Canadian Discrimination Claims: Simply Being in Protected Group Not Enough
Terminated employees often mistakenly believe that they can challenge their termination and claim discrimination if they are members of a group protected by human rights laws. The Federal Court of Canada’s recent decision in Miller v Toronto Dominion Bank, 2026 FC 150, clarifies what it takes for an employee to prove a discrimination against their employer.
The Applicant in Miller was a black man who identified as being of African Caribbean descent, who had worked as a manager at a TD Bank branch. Miller’s position was eliminated as part of a nation-wide restructuring of TD’s workforce. During this process, he was demoted to a Financial Advisor role, while two co-workers who held the same position were promoted.
Miller proceed to file a complaint against TD through the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, claiming that the bank had discriminated against him on the basis of race, colour or disability. The Tribunal dismissed the complaint, finding that the Applicant had failed to prove that his race, colour or disability were factors in any adverse treatment he suffered from TD. In other words, the employment-related decisions were found to have been made for business reasons unrelated to and not influenced by the grounds protected by human rights protections.
An appeal to the Federal Court of Canada was filed, seeking to review the decision of the Tribunal. The Federal Court held that the Tribunal had reasonably determined that there was no discrimination based on the evidence. The Court explained that to prove discrimination Miller needed to show that his race, colour or disability was a factor in TD’s decision to demote him. Importantly, there is no legal requirement that an employee prove their employer intended to discriminate, and an applicant can rely on circumstantial evidence to meet this burden.
The Court accepted the validlity of the Tribunal’s analysis, which is that the employment decisions were not discriminatory. This finding was based on the evidence that the employer placed employees into new roles based on the availability of roles in an employee’s region and each employee’s historical work performance. In Miller’s case, he had been demoted because there were no higher level roles available in his region. The result, said the Court, was that the Tribunal’s findings were within the range of reasonable conclusions that could have been drawn from the evidence.
The findings in this case highlight the fact bald allegations of discrimination are not sufficient to establish wrongdoing. Miller may well have proper reason to feel “wronged”, but his claims of a human rights violation was too general in nature, relied upon his subjective views of the employer, and were not supported by objective evidence. Of particular note is that the Court recognized that anti-black racism may well be prevalent in society. However, that is not, in itself, a sufficient basis to fulfill an applicant’s burden of showing that there was discrimination in their specific case.
The Miller decision highlights the importance of understanding Canadian discrimination law for both employees and employers. For a discrimination claim to succeed, claimants must satisfy each of the legal requirements for proving discrimination. This includes being able to present objective evidence to support a claim for differential treatment based on protected grounds.