Ontario worker alleges discrimination based on marital and family status
A Canada Life worker fired over a benefits fraud investigation has lost her discrimination case, with Ontario's Human Rights Tribunal finding the insurer targeted her own conduct, not her husband's or son's.
In a decision dated May 15, 2026, Karen Mason, vice-chair, dismissed Yhumna Moosa's application against the Canada Life Assurance Company aka The Great-West Life Assurance Company.
Moosa, a licensing administrator from 2006 until 2019, alleged her firing amounted to discrimination on the basis of marital and family status, failure to accommodate, and reprisal under the Human Rights Code.
Investigation into benefits fraud
Canada Life launched an internal investigation in December 2018 into Moosa's use of the company's group healthcare benefits plan. The insurer concluded that Moosa, her husband, and her son had submitted claims for services and items they did not receive. Some paper forms relating to her husband were signed by him rather than by Moosa, contrary to plan policy. Claims relating to her son were signed and submitted by Moosa herself.
Reimbursements were paid into a bank account held solely by Moosa. Three witnesses testified for the insurer at the Nov. 25 and 26, 2025, hearing: Senior investigators Francis Trafagander and Kathleen Chrysdale, and senior employee relations advisor Petra Duris.
A Nov. 15, 2019 email from Duris seeking approval to terminate Moosa summarized the findings, including that "MOOSA admitted to knowingly submitting claims to GWL for items that she did not receive and that the bank account associated with her benefit plan was her sole bank account and not joint with her spouse."
Tribunal rejects family status defence
Moosa argued her termination was based on "something her husband is alleged to have done," relying on the Supreme Court decision in B. v. Ontario, which recognized that family status discrimination can include claims arising from a spouse or child's actions.
Mason declined to assess whether the investigation reached the correct conclusion, focusing instead on whether the termination decision itself was discriminatory. She distinguished Moosa's circumstances from B. v. Ontario and pointed to Lane v. Canadian Tire Corporation Limited, where a dismissal was upheld because it turned on the employee's own conduct even though family members were involved.
Mason wrote: "I do not find that the respondent terminated the applicant's employment because of the actions of her husband or son or that their actions were a part of the respondent's decision to terminate the applicant's employment." The investigation, she found, had concluded Moosa was aware of, participated in, and was the direct beneficiary of the alleged fraud.
Accommodation and reprisal claims dismissed
Moosa also said the insurer should have given her a chance to repay rather than dismiss her, and that doing so would not have caused undue hardship. Mason rejected the argument, finding the Code did not require Canada Life to accommodate her in how it disciplined her, because the termination was not discriminatory.
Moosa further alleged that her Record of Employment, issued on Dec. 13, 2019, was sent 25 days after termination as reprisal for raising Code rights. Duris testified the delay was due to a payroll backlog. Mason noted that Moosa had not shown she had claimed or attempted to enforce a Code right before the ROE was issued, since her application was not filed until Feb. 12, 2020.
Mason concluded: "For these reasons, I find that the late issuance of the ROE was not done as reprisal." She dismissed the application.
