Bell Fires Workers for Alleged Attendance Misconduct as BCE Reports Mixed First-Quarter Results

Bell has fired a small number of employees for what it described as clear violations of its code of conduct involving workplace attendance, according to the company. In an email to staff obtained by CBC News, Bell’s Chief Human Resources Officer Nikki Moffat stated that terminated employees were misrepresenting their presence in the workplace.

Bell claims some terminated workers were caught swiping in and leaving shortly after.

A Bell representative told CBC News that the claim hundreds have been terminated is inaccurate. The company said only a small number of employees were fired. Bell spokesperson Luc Levasseur said in an emailed statement that in each case there was a thorough investigation and individuals were presented with clear evidence of their misconduct.

Levasseur said managers that condoned the swipe-and-go activity were also investigated and fired. Jean-Alexandre De Bousquet, a Mississauga-based employment lawyer representing at least 30 terminated Bell workers, has been contacted by more than 30 fired Bell employees and believes there could be hundreds.

"I would say most of those people have never worked in the office, not even before the pandemic," De Bousquet said.

He said the fired employees were hired 12 years ago and never stepped foot in the office and never agreed to the office policy. De Bousquet said the office attendance requirement was a unilateral change by Bell. Multiple Bell employees told CBC News that they were never required to work in the office under strict policies before and that their immediate managers had explicitly approved the working arrangements they were terminated for.

De Bousquet said managers would say as long as you come in and swipe your fob, you don't have to stay the whole day. De Bousquet is in the process of filing multiple claims in court for employees in Ontario and Quebec. Many of his clients were not given warnings or suspensions before they were fired.

He and several terminated workers said it is their opinion that Bell fired them for economic reasons and is claiming misconduct to avoid paying severance. "This is a big money-saving move for Bell to fire all those people for cause and pay them nothing," De Bousquet said. Bell wrote in a statement that employees were fired for clear violations of the company's code of conduct.

The terminations come after Bell cut 650 management jobs and 40 news division jobs in late 2025. Bell said in late 2025 that it hoped to reduce debt and drive growth. BCE, which owns Bell, announced early Thursday that profits have recently dropped.

BCE's operating revenue went up by four per cent in the first three months of 2026. BCE's Q1 2026 revenue growth was driven in part by growing revenue from AI services while phone and TV services saw declines. Bell’s policy for corporate office employees has been to be in the office at least three days a week since 2022.

The enforcement occurs as white-collar workers across Canada return to offices. Ontario public servants returned to the office four days a week last fall and five days a week as of January 2026. Alberta's public service returned to office full time in February 2026.

Employees at some of Canada's major banks returned to the office four days a week starting last September. All other federal public service employees will return to the office four days a week as of July 2026.

Toronto employment lawyer Sundeep Gokhale usually represents management. He said disputes over work-from-home policies have been popping up in boardrooms across the country. "It's an incredibly sensitive and high volume topic," Gokhale said.

Sundeep Gokhale said employers have the right to dictate where employees work from in most cases unless it was explicitly written in an employee's contract that they can work from home or accommodations apply. He said employees usually need to be warned and disciplined about their behaviour and given a chance to improve before they're let go.

Sundeep Gokhale said firing employees for just cause is a high bar to meet and courts have coined it as the capital punishment of employment law.

He said theft, fraud or falsifying records are some of the serious offences that courts have deemed to meet the just cause bar. Cbc reported on the dispute between the company and the terminated employees along with the broader return-to-office trend.