A friend got canned who was making about $70K. I think they offered him about 3 months but part of his release included a two year non compete. I would love to see the employer try to justify that in court.
Sounds like your firend, if he was an executive, worked at his job less than 5 years.
Employers know they'll face an uphill battle if a non-compete is challenged by an employee, which is why they usually have a clause that in case the terms of the non-compete (or other restrictive clauses) are deemed unreasonable or over-reach, rather than having them declared null and void, they'll have their ambit reduced to the maximum allowable at law. Courts in Quebec tend to protect those who are the weakest contracting party and who signed a form agreement, so an employee definitely has an edge.
However, the employer also knows that the employee has the burden of the expense of a lawyer and court costs, to get the non-compete peeled back to a more reasonable duration -- and that will dissuade a lot of employees from taking action. Not to mention that if an employer terminates an employee without cause, then it would render it null and void.
And now that we've taken care of Wilde's potential non-issues, back to your regularly scheduled programming.