Nearly 50 former Bell employees are suing parent company BCE for alleged wrongful termination after the company fired several workers for falsifying in-office attendance.
In May, Bell said it fired a “small number” of employees following a “thorough investigation” into alleged attendance falsification. The telecom giant claimed that employees used “swipe and go” techniques where they swiped their key card to record attendance and then left the premises. But while Bell claims it fired people for violating its code of conduct, former employees allege it was economically motivated.
According to the lawsuit’s statement of claim, a Bell whistleblower shared the company’s alleged mass-layoff strategy, which included written instructions to fire roughly 30 employees per office to meet targets set by upper management. Moreover, the strategy allegedly involved targeting at least one employee per team for dismissal to set an example.
The Toronto employment lawyer representing the workers, Jean-Alexandre De Bousquet, spoke to the Toronto Star about the situation, describing it as “massive rounds of economically motivated terminations.”
Further, the statement of claim alleges that Bell also had a company-wide hiring freeze and other cost-cutting measures in place at the same time it fired employees over the alleged attendance manipulation.
Several employees reportedly had written accommodations or verbal approval from managers allowing alternate work arrangements. However, De Bousquet says that after condoning the arrangements for years, Bell retroactively called it severe misconduct.
The allegations have not yet been tested in court. Moreover, Bell told The Star it couldn’t comment on the allegations because it hadn’t yet been served the claim, but did say it would defend itself in court. BCE will have 20 days to file a statement of defence.
However, Bell has said throughout the process that its investigations were “thorough” and that it presented evidence of misconduct before it terminated employees. The company also said that it fired the managers who allowed alternative work arrangements.
De Bousquet also told The Star that Bell walked back some of the terminations, asking some of the employees to return just days after they were fired for cause.
The lawsuit involves a total of 46 employees, most from the Toronto area. The employees seek damages ranging from around $18,000 to $350,000, based on salary and time with the company.
Notably, this is part of a long string of Bell layoffs and terminations. Just this month, Bell laid off around 700 employees. At the end of last year, Bell hit another 700 employees with holiday layoffs. Also in 2025, Bell offered voluntary separation to around 1,200 union workers. And in 2024, Bell cut 4,800 jobs. The job cutting over the last few years has been so severe that an alliance of telecom workers called on the Canadian government to protect jobs with legislation.
Amidst all the cuts, we’ve seen declining customer service quality, increased complaints, and all the while, Bell continues to raise prices and create new fees to get more money out of Canadians.
