By Julius Melnitzer | September 24.2025
An Ontario arbitrator has confirmed the validity of the long-term disability exception to the mandatory retirement rule.
When Ontario eliminated mandatory retirement in 2006, the legislation provided an exception for insured employment benefit plans to maintain a cutoff based on age.
“This was intended to avoid destabilizing existing insurance plans while still permitting parties to negotiate changes,” says Lorenzo Lisi, a partner in the workplace law group at Aird & Berlis LLP. “For the most part, however, this has not become a hard collective bargaining issue and most unions focus on achieving post-retirement benefits for their members.”
Although unions have rarely challenged the exception, the Ontario Nurses Association decided to contest the provision in the University Health Network’s benefits plan that ended long-term disability coverage at age 65.
The parties agreed that ending LTD coverage at age 65 offended the Charter of Rights prohibition on age-based distinctions. The key question for arbitrator Eli Gedalof was whether the exception could be “demonstrably justified” under the Charter as being within “reasonable limits” on employees’ rights and went no further than necessary in impairing them. MORE. . .
Julius Melnitzer is a Toronto-based legal affairs writer, ghostwriter, writing coach and media trainer. Readers can reach him at julius@legalwriter.net or on his website.
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