Evidence and Documentation

A claim succeeds or fails on documentation. Even if your situation feels self-evident to you, the intake or field officer needs to be able to see what happened, in records, not just your account of it.

Start gathering this material now, even if you’re not yet sure you’ll file. The hardest evidence to recover is the kind that disappears the moment you lose access to your work email.

Personal Background

Some of this matters more than you’d think, it tells the story of who the employee is, which can affect how termination cases in particular are evaluated.

How you were hired. Did you apply through a posting? Were you recruited away from another job? (Recruited employees are often entitled to longer notice periods at common law.)
About yourself. Age, length of service, dependents (married, kids). These can factor into common-law notice if your case ever gets that far.
Your role. Did you control your own hours? Did you actually have authority over others (relevant to the manager exemption from overtime)? What was your actual job vs. your title?

Employment Records

Get copies of everything related to the formal employment relationship while you still have access:

Offer letter and any signed employment contract
Job description (the official one, if it exists)
Employee handbook / HR policies
Performance reviews, every one you have
Wage statements / pay stubs for as far back as you can get
T4s for past years
Records of bonuses, commission, and benefits
Any signed amendments to your contract over the years

If you only have access through the company’s HR system, download and save copies now. Once you’re terminated, that access disappears.

Hours Worked

This is the linchpin for any overtime or unpaid-time-off claim:

Your own log of hours. Start time, end time, breaks, what you worked on. Even an after-the-fact reconstruction from calendar entries and emails is better than nothing.
Time tracking system records if your employer uses one.
Calendar entries showing meetings, deadlines, on-site visits.
After-hours emails and messages showing you working.
Travel records for off-site work or out-of-hours travel.

Working Vacations and Stat Holidays

Specifically save:

Approved vacation requests
Emails sent during approved vacation
Any work performed during stat holidays

These are some of the easiest violations to prove because they leave a clear digital trail.

Termination and Severance

If you’ve been let go or are about to be:

Termination letter in writing
Severance offer and any release attached
Records of any meeting where termination was discussed (your own notes written immediately after, plus any recording or follow-up email if applicable)
Records of any internal complaint or grievance you’d raised before termination, this matters for retaliation arguments

Hardship

For severance and damages purposes, document any hardship the situation caused:

Medical or mental-health impact (notes from a doctor)
Job search efforts and timeline (this matters for mitigation)
Lost benefits, pension contributions, etc.

Witnesses

Note who saw what. Co-workers who can confirm:

Hours you actually worked
Statements made by your manager or HR
Working conditions you experienced
Patterns at the workplace

You don’t need them to testify on day one. You need their names, the dates of relevant events, and ideally a way to reach them once they’re no longer your colleagues. During the Employment Standards complaint process the names of your colleagues to your employer. It would only be necessary for a colleague to be named if your case were to become a civil trial or be presented before the Labour Board if Employment Standards is not able to provide a satisfactory outcome.

Practical Tips

Save to a personal device or personal email, not the work laptop you’ll be returning. Be careful that doing so doesn’t itself violate a reasonable confidentiality clause, focus on your own employment records, not the employer’s confidential business material.
Keep a private timeline of significant events, meetings, decisions, conversations, changes to your role. Date everything. A timeline written contemporaneously is much more credible than one constructed months later.
Don’t rely on memory. Write things down the day they happen.
Keep it organized. A folder of named files beats a dump of screenshots.