Ordinary Cap (24 Months)
Summary
The ordinary upper range of reasonable notice is generally recognized as 18 to 24 months. The 12-month cap applied by some courts in the 1980s and 1990s does not reflect the current state of the law, and courts in Ontario and Newfoundland and Labrador have expressly refused to impose any cap.
General Principles
Although each case must be determined on its own particular facts and in compliance with the test and factors set out in Bardal.1, the ordinary upper range of reasonable notice is generally recognized as 18-24 months.2
In the 1980s and 1990s, a number of decisions in New Brunswick3, Newfoundland and Labrador4, Ontario5, and Prince Edward Island6 held that the upper range of reasonable notice was capped at 12 months. However, its submitted that courts across Canada have ordinarily awarded 18-24 months’ notice such that any purported 12-month cap cannot be said to accurately reflect the current state of the law. Courts in Ontario7 and Newfoundland and Labrador8 have also since expressly refused to impose a cap on the maximum amount of reasonable notice.