Can a court remove a director as a remedy for oppression in an Ontario corporation?

Yes — removing a director is one of the remedies available to a court under the OBCA's oppression provisions when it finds that a director's conduct, or conduct they directed or permitted, was oppressive, unfairly prejudicial to, or unfairly disregarded a shareholder's interests. Because the oppression remedy gives courts broad flexibility to craft whatever relief actually addresses the unfairness, removing a director tends to come up specifically where that director's continued presence on the board is itself the source of the ongoing problem, for example a director using their position to freeze out a minority shareholder from information or decisions.

Removal is generally considered a more significant remedy than alternatives like ordering information disclosure or varying a specific transaction, so courts tend to reserve it for situations where less intrusive remedies would not adequately fix the problem, or where the director's conduct shows an ongoing pattern rather than a single isolated incident. A court can pair director removal with other relief, such as governance changes or a share buyout, rather than treating it as a standalone fix. Because this is one of the more intrusive remedies available, seeking it usually requires a well-documented pattern of oppressive conduct specifically tied to that director's role.