Can I demand the profits the other party made from breaching our contract in Ontario?

As a general rule, Ontario breach-of-contract remedies aim to compensate your loss, not strip the defendant's gain. The traditional position is that even if the breaching party profited from the breach, you can only recover your own losses, not their gains.

However, exceptions exist. The Supreme Court of Canada's decision in Attorney General v Blake recognized that in exceptional circumstances — particularly where a defendant has deliberately and cynically exploited a breach for profit in a way that a compensatory award cannot adequately address — courts may award gain-based damages (sometimes called an account of profits).

This remedy remains narrow and is not routinely granted in commercial contract disputes. It is more likely to be available where there is a legitimate interest in preventing the defendant's profit, such as in fiduciary relationships or cases involving deliberate breaches of confidence or exclusivity agreements.

In practice, if the other party made a profit from your contract that you cannot recover through ordinary compensatory damages — for example, by diverting a business opportunity that belonged to you — a litigation lawyer can assess whether the circumstances are exceptional enough to support a gain-based damages claim.