A wrongful dismissal claim arising from an alleged 2017 termination has ended in the Alberta Court of Appeal without a trial of the employment allegations. In Xue v Nexen Energy ULC, 2026 ABCA 321, Justice Jo'Anne Strekaf dismissed an application for more time to appeal and found that permission to appeal would not have been granted in any event.
Xiufeng Xue alleged that Nexen Energy, now CNOOC Petroleum North America, dismissed him in August 2017. He also named ClearStream Energy, FT Services and Suncor Energy in related employment claims. He filed the lawsuit under consideration in October 2024. An applications judge dismissed it in November 2025 because the limitation period had expired.
Xue attempted to appeal that dismissal to the Court of King's Bench, but his December 2025 notice came after the appeal deadline. The court refused to extend the time. He then sought to challenge that refusal at the Court of Appeal, where he needed both an extension of time and permission to pursue the appeal.
The Court of Appeal found neither requirement satisfied. Xue said courthouse staff had provided incorrect information, but the judge found no evidence or sufficient explanation that justified the delay. The claim itself also faced a serious limitations problem. Xue had sought legal advice about the alleged dismissal in 2017 yet didn't file the lawsuit at issue until seven years later.
The court also considered an earlier action based on the same alleged dismissal. That lawsuit, started in 2022, had been struck as out of time. An appeal was later deemed abandoned when Xue failed to file an appeal record, and the Supreme Court of Canada declined leave to appeal.
Justice Strekaf concluded that the proposed appeal had no reasonable chance of success. The requested permission to appeal also failed because no serious question of general importance had been established. Both applications were dismissed.
This wasn't a decision about whether Xue had been dismissed without cause or what compensation might have been owed. The court decided that the procedural and limitation barriers prevented the litigation from proceeding. That distinction matters when reading the outcome.