I was involuntarily retired this week – I just turned 55…

I am not going to take the time to review Mark's response.

In my view while it may be that your termination pay would be reasonable if there was no age discrimination, mandatory retirement is illegal. It is against the Human Rights Code in every single province in Canada.

And so while you would not have any reason to sue if this was not about discrimination because your termination pay is higher than a court would order when there is discrimination it is entirely a different issue.

Essentially you should be permitted to work regardless of your age and this is no different than terminating you because they decided not to have any employees of your race, religion or colour etc working for you. Imagine the uproar if this will established company did that.

So my view is that you should consult with an employment lawyer in your city but also consider filing a complaint with the Human Rights Commission.

Does that help?

Please feel free to post back with any follow-up questions you may have. If you don't have any then I hope I have earned a 5 star rating but if you don't feel that I have please don't hesitate to reply back and let me know what more I can do to assist you. Finally, please know that even after you rate me I will be here for you and you can ask follow-up questions if you think of them later on at no further charge of course.

But that Human Rights Commission will look at other dismissals in the past few years and will see what you are saying happened.

Employees have such little power unless they are in a union because employers can almost always dismiss them with reasonable notice or pay in lieu and the employee cannot fight for their job which often matters more than any termination pay they can get for many reasons, some of which goes beyond financial reasons. But the one area where the employer can be stopped is when there is discrimination and so that is why I am urging you to do more in terms of considering trying to prove that.

You would get much more but you could also get your job back.

It is not at all reasonable. In some provinces a lawyer is not permitted to take more than 33%.

Frankly if you afford a lawyer it may make more sense to pay by the hour and not on an contingency fee basis.

But if you are going to file a complaint with the Human Rights Commission you don't really need a lawyer.

Yes there is because if a court or the Human Rights Commission finds that you were not discriminated against you will be entitled to reasonable notice or pay in lieu.

Generally, in determining what is reasonable notice Courts look at several factors including the length of time you worked for the employer, your age, your position, the likelihood of finding new employment etc.

At the high end, if you were in a managerial position, the Court would likely order one month's notice or pay in lieu of notice for each year of employment. If you were not in a managerial position the Court would order somewhat less.

Because they gave you more in my view they are know that you could complain about age discrimination and are hoping to avoid it.

I hope you can have a peaceful night.