Important

This is not legal advice! What you are getting here is just general legal information. It is not a substitute for advice from an actual lawyer about your specific situation. If you need legal advice, we urge you to find a lawyer who can help you.

The Alberta Human Rights Commission and what it does 

If you’ve been sexually harassed, you may be able file a formal complaint with the Alberta Human Rights Commission. One law that protects you from discrimination is the Alberta Human Rights Act. Sexual harassment under the act can constitute discrimination based on sex.

The commission will review your complaint and assess whether it should be accepted. Commission staff encourage parties to reach a settlement on their own (in a process called conciliation) or may investigate the issues. If the parties can’t resolve the matter and the commission staff recommend it for a hearing, the case will then go to the Alberta Human Rights Tribunal, the decision-making arm of the commission. 

When you think about filing a complaint, you might imagine a process that ends in an adjudicator definitively ruling that what happened to you was either right or wrong. But in reality, that almost never happens. The greatest number of cases are settled through conciliation.

We’re not saying don’t make a complaint to the commission, but it’s very unlikely the outcome will be a public acknowledgement of the fact that you were harassed. If you think you would be satisfied with a private settlement, which could involve such things as money to compensate you for the harm you experienced, an apology or a job reference, then having your complaint dealt with in a conciliation process could be right for you.

Facts about the Alberta Human Rights Commission and Tribunal

  • In 2022-23, 822 complaints were filed with the commission. Fifteen percent involved discrimination or harassment on the grounds of gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, and/or gender expression. 
  • Roughly 80% of complaints never reach the tribunal and just a handful get decided at a hearing; in 2022-23, only 32 were closed this way. 
  • About 40% of the complaints closed in 2022-23 at the commission or tribunal stage were resolved through conciliation or private settlement; another 40% were dismissed or closed by the tribunal office; 17% were abandoned or withdrawn.
  • When the tribunal decides that someone was discriminated against or harassed, it sometimes gives them an award of money as compensation for lost wages and/or the hurt and loss of dignity that they experienced. There is technically no limit to the amount of money the tribunal might grant for hurt and loss of dignity, but in the past few years the biggest award has been $75,000.
  • Sources: Alberta Human Rights Commission Annual Report 2022-23, CanLII.

Why consider filing a complaint with the commission

If you decide to file a complaint with the commission, here are a few things you may get out of the process:

  • It could be a chance to tell the harasser what they did is not okay.
  • You might get back money you lost because of the harassment—maybe you didn’t get a special project or a promotion, or were fired.
  • You might get a reference for a new job.
  • You could request that your workplace make changes that would affect everyone there, not just you, like improving employee policies and training around sexual harassment.
  • It is possible you might get some money to recognize the emotional harm you suffered from the harassment.

How to make a complaint to the commission

To start the process of filing a complaint, you should first complete this self-assessment to find out if your complaint is covered by the Alberta Human Rights Act. If it is, then it’s important that you carefully read the Human Rights Complaint Guide, which contains detailed instructions how to make your complaint. You can access the complaint form online or download and complete a PDF version. 

You can file a complaint against anybody who is sexually harassing you at work—your employer, a co-worker, a supervisor, a customer, or a contractor. In your application, you can also name the company or organization you were or are working for. Even if your employer is not the one who’s harassing you, they have to protect you from sexual harassment and a harassing environment. See How to report sexual harassment to your employer. 

Will the commission accept your complaint?

  • You have one year from when the harassment happened to file your complaint with the commission. If the harassment happened more than once, the deadline is one year from the last incident of harassment. 
  • You can file a complaint with the commission if you work in Alberta or if the harassment happened in Alberta, but not if you work at a federally regulated workplace. See Am I a federally regulated worker? (And why it matters.) 
  • If you’re unionized, you must make your complaint through your union. See Working with your union. You’re covered if you’re non-unionized, temporary or permanent, an independent contractor, or undocumented. 
  • After you submit your complaint, a human rights officer from an intake team decides whether the harassment you faced relates to a ground of discrimination under the act. This takes about three weeks. If they reject your complaint, you can request that the director of the commission reconsider your case; you must do this within 30 days.

How conciliation works

Usually you and the respondent—the person your complaint is about—will be strongly encouraged to participate in conciliation. This involves you and the respondent finding a solution to your complaint—something you both agree to.

The commission will assign you a conciliator, who will talk with you and the respondent about your complaint and perhaps gather more information before a conciliation meeting. You or your lawyer can provide information or show documents to a conciliator and request they keep it confidential from the other side.

Conciliators are human rights experts who listen to you and the respondent and work with both of you to come to a settlement. They are expected to behave neutrally: They’re not supposed to pick a side, and they aren’t supposed to favour either you or the respondent. Their goal is to try to reach a solution that both parties can agree to so your case doesn’t have to go to the tribunal. The purpose of this process is not to determine whether you were sexually harassed according to the Human Rights Act.

Conciliation meetings are conducted by videoconference and are scheduled for half a day. It can take a year and a half or more from the time your complaint is accepted for it to get to this meeting. Sixty days are allotted for the time between when a conciliator is appointed to when you reach an agreement. If conciliation is not successful, the director of the commission decides whether to dismiss your complaint or to refer it to the tribunal. Dismissed complaints can be appealed to the chief of the commission and tribunals for a review, but about three-quarters of these appeals are unsuccessful.

For more information

The Human Rights Commission’s website includes a detailed page about the conciliation process.

Pros and cons of conciliation

  • The conciliation process is free.
  • Many people participate in mediation without a lawyer.
  • You are the one to decide what you will accept from the respondent to make up for the harm they caused.
  • More creativity is possible in conciliation. For example, you can’t ask for an apology in a hearing.
  • Everything you say is considered confidential, or “without prejudice”—it can’t be used against you later.
  • There is no risk in participating in conciliation. If it fails, your complaint may still be referred to the tribunal, though the director can instead decide to dismiss it. 
  • Conciliation doesn’t give you a chance to publicly say what happened to you or be told that it was wrong.
  • You can’t share details of any settlement you reach—you must sign an agreement saying the outcome is confidential.
  • You will likely not get everything you ask for—you have to be ready to compromise. 

What you might ask for

Money to compensate you for:

  • The harm to your dignity, feelings, and self-respect.
  • Lost wages.
  • The cost of counselling sessions you’ve needed and/or money to cover future counselling.

Besides money:

  • An apology.
  • Your job back or a reference letter.
  • A change at the workplace, like including a sexual harassment section in the policies handbook.
  • Your employer having to take a course about preventing and dealing with sexual harassment. 
  • A donation to a charity of your choice as a way of saying sorry.

What are you likely to get?

Details of settlements reached through conciliation are private. However, we know that in a number of cases the agreement doesn’t involve money at all; instead, the respondents are ordered to do things like take human rights training or create a human rights policy that all managers have to be trained about. See the commission’s remedy information sheet for more information. 

The types of monetary awards for emotional harm when sexual harassment cases are decided by the tribunal are a guide. In recent years the highest award has been $75,000. Larger awards happen when the harassment was particularly bad and went on for a long time. Otherwise, $10,000 or $15,000 isn’t uncommon.

Beyond mediation

When a case has been referred to the tribunal, there will be another attempt to mediate the case. A tribunal member handles this process, which is called tribunal dispute resolution; the meeting is called a TDR conference. A third of complaints are closed this way; another third are closed because the parties come to a private settlement. Only about 20% are resolved through a hearing, which happens after TDR fails. 

Pros and cons of your case being decided at a hearing

  • The tribunal has expertise in harassment. All it does is handle complaints of discrimination, including harassment.
  • The tribunal has the power to say that, yes, you were harassed, and that what happened to you was wrong.
  • The tribunal can order many different remedies. It can award you money. If you were fired or had to quit because of the harassment, it can order your employer to give you your job back. It can order your employer to make a donation to a charity or to provide anti-harassment training.
  • It can take years for a hearing to be held.
  • If you hire a lawyer to represent you, that will be expensive. If you don’t hire a lawyer, your chances of success are much lower.
  • People who represent themselves at the tribunal are less likely to have their complaints found justified.
  • Very few people end up being told by the tribunal that they were harassed and what happened to them was wrong—in the last three years, fewer than half a dozen.
  • Tribunal financial awards are fairly small. There is technically no limit to the amount of money the tribunal could award to you, but awards are generally well under $50,000. The amount of an award is affected by how severe the harassment was and how long it went on. And remember, with most tribunal cases, people don’t end up receiving any money at all.
  • If you choose the tribunal process, you may close the door to other legal options.
  • Even if the tribunal awards you money or other things, that doesn’t mean you will necessarily get them. It can be hard to force your employer or the harasser to give you everything the tribunal ordered.
  • Like in any legal process, your opponents will try to undermine your credibility and make you look bad. You could end up feeling disbelieved and unsupported.
  • Some psychologists believe it’s a bad idea for people who have experienced sexual harassment to get involved in any legal process. They say legal processes can slow down your ability to heal emotionally from what happened to you, because they keep you focused on the past. These experts believe that it can be healthier for the person who experienced harassment to put the past behind them and focus on their present and their future.

If your case goes ahead

The Human Rights Commission’s website has a page that outlines what to expect if the director of the commission refers your complaint to the tribunal process. 

While theoretically it is possible to proceed with a complaint representing yourself, this is very challenging, time consuming, and potentially harmful to your mental health. Your chances of success are much greater with legal help.

Here are some places that offer free or lower-cost legal services:

  • Independent Legal Advice for Survivors of Sexual Violence, a project of the Elizabeth Fry Society, is based in Edmonton and also serves the communities of Stony Plain, Morinville, St. Albert, Sherwood Park, Fort Saskatchewan, Ponoka, Camrose, Wetaskiwin, Red Deer, and Fort McMurray. You can receive up to four hours of free legal advice and can also attend legal clinics.
  • Justice Net is a not-for-profit service for those whose income is too high to qualify for legal aid but too low to afford regular legal fees. To qualify you must have a net family income under $70,000, or $90,000 if there are three or more people in your family, and be experiencing financial difficulties. Participating lawyers’ reduced rates vary depending on your family size and income.
  • 211 Alberta is a free and confidential 24/7 phone and text service that connects individuals to services in the province. You can call or text 2-1-1 to be connected with trained professionals to help find support services.
  • Your workplace union, association, or employee assistance program may be able to help you find legal services or cover part of your legal fees.