What Counts as Workplace Harassment in Canada?

What the law treats as workplace harassment

There is no single, nationwide definition of workplace harassment in Canada. Instead, each jurisdiction, federal, Ontario, and Alberta, writes its own definition into occupational health and safety legislation, and the wording differs in what it requires: a pattern of conduct versus a single incident, a link to a protected characteristic versus none. What the definitions share is a focus on conduct that a reasonable person would know is unwelcome and that affects a worker’s dignity, safety, or wellbeing. Which definition applies to a given workplace depends on whether the employer is federally or provincially regulated, and separately, whether the conduct is also tied to a ground protected by human rights law.

Ontario: harassment and sexual harassment under the OHSA

Ontario’s Occupational Health and Safety Act defines workplace harassment as engaging in a course of vexatious comment or conduct against a worker in a workplace, including virtually through information and communications technology, that is known or ought reasonably to be known to be unwelcome. The reference to virtual conduct means harassment carried out over email, chat, or video calls during work is covered the same way as in-person conduct.

The Act separately defines workplace sexual harassment as engaging in a course of vexatious comment or conduct connected to sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression. Both definitions require a course, that is, a pattern, of unwelcome conduct rather than a single unrelated remark, though the wording does not specify how many incidents are needed.

Alberta: harassment under the Occupational Health and Safety Act

Alberta’s definition is broader on the question of frequency. The Alberta OHS Act defines harassment as any single incident or repeated incidents of objectionable or unwelcome conduct, comment, bullying or action by a person that the person knows or ought reasonably to know will or would cause offence or humiliation to a worker, or adversely affects the worker’s health and safety. Unlike Ontario’s “course of” wording, this definition expressly captures a single incident, provided it meets the offence, humiliation, or health-and-safety threshold.

Alberta employers also carry a proactive duty: the Occupational Health and Safety Code requires employers to develop and implement a violence and harassment prevention plan that includes measures to eliminate or control harassment hazards, treating harassment as a workplace safety issue rather than only an interpersonal one.

Federally regulated workplaces: the Canada Labour Code and Canadian Human Rights Act

A separate, broader definition applies to federally regulated employers, meaning banks, airlines, telecommunications companies, interprovincial transport, and federal Crown entities. Under Part II of the Canada Labour Code, “harassment and violence” means any action, conduct, or comment, including of a sexual nature, that can reasonably be expected to cause offence, humiliation, or physical or psychological injury or illness to an employee. This wording does not use the word “course,” so a single serious incident can potentially meet the federal definition.

Separately, the Canadian Human Rights Act deems sexual harassment to be harassment on a prohibited ground of discrimination for federally regulated employment, connecting sexual harassment specifically to the human rights complaint process rather than only the workplace safety process.

Most Ontario and Alberta small businesses are not federally regulated and are governed instead by their province’s OHSA or OHS Act, not the Canada Labour Code.

Harassment versus discrimination: Ontario’s Human Rights Code

Ontario also has a second, separate route for harassment connected to a protected characteristic. The Human Rights Code defines harassment as engaging in a course of vexatious comment or conduct that is known or ought reasonably to be known to be unwelcome. Where OHSA harassment complaints go through the Ministry of Labour and an employer’s internal investigation process, harassment tied to a protected ground such as sex, race, disability, or age can also be raised through the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario, a distinct process with its own remedies. A worker can potentially pursue both routes depending on the facts.

What is not workplace harassment: the management action exception

Ontario’s OHSA expressly carves out ordinary supervisory conduct. The Act states that workplace harassment does not include a reasonable action taken by an employer or supervisor relating to the management and direction of workers or the workplace. This means performance reviews, work assignments, scheduling decisions, and discipline, when carried out reasonably, fall outside the harassment definition even if the worker experiences them as unwelcome. Whether a particular management decision was “reasonable” is a fact-specific question the sources reviewed do not further define.