Legal Obligations for Volunteers & Organizations

In addition to the duty to take care, there are laws that both organizations and volunteers must consider when doing their work. Some of these laws, such as the criminal law, require little explanation. Just as it applies to anyone else, a volunteer of an organization cannot commit crimes. Other laws, however, deal with matters that people may know less about…

Human rights laws do not generally apply to people in their private lives. For example, this law would not apply where someone did not invite a person to their house for coffee due to the colour of their skin. However, when people volunteer, the laws against discrimination may apply to some things that they do. An organization providing public services must not discriminate when doing this work. This could be, for example, when doing work related to education or housing. This requirement extends to their volunteers.

In these situations, there are protected grounds, such as religion, gender and disability. It is against human rights law to discriminate on the basis of any of these grounds. For example, an organization could not treat participants differently based on their religion. Organizations may also have a duty to accommodate people who have special needs based on their disability. This is part of the law against discriminating based on disability.

Organizations may decide to distribute material as part of a program they are running. Unless they have created this material themselves, there could be copyright issues. Copyright laws provide that only the creator of the material has the right to reproduce it. This applies to everything, including photographs and material published on a website.

Some materials will say right on them that reproduction for non-commercial uses is allowed. In other cases, the creator of the material can be contacted and may be willing to give permission to use it.

Certain statements by an organization or volunteer may amount to defamation. Defamation is a false statement about someone that would tend to lower their reputation in the eyes of a reasonable person.

For defamation to arise, the words must be more than just rudeness or insults. There must be a false statement that is aimed at injuring a person’s reputation. The statement must be communicated in some way to a party other than the person defamed who understands its significance. The statement could be verbal, called slander, or in print, called libel.

There are defences such as fair comment that allow people to comment or express an opinion on matters of public interest. But this must be a comment, not a statement of facts, and must be based on the truth. The court will ask if a reasonable person might see the opinion as one that a fair-minded person could have expressed. If so, the statement is fair comment. This is a complex area of the law so, if there is any concern about making a statement, a lawyer should be consulted.

Organizations and volunteers who work with children need to be aware of their duty to report abuse or neglect. Anyone who has reasonable grounds to believe a child is in need of protection must report it to the proper authority. This could be the police or a protection agency, such as Social Services or a First Nations Child and Family Services Agency.

Circumstances that may result in a child being found to be in need of protection include:

• Physical abuse — any action, including physical discipline, which causes injury to the child’s body
• Sexual abuse — any action that involves a child in any sexual activity including sexual touching, exposure to sexual activity, using a child in the making of or viewing pornography, or involving a child in prostitution
• Emotional mistreatment — expecting a child to be able to do things he or she cannot do, embarrassing or insulting a child, making hurtful comments about things like a child’s appearance, intelligence, size or ability
• Neglect — failing to provide a child with enough proper food, clothing, shelter, health care, or supervision

The person making the report is protected from legal action even if the child is found to not be in need of protection. Deliberately making a false report could, however, result in legal consequences.

A person reporting suspected abuse or neglect is not required to provide their name. If the person reporting does provide their name, this information remains confidential. However, if the matter proceeds to court the name of the person reporting the abuse can no longer be kept confidential.