How do courts tell the difference between a genuine resignation and a constructive dismissal in Ontario?

Courts distinguish a genuine resignation from a constructive dismissal by looking at whether the employee actually intended, freely and clearly, to end the employment relationship, versus being effectively pushed out by an employer's unilateral breach of an essential contract term. A resignation prompted by an employer's significant unilateral change - rather than an employee simply deciding to move on for unrelated personal reasons - can legally be treated as a dismissal by the employer, not a true resignation, even though the employee was the one who used the word to describe leaving.

Courts look at the full context: what actually changed, whether the employee reasonably felt they had no real choice but to leave, how quickly they responded to the change, and whether their words and actions consistently reflected a genuine intention to leave versus reacting to a breach the employer created. Because the label used at the time is not determinative on its own, how the surrounding events unfolded matters far more than which specific word was spoken or written when the employee left.