not merely administrative rules; in many workplaces, they are core employment duties. Third, after-acquired cause remains an available defence where misconduct discovered later, but occurred before termination, is sufficiently serious to justify a dismissal for just cause.