Someone will tell you that you cannot sue your employer. Someone else will tell you that a human rights complaint will wreck your claim. A third person will tell you to pick one route and stay on it. All of this usually arrives in the same week, from people who mean well, and none of it comes with a source.
Here is the honest position. You generally cannot sue your employer for the injury itself, because that right was traded away long ago for benefits that arrive without you having to prove fault. A claim about how your employment ended is a different thing and is usually not caught by that bar. A human rights complaint runs in a separate system with its own decision maker, and in most of Canada nothing stops you running it alongside your compensation claim. If you are in a union, that last sentence may not be true for you, and that is where the real risk sits.
Most of the harm in these situations is done in the first few weeks, by people who act before they know which system they are standing in. Some of these routes can run at the same time. At least one of them shuts the moment you pick it. Which of those applies to you turns less on your province than on whether a union represents you, and hardly anyone is told that in time for it to help.
Why can you not sue your employer for the injury?
Every workers compensation system in Canada rests on the same bargain. You give up the right to sue your employer over a work injury. In exchange you receive benefits that do not depend on proving anyone was careless, that arrive whether the fault was yours or nobody's, and that keep coming while you are unable to work.
For most injured workers that trade is a good one. A lawsuit takes years, costs money you do not have and can fail completely. A claim pays while you heal.
What matters here is the shape of the bar rather than the fact of it. It is aimed at actions to recover for the injury. It was never written to give an employer a free hand over everything that happens to you afterwards.
Does that bar stop a wrongful dismissal claim?
A wrongful dismissal claim is not a claim about your injury. It is a claim that your employer ended your employment without the notice or the pay in lieu of notice that your contract or the law required. The subject of it is the ending of the job.
On that reasoning the bar usually does not reach it, and injured workers do bring these claims. The difficulty arrives when the damages you are asking for start to look like injury damages wearing different clothes. Distress caused by the way you were dismissed is one thing. Distress caused by the injury sits squarely inside the compensation system and outside the courts.
Two territories put this beyond argument in their own statutes. In the Northwest Territories and in Nunavut the Acts say that no compensation is payable for mental stress arising out of labour relations, and both name wrongful dismissal specifically, unless the employer acted with intent to harm you. The distress of losing the job is not compensable there however badly it was handled.
No court has drawn a national line on where a dismissal claim stops and an injury claim begins. It is decided case by case, on what you are actually asking to be paid for.
Can you run a human rights complaint at the same time as your claim?
If you are not in a union, in most of Canada yes. The two systems have different decision makers, different tests and different deadlines. Your board decides whether you are entitled to benefits and, where the duty exists, whether your employer must take you back. A human rights commission or tribunal decides whether your employer failed to accommodate your disability. Neither one is being asked to answer the other's question.
Ontario's board says as much in its own policy. WSIB policy 19-02-09 lists the Human Rights Code among its own legislative authority, which means the board treats the accommodation duty as running in parallel with the re-employment obligation rather than replacing it.
Quebec has the strongest authority in the country. In Caron, decided by the Quebec Court of Appeal in 2015 and upheld by the Supreme Court of Canada in 2018, the court held that the compensation statute has to be read in light of human rights accommodation principles. The expiry of a return to work right is at most one factor in the analysis. It does not switch off the duty to accommodate.
What changes if you are in a union?
This is where the risk is real, and it is the part most people are never told.
In Horrocks, decided by the Supreme Court of Canada in 2021, the court held that where a dispute arises from a collective agreement the labour arbitrator generally holds exclusive jurisdiction over it, including its human rights aspects, unless the legislature has clearly said otherwise. For a unionized worker that can mean the grievance is the route and the human rights tribunal is closed.
Courts have not applied that uniformly since. Lower courts in New Brunswick and in Nova Scotia found that the two could run side by side rather than one shutting out the other, in Robson v University of New Brunswick and in the Carleton line. The Nova Scotia ruling was set aside on appeal in 2023, at 2023 NSCA 66. New Brunswick remains unsettled. Prince Edward Island has never ruled on the question at all.
Quebec is the one place with a written election you can read for yourself. The CNESST's own article 32 complaint form states that a unionized worker must choose between filing a grievance and filing an article 32 complaint. You cannot run both. Choosing wrong closes the other door.
So where do you stand?
| Your situation | Can you use both routes | What is actually known |
|---|---|---|
| Not in a union, most of Canada | Generally yes | Separate systems with separate decision makers. Nothing found that bars running both |
| Not in a union, Ontario | Yes | WSIB policy 19-02-09 names the Human Rights Code in the board's own legislative authority |
| Not in a union, Quebec | Yes | Caron, upheld by the Supreme Court of Canada in 2018 |
| In a union, Quebec | No. You must choose | Article 32 LATMP. Confirmed on the CNESST's own complaint form. Grievance or complaint, not both |
| In a union, anywhere else | Unsettled. Take advice first | Horrocks points to the arbitrator. New Brunswick unsettled. The Nova Scotia ruling set aside in 2023. Prince Edward Island has never ruled |
| Suing your employer for the injury | No | Traded away for no-fault benefits in every jurisdiction in Canada |
| Suing for wrongful dismissal | Usually not barred | Turns on what you are claiming for. Not tested the same way in every province |
This table sets out what has been decided and by whom. It does not cover every jurisdiction on every question, because on the union question most of them have not been answered by a court. Where a row says unsettled, that is the honest state of the law and not a gap in our reading.
One question decides most of this for you
Are you covered by a collective agreement. That single fact changes your answer more than your province does. If you are, get advice before you file anything at all, because in Quebec the election is written down and everywhere else it is unresolved.
If you are not in a union, you are in the simpler position. The two systems run alongside each other in most of Canada and using one does not spend the other.
What should you do before you choose a route?
- Find out today whether a collective agreement covers you. Ask your union or check your contract. Do not guess at it.
- Do not file, sign or elect anything until you know the answer to that.
- Write down the date you were dismissed or refused accommodation, and the date you learned of it. These are not always the same day and the deadlines can run from either.
- Ask your board directly whether a re-employment obligation applies to you and what its own complaint window is. That window is usually the shortest of the three.
- Speak to an employment lawyer before you elect one route over another. A great many offer a free first consultation and it costs nothing to ask.
- Keep your record going while you decide. Every one of these routes is decided on dates and documents.
For the deadlines themselves and for whether your employer has to take you back at all, our piece on being fired while on a workers compensation claim sets out all thirteen jurisdictions side by side. If your claim has been refused rather than your job, what to do when your claim is denied walks through the appeal route.
Read next
- Can you be fired while on a workers compensation claim in Canada
- How much does workers compensation pay in Canada
- Emotional recovery after an injury
Whichever route you take, it is decided on your record
Boards, tribunals and courts all ask the same first question. What happened, and when. The National Workplace Injury Recovery Guide holds the daily record of symptoms, appointments, calls and costs. Your provincial workplace injury Companion Guide holds the deadlines, forms, boards and appeal routes for your jurisdiction. Your Recovery. Documented. Protected.
Last verified August 2026. This article is general information about Canadian law and it is not legal advice. Where the two systems meet, the law is unsettled in several jurisdictions, and nothing here replaces advice about your own situation. The decisions named above are Caron, decided by the Quebec Court of Appeal in 2015 and upheld by the Supreme Court of Canada in 2018, Horrocks, decided by the Supreme Court of Canada in 2021, Robson v University of New Brunswick, and the Nova Scotia Carleton line as set aside at 2023 NSCA 66. The Quebec election is stated on the CNESST's own article 32 complaint form and the Ontario position is stated in WSIB policy 19-02-09. If you find something here that is wrong, tell us at Recovery@hurtsquare.ca and we will correct it and say that we did.