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

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.