Does buying assets instead of shares actually let me avoid inheriting severance obligations?

Partly, but not as completely as many buyers assume. An asset purchase does let you avoid taking on specific severance debts that were already owed before closing, since those stay with the selling corporation as the employer at the time, provided your agreement is clear on the point. It also means you're not obligated to hire anyone in the first place, so employees you choose not to bring on are the seller's cost to deal with, not yours.

The gap is with employees you do hire. If you continue them as part of a going-concern sale, the Employment Standards Act generally treats their service as continuous, so if you later terminate them, statutory notice and severance are calculated using their combined service with the seller and with you, not just the time they actually spent working for you. Common-law reasonable notice can work the same way. In practice, an asset purchase changes who owes past debts, but it doesn't erase the years of service sitting behind anyone you keep on.

Understand this distinction clearly rather than assuming "asset deal" means a clean slate on every employee. A Treadstone business lawyer can help you see where the real savings are and aren't.