Guide Articles Archive

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.

WorkSafeBC is an independent B.C. provincial agency that gives benefits and supports to people who’ve been injured at work. These can include replacement of lost wages, health care (including rehabilitation, counselling, and medications), and help getting back to work.

Facts about WorkSafeBC

WorkSafeBC functions like an insurance provider. Employers pay premiums to WorkSafe for the people who work for them. As a result, those people are entitled to benefits if they suffer a workplace injury.
About 95% of B.C. workers are covered by WorkSafeBC.
Every year, about 145,000 to 150,000 workers in B.C. file a WorkSafeBC claim. WorkSafeBC approves more than 90% of those claims.
However, most claims are for physical injuries. Fewer than 2% of injury claims are for psychological injury only. A total of 2,200 of these claims were approved in 2023.
In 2022 1,500 mental disorder claims were disallowed.
Mental disorder claims made by workers such as correctional officers, paramedics, firefighters, police officers, emergency-response dispatchers, health-care personnel and other first responders are approved almost all the time.
Sources: WorkSafeBC Annual Report 2023, WorkSafeBC Facts & Figures, Association of Workers’ Compensation Boards of Canada

If you’ve been harmed by sexual harassment at work, you might think the WorkSafeBC will help you.

Maybe after you were harassed, you took time off work and so lost income.
Maybe the harassment damaged your mental health, and you ended up needing to spend money on medication for anxiety or depression.
Maybe the harassment had such an effect on you that you had to leave an industry and ended up needing to retrain for a new type of work in a different field.

Those are the kinds of expenses—replacement of lost wages, medication costs, retraining costs—that WorkSafeBC often covers.

However, historically, WorkSafeBC has mostly handled claims related to physical injuries suffered by workers in male-dominated fields like construction, manufacturing, and uniform occupations like policing and firefighting. If you slip at work and break your ankle, or are struck by a falling object, or are injured in a fire or explosion: that is the kind of situation WorkSafeBC was designed for and has a lot of experience handling. It has less experience with mental health claims, which it classifies as psychological injuries and the turndown rates for these are very high.

Though we’re not saying don’t bother applying for WorkSafeBC benefits, you should be aware that it’s likely your claim will not be successful. If you want to pursue the claim after being denied, you’ll need to be prepared to go through an appeal process. Appealing can take a long time, and, of the few appeals that are heard, many are denied.

Important

Legally, if your employer is a WorkSafeBC member, they are required to report any injuries that occur in their workplace. But really most are unlikely to do this in sexual harassment cases, because they often deny the harassment occurred or that it caused real harm.

Important

If you want to apply for disability insurance through your workplace provider, the insurer may require you to apply to WorkSafeBC first, and appeal if you are turned down.

Pros and cons of going to WorkSafeBC

It isn’t expensive or very complicated.
WorkSafeBC benefits can be generous. Wage replacement is up to 90% of your net salary.
You submit your claim directly to WorkSafeBC. No need to wait for your employer to investigate.
Representing yourself is possible when first making a claim. But if your claim is denied, appealing is more complicated. There may be some legal resources to help if you still want to represent yourself.

WorkSafeBC doesn’t investigate or adjudicate whether you were sexually harassed. If you are looking for someone to tell you that you were sexually harassed, and to punish the harasser or your employer for allowing the harassment, WorkSafeBC won’t give you that.
WorkSafeBC has a high rate of denying mental disorder claims.
If WorkSafeBC rejects your claim and you appeal, the appeal process may be lengthy.
You can’t apply to WorkSafeBC secretly. Your employer will know about your claim, which means they will have information about your private health circumstances.
Your employer will have the opportunity to dispute your claim. It’s very likely they will do this, in which case proving your case will be more difficult.
Your employer will be updated about any changes to your claim. That means they will continue to know about your personal health situation, even if you don’t work for them anymore.
To make a claim, you will need a medical professional to say that you’ve suffered an injury.

Mental disorder claims

WorkSafeBC awards benefits due to the injury you sustained, which in your case would be damaged mental health. There are two types of psychological injuries that WorkSafeBC covers:

“A significant work-related stressor, or a cumulative series of significant work-related stressors, arising out of and in the course of employment.” Being repeatedly sexually harassed by a co-worker might lead to this type of injury.

“A reaction to one or more traumatic events arising out of and in the course of employment.” Examples might be witnessing the death of or severe injury to a colleague or being physically threatened yourself at work. It’s not likely this type of claim fits your situation.

WorkSafeBC won’t cover every kind of mental disorder that arises at work. If you develop a mental health condition caused by your employer making changes to your shifts or other working conditions, for example, or firing you, or due to interpersonal conflicts that don’t involve harassment, you aren’t eligible to file a claim.

How to make a WorkSafeBC application

First, you must decide if filing a claim with the WCB is the right choice for you. If you choose to go to WorkSafeBC to report injury arising from sexual harassment or sexual assault, you must call Teleclaim at 1-604-231-8888 or 1-888-967-5377. You will then be provided with specific assistance.

To file a claim with the WCB, you must be employed in a business or industry that is covered by the Workers Compensation Act. About 95% of workers in B.C. are included under the act.

For more information

The WorkSafeBC website includes a fact sheet answering frequently asked questions about mental health condition claims as well as a page describing what’s involved in qualifying and the possible benefits of a successful claim.

Legal help

Representing yourself is possible when first making a claim. But if your claim is denied, appealing is more complicated. Here are some places that offer free or lower-cost legal services:

The Workers’ Advisers Office is a branch of the Ministry of Labour that provides free and confidential services about workplace injuries and compensation to non-unionized workers. This office can provide information and advice throughout the WorkSafeBC process. In some cases, it can help with representation during appeals. It also has an extensive network of supports for injured workers and may be able to direct you to other organizations that can help.
The Community Legal Assistance Society (CLAS), which serves low- to middle-income people, may be able to help if your appeal to the Workers Compensation Appeal Tribunal is unsuccessful. To start the process, complete the online intake form.
Access Pro Bono has a free lawyer referral service for low- or modest-income individuals who are not eligible for legal aid. Its Everyone Legal Clinic can connect you with an articling student for low-cost assistance.
The Law Students’ Legal Advice Program assists low-income individuals who live in the Greater Vancouver Area. It can provide you with advice on WorkSafeBC matters.
The Respect at Work Legal Clinic, a project of the Migrant Workers Centre, provides free legal advice to newcomers to Canada (regardless of status) about WorkSafeBC claims.
JusticeNet 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.
Your workplace union, association, or employee assistance program may be able to help you find legal services or cover part of your legal fees.

For advice on hiring a lawyer, see How to find and work with a lawyer.

Important

The Yukon Human Rights Commission and what it does

The Yukon Human Rights Commission is the agency that receives and investigates complaints about violations of the Yukon Human Rights Act. Sexual harassment under the act can constitute discrimination based on sex. The commission helps people to mediate or settle their complaints. If a complaint can’t be resolved, depending on the evidence, it may go to a hearing at the Yukon Human Rights Panel of Adjudicators. The Yukon Human Rights Commission and the YHRPA both deal with discrimination cases but are separate from one another.

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.

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 Yukon Human Rights Commission

Every year, about 10 to 15 people file a complaint with the commission saying they have been discriminated against or harassed on the basis of their sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and/or gender expression.
About half the roughly 100 complaints made to the commission each year are accepted.
Complaints accepted by the commission almost never get decided by the YHRPA. They are either settled in mediation, abandoned, withdrawn, or dismissed.
The complaint process on average takes about two and half years.
Sources: Yukon Human Rights Commission Annual Report 2023-24, Yukon Human Rights Commission.

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’s 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, such as improving their employee policies and training around sexual harassment.
It is possible to get some money to recognize the emotional harm you suffered from the harassment.

How to make a complaint to the commission

First, review Human Rights Complaints and Am I in the Right Place? on the commission’s website. When you contact the commission, you will be given the chance to make an appointment with a staff member to discuss your situation; they can explain the human rights law in Yukon but cannot give you legal advice.

To file a complaint you must complete a human rights complaint form, which is available online; you can also request a copy by phone or in person at the commission’s office in Whitehorse. Your complaint is then reviewed by the director, who decides whether it falls under the commission’s jurisdiction. About half of all complaints are accepted.

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 18 months from when the harassment happened to file your complaint with the commission. If the harassment happened more than once, the deadline is 18 months from the last incident of harassment.
You can file a complaint with the commission if you work in Yukon or if the harassment happened in Yukon, 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 may have to make your complaint through your union. You’re covered if you’re non-unionized, temporary or permanent, an independent contractor, or undocumented.
Before your complaint can be accepted, you must already have pursued all other ways to resolve it.
If your complaint doesn’t fall under the Human Rights Act, a human rights officer may refer you to another agency for help.

How mediation works

Once a complaint has been accepted, the respondent—the person your complaint is about—will be asked whether they are interested in settling the matter; this is known as informal resolution. If they are, a commission staff member can recommend ways to do this and facilitates the process of you and the respondent coming to an agreement. You are not required to meet the respondent face to face.

Staff members are experts in dispute resolution and human rights law who listen to you and the respondent and work with both of you to come to a settlement. They’re not supposed to pick a side, and they aren’t supposed to favour either you or the respondent.

The Yukon Human Rights Act’s intent is to remediate, not punish—the purpose of this process is not to determine whether you were sexually harassed according to the act. About a third to a quarter of all complaints are resolved at this point. No one can be forced to agree to settlement terms.

Pros and cons of mediation

Participating in the settlement 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.
Reaching a settlement is faster than a hearing and more likely to happen than getting to the stage.
Everything you say is considered confidential, or “without prejudice”—it can’t be used against you later.
There is no risk in participating in mediation. If it fails, you still may have the option of a hearing. However, this is unlikely to happen.

The settlement process doesn’t give you a chance to publicly say what happened to you or be told that it was wrong.
You may not be able to share details of any settlement you reach if what you agreed to includes a confidentiality clause, which most do.
You may 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:

A reference letter or a letter confirming your employment.
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.

What are you likely to get?

Details of settlements are almost always private. However, we know that in a number of cases agreements don’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. When money is involved, awards for emotional harm are seldom more than $5,000.

If informal resolution isn’t successful

If you or the respondent doesn’t choose to participate in informal resolution or the process isn’t successful, then your complaint will be investigated. Once the investigation is complete, the investigator prepares a report that is given to both parties, who submit a response. The report and the submissions are reviewed by the commission members at a hearing. If they believe a settlement could still be possible, they give you and the respondent a set amount of time to find a solution. Complaints that still aren’t resolved may be referred to the Panel of Adjudication but can be settled before a hearing occurs. If this happens, commission members can act as mediators and suggest terms of a settlement.

Where to get help with the process

Navigating the complaint process can be complicated and stressful. Here are some ways that you might get free or lower-cost advice:

You can call the commission. It is designed to help people file their complaint and protect human rights. The commission staff are trained to help you with the process.
The commission runs an automated chatbot called Spot. Spot helps you document your experiences of harassment or discrimination, either for yourself or to share with the commission as part of your complaint.
JusticeNet 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 for families of three or more, and be experiencing financial difficulties. Participating lawyers’ reduced rates vary depending on your family size and income.
211 Yukon 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.

Important

The Yukon Workers’ Safety and Compensation Board is an organization that gives benefits and supports to people who’ve been injured at work. These benefits can include replacement of lost wages, coverage of health care costs, and permanent impairment awards. The WSCB is governed by the Workers’ Safety and Compensation Act.

Facts about the Workers’ Safety and Compensation Board

The Workers’ Safety and Compensation Board functions like an insurance provider. Employers pay premiums to the WSCB for the people who work for them. As a result, those people are entitled to benefits if they suffer a workplace injury and employers are immune from being sued in civil court in relation to those injuries.
About 96% of Yukon workers are covered under the Workers’ Safety and Compensation Act.
Every year, about 900 claims are filed with the WSCB by Yukon workers. Of those, roughly 25% are ruled ineligible.
Only injuries due to post-traumatic stress disorder or involvement in a traumatic event are covered by the WSCB.
Sources: Workers’ Safety and Compensation Board Annual Report 2023, Association of Workers’ Compensation Boards of Canada

If you’ve been harmed by sexual harassment at work, you might think the WSCB will help you.

Maybe after you were harassed, you took time off work and so lost income.
Maybe the harassment damaged your mental health, and you ended up needing to spend money on medication for anxiety or depression.
Maybe the harassment had such an effect on you that you had to leave an industry and ended up needing to retrain for a new type of work in a different field.

Those are the kinds of expenses—replacement of lost wages, medication costs, retraining costs—that the WSCB often covers.

However, historically, the WSCB has mostly handled claims related to physical injuries suffered by workers in male-dominated fields like construction, manufacturing, and uniform occupations like policing and firefighting. If you slip at work and break your ankle, or are struck by a falling object, or are injured in a fire or explosion: that is the kind of situation the WSCB was designed for and has a lot of experience handling.

But if the injury is to your mental health, the WSCB only offers benefits and supports when you have experienced post-traumatic stress disorder or a “traumatic event,” which it defines as “exposure to actual or threatened death, serious injury or violence.” The WSCB states that “mental stress is not considered to be a work-related injury.”

Your options could include making a complaint to the Human Rights Commission or taking legal action.

Important

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.

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.

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.

Important

The Workers’ Compensation Board is an independent organization financed by employers that gives benefits and supports to people who’ve been injured at work. These can include replacement of lost wages, health care (including rehabilitation, counselling, and medications), and, in extreme situations, retraining.

Facts about the Workers’ Compensation Board

The WCB functions like an insurance provider. Employers pay premiums to the WCB for the people who work for them. As a result, those people are entitled to benefits if they suffer a workplace injury.
WCB coverage is mandatory for many employers. About 80% of Alberta workers are covered by the WCB.
Every year about 130,000 claims are filed with the WCB; 10% are ruled ineligible.
Fewer than 2% of claims are for a psychological injury; of those, about a third are made by first responders.
Sources: Workers’ Compensation Board annual reports, Association of Workers’ Compensation Boards of Canada

If you’ve been harmed by sexual harassment at work, you might think the WCB will help you.

Maybe after you were harassed, you took time off work and so lost income.
Maybe the harassment damaged your mental health, and you ended up needing to spend money on medication for anxiety or depression.
Maybe the harassment had such an effect on you that you had to leave an industry and ended up needing to retrain for a new type of work in a different field.

Those are the kinds of expenses—replacement of lost wages, medication costs, retraining costs—that the WCB often covers.

However, historically, the WCB has mostly handled claims related to physical injuries suffered by workers in male-dominated fields like construction, manufacturing, and uniform occupations like policing and firefighting. If you slip at work and break your ankle, or are struck by a falling object, or are injured in a fire or explosion: that is the kind of situation the WCB was designed for and has a lot of experience handling.

It has less experience with mental health harms, which it classifies as psychological injuries, and the turndown rates for these are very high. For these types of claims, the WCB requires you to prove that your workplace was the “predominant” cause of your injury, whereas proof for other claims is only that the workplace was a “substantial” cause. That higher standard, worker advocates say, is another reason, in addition to the established WCB culture, why so few harassment claims to the WCB are successful.

Though we’re not saying don’t bother applying for WCB benefits, you should be aware that it’s unlikely your claim will be successful. If you want to pursue the claim after being denied, you’ll need to be prepared to go through an appeal process. Appealing can take a long time, and, of the few appeals that are heard, many are denied.

Important

Legally, if your employer is a WCB member, they are required to report any injuries that occur in their workplace. But really most are unlikely to do this in sexual harassment cases, because they often deny the harassment occurred or that it caused real harm.

Important

If you want to apply for disability insurance through your workplace provider, the insurer may require you to apply to the WCB first, and appeal if you are turned down.

Pros and cons of going to the WCB

It isn’t expensive or very complicated.
WCB benefits can be generous. Wage replacement is up to 90% of your net salary.
Representing yourself is possible when first making a claim. But if your claim is denied, appealing is more complicated. There may be some legal resources to help if you still want to represent yourself.

The WCB doesn’t investigate or adjudicate whether you were sexually harassed. If you are looking for someone to tell you that you were sexually harassed, and to punish the harasser or your employer for allowing the harassment, the WCB won’t give you that.
The WCB has a high rate of denying mental stress or injury claims.
If the WCB rejects your claim and you appeal, the appeal process may be lengthy.
You can’t apply to the WCB secretly. You must notify your employer about your injury right away, which means they will have information about your private health circumstances.
Your employer will have the opportunity to dispute your claim. It’s very likely they will do this, in which case proving your case will be more difficult.
Your employer will be updated about any changes to your claim. That means they will continue to know about your personal health situation, even if you don’t work for them anymore.
To make a claim, you will need a medical professional to say that you’ve suffered an injury. If you don’t have easy access to a medical professional who will do this, making a claim will be harder.

Psychological injury claims

The WCB awards benefits due to the injury you sustained, which in your case would be damaged mental health. This requires a diagnosis of conditions described in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-5, like depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, adjustment disorder, or anxiety.

Under WCB guidelines there are two categories of mental health injuries:

Chronic onset psychological injuries or stress develops over time from ongoing work-related stressors. Being repeatedly sexually harassed by a co-worker might lead to this type of injury. This harassment has to be the major, or predominant, cause of the harm.

Traumatic onset psychological injury or stress results from a specific traumatic event, such as harassment that includes physical violence, the threat of physical violence, or a life-threatening situation. The incident itself is the source of the trauma. These claims are often based on a single traumatic event, but the WCB can also consider multiple incidents if the cumulative impact is traumatic. Examples might be witnessing the death of or severe injury to a colleague or being physically threatened yourself at work. It’s not likely this type of claim fits your situation.

The WCB won’t cover every kind of mental stress that arises at work. If you develop a mental health condition caused by your employer making changes to your shifts or other working conditions, for example, or firing you, or due to interpersonal conflicts that don’t involve harassment, you aren’t eligible to file a claim.

How to make a WCB application

First, you must decide if filing a claim with the WCB is the right choice for you. If you do choose to go to the WCB, you’ll find more information about work-related mental stress injuries and the application process on the website. See also submitting a report. You can file the completed online form (Worker Report of Injury or Occupational Disease) electronically (follow the instructional video on the WCB website)

To file a claim with the WCB, you must be employed in a business or industry that is covered by the Workers’ Compensation Act. About 80% of workers in Alberta are included under the act

For more information

The WSB website includes a fact sheet answering frequently asked questions about psychological injury claims. There are also fact sheets specifically about how chronic onset and traumatic psychological injuries are defined, how decisions to accept claims are made, and what happens next if a claim goes ahead.

The Worker Handbook is a comprehensive guide to all aspects of the claim process, including how to appeal a WSB decision.

Legal help

Representing yourself is possible when first making a claim. But if your claim is denied, appealing is more complicated. Here are some places that offer free or lower-cost legal services:

The Advisor Office is an independent government agency that provides free and confidential services about workplace injuries and compensation to workers. This office can provide information, advice, and help with representation to you throughout the appeals process.
At the Women’s Centre of Calgary female volunteer lawyers offer free half-hour legal advice sessions.
Calgary Legal Guidance’s Sahwoo mohkaak tsi ma taas clinic provides Indigenous community members free legal advice on a variety of areas, including employment law. It may be able to offer free legal representation.
JusticeNet spellcheck interferes with this link 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.
Your workplace union, association, or employee assistance program may be able to help you find legal services or cover part of your legal fees.

For advice on hiring a lawyer, see How to find and work with a lawyer.

Important

The Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission and what it does

The Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission is the agency that receives and investigates human rights complaints regarding violations of the Saskatchewan Human Rights Code. It helps people to mediate or settle their complaints. If a complaint can’t be resolved, the commission may refer the case to the Court of King’s Bench for a hearing. The Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission and the Court of King’s Bench deal with discrimination cases. Sexual harassment is considered sex discrimination.

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 mediated could be right for you.

Facts about the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission

Every year about 500 people file a complaint with the commission. Just 20% of these are accepted, or formalized.
Roughly 10% of the people whose complaints are formalized say that they have been discriminated against or harassed on the basis of sex.
More than 60% of formalized human rights complaints are settled through mediation.
About 15% of formalized human rights complaints are settled by the Court of King’s Bench.
Sources: Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission Annual Report 2023-24, 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’s 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 its 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 check the Am I in the right place? page of the commission’s website to see whether your complaint is covered by the Saskatchewan Human Rights Code. If it is, then you must contact the commission’s office, which will put you in touch with an intake officer. The intake officer will assess whether your complaint can go forward. If so, you will be asked to complete an intake questionnaire, and the intake officer will draft a formal complaint.
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. In certain situations, the commission will accept late complaints if you can show there was a good reason for the delay.
The intake consultant may try to settle your issue through pre-complaint resolution before the complaint becomes formal. This approach is most likely if your complaint might be resolved quickly. This usually involves calling your employer and explaining the law, with the aim of resolving the case right away so that you can safely return to work.
You can file a complaint with the commission if you work in Saskatchewan or if the harassment happened in Saskatchewan, but not if you work at a federally regulated workplace. See Am I a federally regulated worker? (And why it matters.)
You’re covered if you’re unionized or non-unionized, temporary or permanent, an independent contractor, or undocumented.
Your complaint may be delayed if you have filed a complaint with the Saskatchewan Workers’ Compensation Board. See Should you apply for workers comp?

How mediation works

Sometimes complaints can be resolved before they have been accepted, or formalized. Otherwise, once you and the respondent—the person your complaint is about—have submitted your versions of events, a commission mediator will facilitate mediation. This process might involve in-person mediation; it can also be shuttle mediation by phone or correspondence. The goal is to try to reach a solution that both parties can agree to within 90 days. Close to half of complaints are resolved through this process.

Mediators 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 or advise you to accept a settlement. The purpose of this process is not to determine whether you were sexually harassed according to the Human Rights Act.

Pros and cons of mediation

The mediation process is free.
Many people participate in mediation without a lawyer.
Mediation can be less stressful and simpler than a hearing. It doesn’t involve calling witnesses or testifying.
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 mediation. 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 mediation. If it fails, your complaint will move to the investigation stage.

Mediation doesn’t give you a chance to publicly say what happened to you or be told that it was wrong.
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.
A reference letter or a letter confirming your employment.
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.

What are you likely to get?

Details of settlements reached through mediation 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. A maximum of $20,000 can be awarded for emotional harm, although the average settlement in mediation for this is about $8,700.

Beyond mediation

If you and the respondent can’t come to an agreement through mediation in 90 days, the next phase is investigation. The investigator puts together an investigation plan, then interviews witnesses and examines evidence, which they can request the parties provide. They are starting fresh: They not allowed to know what was discussed or revealed in the mediation process. At any time during the investigation the parties can ask the investigator to mediate. This process may take six months or more.

In the end, the investigator presents a disclosure report outlining their findings, which is sent to you and the respondent. This report contains the investigator’s recommendation as to whether the complaint should be dismissed or continue to the Court of King’s Bench for a hearing. The final decision about what should happen is made by the chief commissioner, who can agree with the investigator’s recommendation or return the case to them for more review. It may take several months before the chief commissioner makes their decision.

Before a complaint goes to a hearing, there is one more attempt to resolve it through what’s called directed mediation. The respondent is asked to make a final offer; if the commission believes that it is reasonable, but you don’t accept it, the chief commissioner will dismiss the complaint. Otherwise, your case will go to the Court of King’s Bench for a hearing.

Pros and cons of your case being decided at a hearing

The court has expertise in harassment. All it does is handle complaints of discrimination, including harassment.
The court has the power to say that, yes, you were harassed, and that what happened to you was wrong.
The court 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 to get to court.
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 are less likely to have their complaints found justified.
Very few people end up being told by the court that they were harassed and what happened to them was wrong.
Financial awards for harm to dignity are small. The maximum amount possible is $20,000, but the average is several thousand dollars less. In many cases, people don’t end up receiving any money at all.
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 future.

If your case goes ahead

The commission staff are trained to help you with the process, and the commission’s counsel will argue the case in court and will call evidence and witnesses. You don’t need to have a lawyer or present your own evidence, though some complainants chose to.

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

Pro Bono Law Saskatchewan provides free legal services to low-income Saskatchewan residents through 13 clinics across the province. Clients receive up to one hour of free legal advice from a volunteer lawyer. In some situations, lawyers from this service will represent clients through the whole legal process.
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 Saskatchewan 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.

Important

The Saskatchewan Workers’ Compensation Board is an independent Saskatchewan government agency. It gives benefits and supports to people who’ve been injured at work. These can include replacement of lost wages, health care (including rehabilitation, counselling, and medications), and, in certain circumstances, retraining.

Facts about the Workers’ Compensation Board

The WCB functions like an insurance provider. Employers pay premiums to the WCB for the people who work for them. As a result, those people are entitled to benefits if they suffer a workplace injury.
Close to 75% of Saskatchewan workers are covered by the WCB.
Every year, about 25,000 WCB claims are filed by workers in Saskatchewan.
About 1% of accepted claims are for psychological injury.
Sources: Saskatchewan Workers’ Compensation Board Annual Report 2023,Saskatchewan Workers’ Compensation Board, Association of Workers’ Compensation Boards of Canada, CTV News, CBC News

If you’ve been harmed by sexual harassment at work, you might think the WCB will help you.

Maybe after you were harassed, you took time off work and so lost income.
Maybe the harassment damaged your mental health, and you ended up needing to spend money on medication for anxiety or depression.
Maybe the harassment had such an effect on you that you had to leave an industry and ended up needing to retrain for a new type of work in a different field.

Those are the kinds of expenses—replacement of lost wages, medication costs, retraining costs—that the WCB often covers.

But if the injury is to your mental health, the WCB only offers benefits and supports when you have suffered “psychological injury,” which is very narrowly defined. Realistically, it’s extremely unlikely that if you apply for mental stress benefits, you’ll be successful. The WCB states that “workload or work-related interpersonal incidents may be considered [for coverage], but must show highly aggressive, threatening or discriminatory behaviour over an extended period of time.”

In the meantime, your options could include making a complaint to the Human Rights Commission or taking legal action.

Important

The Newfoundland and Labrador Human Rights Commission and what it does

The Newfoundland and Labrador Human Rights Commission is the agency where you can file a formal complaint saying you’ve been sexually harassed. One law that protects you from discrimination is the Newfoundland and Labrador Human Rights Act. Sexual harassment under the act is a type of discrimination based on sex. If your complaint falls within the commission’s jurisdiction, it will accept it for processing.

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 mediated could be right for you.

Facts about the Newfoundland and Labrador Human Rights Commission

Between five and 15 people a year file a complaint with the commission saying that they have been discriminated against or harassed on the basis of sex.
The majority of complaints to the commission never get decided by adjudication. They are instead settled in mediation, abandoned, withdrawn, or dismissed. The Human Rights Commission panel of adjudicators rules on about five complaints of all types per year.
When the panel of adjudicators decides that someone was discriminated against or harassed, it sometimes gives them an award of money as compensation for financial losses that they suffered, and the hurt and loss of dignity that they experienced. There is technically no limit to the amount of money the commission can award, but it generally awards between $2,000 and $5,000 for emotional harm in cases of sexual harassment.
Sources: Newfoundland and Labrador Human Rights Commission annual reports, 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

First, review Filing a Complaint on the commission’s website. If your complaint seems to be the type the commission can respond to, then complete the form and submit it online. Your complaint will be reviewed, and the intake officer may contact you, likely online, to ask follow-up questions about the events and the effect the harassment had on you.

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 Newfoundland and Labrador or if the harassment happened in Newfoundland and Labrador, but not if you work at a federally regulated workplace. See Am I a federally regulated worker? (And why it matters.)
You’re covered if you’re temporary or permanent, an independent contractor, or undocumented.
If your complaint doesn’t fall under the Human Rights Act, a human rights officer may refer you to another agency for help.

How mediation works

Once you have filed your complaint, the intake officer might attempt early, or pre-complaint, resolution. The respondent—the person your complaint is about—is not served with your complaint form and instead the human rights officer tries to resolve the case quickly through a phone call or a meeting. This is more likely to be proposed if you must have an ongoing relationship with the respondent.

If early resolution isn’t appropriate or is unsuccessful, your complaint will be served on the respondent, and the mediation process will begin. The human rights officer is an expert in dispute resolution and human rights law who listen to you and the respondent and work with both of you to come to a settlement. The purpose of this process is not to determine whether you were sexually harassed according to the Human Rights Act.

You and the respondent must sign an Agreement to Participate, which outlines the rules of mediation—like agreeing to be respectful and listen to the other person. The mediation can happen in person, by email, by phone or electronically, individually or together. The mediator is not supposed to pick a side, and they aren’t supposed to favour either you or the respondent.

Sometimes, though, the two parties can ask the mediator what they might do if they were deciding the case.

For more information

The commission’s website includes a detailed page about the mediation process.

Pros and cons of mediation

The mediation 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 mediation. 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 mediation. If it fails, your complaint may still be referred to investigation or to a hearing, though the executive director can instead decide to dismiss it.

Mediation 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—the outcome is confidential.
You will likely not get everything you ask for—you have to be ready to compromise.
If your complaint is settled through early resolution, financial compensation isn’t a possibility.

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.
A reference for a new job.
A change at the workplace, like moving the harasser or including a sexual harassment section in the policies handbook.
Your employer having to take a course about preventing and dealing with sexual harassment.

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. There is a cap of $5,000 on monetary awards for emotional harm when sexual harassment cases are decided at a hearing.

If mediation isn’t successful

When mediation fails, your case may be referred to investigation or to a hearing, but it’s possible to reach a settlement at every stage. If a hearing is scheduled, before it happens a commission-directed mediation process takes place; the mediator will be more actively involved, indicating the possible outcome of a hearing. However, sexual harassment complaints very seldom reach the hearing stage.

Where to get help with the process

Navigating the complaint process can be complicated and stressful. Here are some ways that you might get free or lower-cost advice:

You can call the commission. Its role is to help people file their complaint and protect human rights. The commission staff are trained to help you with the process.
Public Legal Information Association of Newfoundland and Labrador is a non-profit organization that offers legal information and support to people who experience sexual harassment. Its services include a lawyer referral service and a legal information line.
211 Newfoundland and Labrador 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.
JusticeNet 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.
Your workplace union, association, or employee assistance program may be able to help you find legal services or cover part of your legal fees.

Important

WorkplaceNL is an independent Newfoundland and Labrador governmental agency. It gives benefits and supports to people who’ve been injured at work. These can include replacement of lost wages, health care (including rehabilitation, counselling, and medications), and, in extreme situations, retraining.

Facts about WorkplaceNL

WorkplaceNL functions like an insurance provider. Employers pay premiums to WorkplaceNL for the people who work for them. As a result, those people are entitled to benefits if they suffer a workplace injury.
More than 95% of Newfoundland and Labrador workers are covered by WorkplaceNL.
Every year, about 4,300 WorkplaceNL claims are filed. Most claims are for physical injuries.
WorkplaceNL accepts more than 90% of claims.
Sources: Workplace NL, Association of Workers’ Compensation Boards of Canada, , WorkplaceNL Annual Performance Report 2023, WHSCRD Annual Performance Report 2022-23

If you’ve been harmed by sexual harassment at work, you might think WorkplaceNL will help you.

Maybe after you were harassed, you took time off work and so lost income.
Maybe the harassment damaged your mental health, and you ended up needing to spend money on medication for anxiety or depression.
Maybe the harassment had such an effect on you that you had to leave an industry and ended up needing to retrain for a new type of work in a different field.

Those are the kinds of expenses—replacement of lost wages, medication costs, retraining costs—that WorkplaceNL often covers.

However, historically, WorkplaceNL has mostly handled claims related to physical injuries suffered by workers in male-dominated fields like construction, manufacturing, and uniform occupations like policing and firefighting. If you slip at work and break your ankle, or are struck by a falling object, or are injured in a fire or explosion: that is the kind of situation WorkplaceNL was designed for and has a lot of experience handling.

But if the injury is to your mental health, WorkplaceNL coverage currently “does not include stress other than stress that is a reaction to a traumatic event or events.” The agency has been considering expanding its policy to include chronic stress from workplace violence and harassment, but as of early 2025, this had not happened. So realistically, unless or until this change occurs, there is little chance of a claim for harm due to sexual harassment would be successful.

Check the WorkplaceNL website regularly to see if the policy has changed.

In the meantime, your options could include making a complaint to the Human Rights Commission or taking legal action.

Important

The PEI Human Rights Commission and what it does

If you’ve been sexually harassed, you may be able to file a formal complaint with the PEI Human Rights Commission. One law that protects you from discrimination is the PEI 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. If it is, commission staff encourage parties to reach a settlement through dispute resolution; if that’s not successful, they may investigate the issues. The commission staff may recommend a complaint for a hearing; when that happens, the case will then go to the PEI Human Rights Commission Panel.

When you think about filing a complaint, you might imagine a process that ends in a definitive ruling that what happened to you was either right or wrong. But in reality, that almost never happens. Complaints are much more likely to closed at the commission level than referred to the human rights panel for a decision

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 participating in mediation process could be right for you.

Facts about the PEI Human Rights Commission

In 2023-24, 7% of complaints filed with the commission were by people saying that they have been sexually harassed.
The majority of complaints to the commission never get decided by the commission’s Human Rights Panel. In 2023-24, one complaint involving sexual harassment was referred to the panel.
About 25% to 30% of complaints are resolved through some type of settlement, including mediation.
Between 2013 and 2023, the panel only ruled on one complaint involving sexual harassment; it found in favour of the person who filed the complaint.
Sources: PEI Human Rights Commission, PEI Human Rights Commission Annual Report 2022-23.

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:

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, first check the Am I in the Right Place page of the commission’s website to see if your complaint is covered by the PEI Human Rights Act or call the commission (902-368-4180)—staff can explain what the law is and how it might apply to your situation. If it seems that you have been discriminated against, then complete the complaint form, which is included in the Complaint Form and Guide document on the commission’s website. Once you’ve filed a complaint, a commission staff member might contact you for more information or to clarify what you’ve said on the form.

You can file an application 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 PEI or if the harassment happened in PEI, but not if you work at a federally regulated workplace. See Am I a federally regulated worker? (And why it matters.)
You’re covered if you’re unionized or non-unionized, temporary or permanent, an independent contractor, or undocumented.
In 2023-24 about 30% of cases were dismissed by the commission without a finding of discrimination for reasons such as they’re not being in the commission’s jurisdiction or the deadline for filing had passed.

How mediation works

If both you and the respondent—the person your complaint is about—agree, you can take part in mediation to try to settle your complaint. This process might involve the mediator working with you and the respondent individually to assist you both to work toward a settlement by phone, email or in person. The mediator can also use a more formal, structured process. It is a way of encouraging the parties to settle their dispute without a formal investigation taking place, which could result in your complaint being dismissed.

Mediators are experts in dispute resolution and human rights law who listen to you and the respondent and work with both of you to come to a settlement. They’re not supposed to pick a side, and they aren’t supposed to favour either you or the respondent. The purpose of this process is not to determine whether you were sexually harassed according to the Human Rights Act.

Early settlement is encouraged but mediation can happen at any time before there’s a decision by the Human Rights Panel after a hearing.

For more information

To learn more about what will happen during mediation, read the commission’s description of mediation and settlement.

Pros and cons of mediation

The mediation process is free.
You don’t need a lawyer to participate.
You are the one to decide what you will accept from the respondent to make up for the harm they caused.
Everything you say is considered confidential, or “without prejudice”—it can’t be used against you later.
There is no risk in participating in mediation. If it fails, your complaint could go on to the investigation stage.

Mediation doesn’t give you a chance to publicly say what happened to you or be told that it was wrong.
You will likely not get everything you ask for—you have to be ready to compromise.
Your complaint can be dismissed if you refuse what commission staff believe is a fair and reasonable settlement offer.

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.
A reference letter.
A change at the workplace, like including a sexual harassment section in the policies handbook
Your employer having to participate in an education session about preventing and dealing with sexual harassment.

What are you likely to get?

Details of mediated settlements are private. However, we know that in a number of cases agreements don’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 would have to be trained about. Where there is a financial settlement for emotional harm, it is usually quite modest: an award above $10,000 is uncommon.

If early mediation isn’t successful

If you and the respondent aren’t able to reach a settlement, the respondent may ask the executive director to rule on whether the settlement offer they’ve made is fair and reasonable. When the executive director says it is, cases are closed. Otherwise, the file moves to the investigation stage. This involves your and the respondent’s documents being considered; witnesses could also be questioned. After investigation, a complaint might be referred to the panel, although this hardly ever happens with sexual harassment cases.

Where to get help with the process

Navigating the complaint process can be complicated and stressful. Here are some ways that you might get free or lower-cost advice:

You can contact the commission. Staff are trained to help you with the process.
RISE provides up to four hours of free legal advice and support to eligible people who have experienced sexual violence, intimate partner violence or workplace sexual harassment.
211 PEI 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.
JusticeNet 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.
Your workplace union, association, or employee assistance program may be able to help you find legal services or cover part of your legal fees.

Important

The Workers Compensation Board of PEI is an independent Prince Edward Island organization funded by Island employers that gives benefits and supports to people who’ve been injured at work. These can include replacement of lost wages, health care (including rehabilitation, counselling, and medications), and, in extreme situations, retraining.

Facts about the Workers Compensation Board

The WCB functions like an insurance provider. Employers pay premiums to the WCB for the people who work for them. As a result, those people are entitled to benefits if they suffer a workplace injury.
About 95% of workers are covered by the WCB because most workplaces are required by law to register with the board.
Every year, the WCB assesses about 1,700 claims. It approves 90% of those claims.
Since January 2025 the WCB covers psychological injuries due to work-related harassment and bullying.
Before the definition of psychological injury was expanded in 2025, one percent of all claims accepted were for this type of harm.
Sources: Workers Compensation Board of PEI Annual Report 2023, Workers Compensation Board of PEI, Association of Workers’ Compensation Boards of Canada

If you’ve been harmed by sexual harassment at work, you might think the WCB will help you.

Maybe after you were harassed, you took time off work and so lost income.
Maybe the harassment damaged your mental health, and you ended up needing to spend money on medication for anxiety or depression.
Maybe the harassment had such an effect on you that you had to leave an industry and ended up needing to retrain for a new type of work in a different field.

Those are the kinds of expenses—replacement of lost wages, medication costs, retraining costs—that the WCB often covers.

Historically, the WCB has mostly handled claims related to physical injuries suffered by workers in male-dominated fields like construction, manufacturing, and uniform occupations like policing and firefighting. If you slip at work and break your ankle, or are struck by a falling object, or are injured in a fire or explosion: that is the kind of situation the WCB was designed for and has a lot of experience handling.

Since January 2025 the WCB has accepted claims for psychological injuries caused by workplace harassment. But at this writing not enough time has passed for us to say how likely that kind of claim would be successful. In many other jurisdictions they often aren’t accepted.

Psychological injury claims

The WCB defines ‘harassment’ as “inappropriate sexual conduct…including, but not limited to, sexual solicitations or advances, sexually suggestive remarks, jokes or gestures, circulating or sharing inappropriate images, or unwanted physical contact.” It’s most likely that a harasser will be a co-worker, though cases involving clients or members of the public might be accepted.

To make a claim you need a diagnosis from a psychiatrist or psychologist based on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Health Disorders-5. Examples include trauma disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder. The reaction to the harmful behaviour must be “acute.”

How to make a WCB claim

You can begin filing your claim on the WCB website. Claims must be made within six months by reporting to your employer, health-care provider or the WCB.

For more information

The WCB’s website includes a page covering frequently asked questions about psychological injuries due to work-related harassment.

Legal help

Representing yourself is possible when first making a claim. But if your claim is denied, appealing is more complicated. Here are some places that offer free or lower-cost legal services:

The RISE program provides legal supports to PEI workers who have experienced workplace sexual harassment. This includes free legal advice from a lawyer for up to four hours.
The Office of the Worker Advisor is an independent government agency that can provide information, advice, and representation to you throughout the WCB process. It also represents workers who appeal to the Workers Compensation Appeal Tribunal.
Community Legal Information can help you understand the law and navigate the justice system. If it thinks you need to speak to a lawyer, it will refer you to one for a 45-minute consultation. The cost of this consultation is $25.
JusticeNet 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.
Your workplace union, association, or employee assistance program may be able to help you find legal services or cover part of your legal fees.

For advice on hiring a lawyer, see How to find and work with a lawyer.

[Whistleblowing is] the reporting by employees and former employees of illegal, unethical, and otherwise inappropriate conduct to someone who has the power to take corrective action.
Terance D. Miethe, Whistleblowing at Work: Tough Choices in Exposing Fraud, Waste, and Abuse on the Job, Avalon Publishing, 1999.

For it to count as whistleblowing, you need to be going outside of your own chain of command. If you tell your boss or HR, that’s not whistleblowing; that’s just reporting.

To count as whistleblowing, you need to be blowing the whistle to somebody outside your own organization. That means telling your story publicly, by talking on social media or with a journalist, or reporting it to a body that oversees your employer, like a board of directors or a regulator or industry association.

To count as whistleblowing, experts say the whistleblower needs to be trying to prevent harm to other people, not just themselves. Usually with whistleblowing that harm is environmental or health related (like, if a company is releasing poisons into the air or water), financial (like, if a bank is overcharging customers), and/or legal (like, if a government is spying on its own citizens).

Some experts believe that reporting harassment doesn’t count as whistleblowing, because they think people report harassment to prevent harm to themselves, not others. We disagree. Practically everybody who reports harassment is motivated at least in part by wanting to prevent other people from being harassed. And so we believe that reporting harassment counts as whistleblowing.

Why people blow the whistle on sexual harassment

People who blow the whistle are usually motivated by a mix of moral outrage and a desire to protect others. Here are the kinds of things whistleblowers tend to be thinking when they blow the whistle:

Something bad is happening.
People are getting hurt.
The people who are supposed to fix the problem aren’t living up to their responsibilities.
What’s happening is being hidden or covered up.
It has been going on for too long and it needs to stop.
The public deserves to know the truth and people need to be held accountable.
I cannot stand to be associated with this.
I cannot live with myself if I am silent about this.

Here are some quotes from real people who blew the whistle, talking about why they did it.

This is far too rampant and I’m fucking tired of it. This wasn’t just about me, it was about everyone in the industry who faces this regularly.
In 2017, a bartender and social media manager at the Needle Vinyl Tavern in Edmonton quit her job and made a Facebook post complaining that one of the bar’s co-owners had sexually harassed her.

My fight was never about just me. My main goal was to make positive changes in the workplace so this would not happen to others.
In 2019, a former corrections officer complained to the Manitoba Human Rights Commission, saying he had endured years of harassment by his co-workers at the Manitoba Youth Centre because he is gay.

My intention all along was to speak out against harassment for my own protection, to make the workplace better and safer.
In 2007, a former firefighter complained to the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission, saying she had endured years of abusive and demeaning treatment from her co-workers because she is a woman.

I want to make sure that by standing up for myself, I may be standing up for those who may be gay or trans or lesbian or bisexual in our community who feel they don’t have a voice or who feel that they are oppressed and can’t speak up.
In 2019, an executive member of the New Waterford Nova Scotia Royal Canadian Legion filed a complaint with the legion and the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission, saying he was the subject of taunts and homophobic slurs because he is gay.

What happens to people who blow the whistle

“To run up against the organization,” C. Fred Alford writes in his book about whistleblowers, “is to risk obliteration.”

Here’s what experts say happens to whistleblowers:

It’s very common for them to get fired.
If they don’t get fired, they get sidelined and shut out at work.
Their co-workers turn against them.
They are often blacklisted out of their industry.
Their involvement can drag on for years, and take way more time and money than they expected.
Their families get mad at them for putting a “cause” ahead of the family, and their primary relationship—spouse, partner—often breaks down.
Their mental health suffers, often seriously. Many end up suffering from depression or alcoholism. Many consider suicide.
They suffer both short-term and long-term financial problems.
They end up taking a job that’s significantly worse than the one they used to have.

Here, in their own words, is what people say happened to them after they blew the whistle.

When you blow the whistle, you become poison to the company. Your presence makes them sick.
Unnamed whistleblower, as quoted in Whistleblowers: Broken Lives and Organizational Power, by C. Fred Alford.

Since I complained the men gather and talk about me and say the ‘little bitch’ won’t be happy till someone is fired.
A heavy equipment operator at a fly-in camp at the Mary River Mine in Nunavut complaining about sexual harassment in 2018.

I was expecting retribution within the unit. I wasn’t expecting that when it got to the senior executive arm of the military, when the higher levels stepped in, that they wouldn’t support me.
A former civilian employee at the Department of National Defence filed a grievance reporting sexual and racial harassment and was suspended and later fired.

It’s taken years and it’s taken our entire livelihood. I’ve already spent nearly $60,000 out of pocket for a human rights tribunal that hasn’t even started.
A former Toronto police officer talking about the financial and human cost of pursuing complaints against her fellow officers before the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario.

If you blow the whistle, there’s a chance you could get sued for defamation

If you say bad things about a person or a business, they might sue you for defamation. “Defamation” is a legal term. It describes what it’s called when someone publicly says something that isn’t true and that hurts the other person’s or company’s reputation.

Anybody can file a defamation case. They don’t have to have a good case; they just need enough money to pay a lawyer.

Do whistleblowers regret blowing the whistle?

I think I was crazy to blow the whistle. Only I don’t think I ever had a choice. It was speak up or stroke out.
Whistleblower John Brown, as quoted in Whistleblowers: Broken Lives and Organizational Power, by C. Fred Alford

If a whistleblower could go back in time, knowing exactly how everything would play out, would they still blow the whistle? Researchers say yes. Practically all whistleblowers say they would blow the whistle all over again, even if they knew exactly what would happen afterward.

That doesn’t mean they don’t regret it. Many do. The losses they’ve suffered are serious.

So why would they do it again? The experts say it’s because whistleblowers strongly believe in duty and responsibility. They just could not live with themselves, knowing about an injustice that was hurting people and was being ignored, if they didn’t at least try to do something about it.

That is part of why whistleblowing is so hard on people. Because they’re idealistic, and what happens afterward causes them to lose faith in their bosses, their co-workers, their family and friends, and the justice system.

From C. Fred Alford’s book Whistleblowers, here is a list of what Alford says whistleblowers believed before they blew the whistle, which they had to let go of afterward:

That law and justice can be relied upon.
That the individual will not be sacrificed for the sake of the group.
That your friends will be loyal even if your co-workers aren’t.
That the organization is not fundamentally immoral.
That someone, somewhere, who is in charge knows, cares, and will do the right thing.
That the truth matters, and someone will want to know it.
That if one is right and persistent, things will turn out all right in the end.
That even if they don’t turn out all right, other people will know and understand.
That the family is a haven in a heartless world, and your spouse and children will not abandon you.

How to decide whether to blow the whistle

We can’t tell you whether blowing the whistle is right for you. It’s a very personal decision.

Here’s what we can say.

Blowing the whistle is unlikely to get you justice.

But for some people blowing the whistle is the right answer anyway.

If you’re the kind of person who would blow the whistle, you probably know it already. If you’re not sure, ask yourself how you feel about these statements:

It’s important to tell the truth.

It’s important to keep your promises.

I have a strong sense of personal responsibility.

The real test of character is doing the right thing even when it’s hard.

To remain silent in the face of injustice is cowardly.

I couldn’t live with myself if I behaved without honour.

I couldn’t bear to associate with people who don’t live up to their obligations.

Privilege comes with responsibility, and responsibility requires accountability.

Integrity means doing the right thing, even if you end up being punished for it.

Facts about WorkSafeBC

Pros and cons of going to WorkSafeBC

Pros

Cons

Mental disorder claims

How to make a WorkSafeBC application

For more information

Legal help

The Yukon Human Rights Commission and what it does

Facts about the Yukon Human Rights Commission

Why consider filing a complaint with the commission

How to make a complaint to the commission

Will the commission accept your complaint?

How mediation works

Pros and cons of mediation

Pros

Cons

What you might ask for

Money to compensate you for:

Besides money:

What are you likely to get?

If informal resolution isn’t successful

Where to get help with the process

Facts about the Workers’ Safety and Compensation Board

The Alberta Human Rights Commission and what it does

Facts about the Alberta Human Rights Commission and Tribunal

Why consider filing a complaint with the commission

How to make a complaint to the commission

Will the commission accept your complaint?

How conciliation works

For more information

Pros and cons of conciliation

Pros

Cons

What you might ask for

Money to compensate you for:

Besides money:

What are you likely to get?

Beyond mediation

Pros and cons of your case being decided at a hearing

Pros

Cons

If your case goes ahead

Facts about the Workers’ Compensation Board

Pros and cons of going to the WCB

Pros

Cons

Psychological injury claims

How to make a WCB application

For more information

Legal help

The Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission and what it does

Facts about the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission

Why consider filing a complaint with the commission

How to make a complaint to the commission

Will the commission accept your complaint?

How mediation works

Pros and cons of mediation

Pros

Cons

What you might ask for

Money to compensate you for:

Besides money:

What are you likely to get?

Beyond mediation

Pros and cons of your case being decided at a hearing

Pros

Cons

If your case goes ahead

Facts about the Workers’ Compensation Board

The Newfoundland and Labrador Human Rights Commission and what it does

Facts about the Newfoundland and Labrador Human Rights Commission

Why consider filing a complaint with the commission

How to make a complaint to the commission

Will the commission accept your complaint?

How mediation works

For more information

Pros and cons of mediation

Pros

Cons