PLEA gratefully acknowledges our primary core funder the Law Foundation of Saskatchewan for their continuing and generous support of our organization.
Employers are responsible for providing a safe and healthy work environment for their employees and understanding what behaviours are considered workplace harassment or violence. Understanding how to prevent, address and respond to these behaviours is an essential step in creating a harassment-free and violence-free workplace.
Federally regulated workplaces are covered by:
These laws protect people in the workplace from harassment and violence and impose obligations on employers to take action to prevent and deal with workplace harassment and violence.
Employees in unionized workplaces can have additional protections under their collective agreement. A collective agreement cannot take away any rights an employee has under other laws.
* If you are not a federally regulated employer such as a bank or an airline you can take the online training for provincial employers: Workplace Harassment Prevention Training: Provincial Employers.
After completing this training employers will understand:
In 2020 the Canadian Labour Congress with its partners conducted a nationwide survey on harassment and violence in Canadian workplaces. The initial report, “Harassment and Violence in Canadian Workplaces: It’s [Not] Part of the Job released in 2022 contained these findings:
When someone is sexually harassed in the workplace, it can undermine their sense of personal dignity. It can prevent them from earning a living, doing their job effectively, or reaching their full potential. Sexual harassment can also poison the environment for everyone else. If left unchecked, sexual harassment in the workplace has the potential to escalate to violent behaviour.
Employers that do not take steps to prevent sexual harassment can face major costs in decreased productivity, low morale, increased absenteeism and health care costs, and potential legal expenses.
— Ontario Human Rights Commission
This module covers how workplace harassment and violence are defined under federal laws, what conduct is covered by these laws, the role of consent and what is not considered harassment or violence.
This module provides a summary of the laws and policies that workplace harassment and violence violate, as well as looking at the roles of various people in the workplace and options for people who have been harassed or witnessed harassment in the workplace.
Employers are required to create and implement a Harassment and Violence Prevention Policy based on an assessment of the risks specific to their workplace and provide training about harassment and violence in the workplace.
The Workplace Harassment and Violence Prevention Regulations create a process for employees or employers to report incidents of harassment or violence.
Harassment in the workplace is a recognized form of discrimination under the Canadian Human Rights Act when it is sexual harassment or is based on another prohibited ground, such as race, religion or age.
This module has information about when workplace harassment or violence can be a crime.
This module covers the rights and remedies unionized employees have regarding workplace harassment or violence.
PLEA offers free online training on preventing and addressing workplace harassment.