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Serious insight for serious situations.

Serious insight for serious situations.

Category: Harassment

Part 1: Restoring the workplace before a harassment or discrimination investigation

April 12, 2021 | By Dana J. Campbell-Stevens

Fortunately, or unfortunately, harassment and discrimination investigations have become quite prevalent in the workplace in recent years. Notwithstanding the legislative mandate, it is a positive indication when organizations are responding to complaints of harassment and discrimination within their workplace. However, in my experience as a workplace investigator, I often see quite clearly that, before an organization decides to pursue an investigation, there are multiple opportunities to address some of the issues by using less adversarial means.

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“Friends with benefits” is NOT “relatively benign” evidence

December 7, 2020 | By Chantel Levy

In a recent blog, my colleague Sharon Naipaul reviewed the trilogy of 2019 Supreme Court of Canada sexual assault cases and considered how they inform our work as workplace investigators. Although it was in the early 1990s that new procedure under the Criminal Code limited the admissibility of past sexual history evidence at trial, these cases demonstrate that there is still tension with how to use less overt evidence of prior sexual history. This area is problematic as it continues to be plagued by what have been dubbed as the “twin myths.”

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The Supreme Court of Canada’s recent trilogy of cases on s. 276 of the Criminal Code – How we can apply it to our investigation practices

November 23, 2020

In a recent webinar offered at Rubin Thomlinson, titled “Primer on Consent,” we enjoyed a highly informative discussion on consent in the context of sexual assault. Part of that presentation included reference to a trilogy of cases from the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) on the issue of sexual assault and s. 276 of the Criminal Code (“CC”).

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The booze blog

October 5, 2020 | By Janice Rubin, | By Liliane Gingras

Alcohol and work events often don’t mix well. Some know this from personal experience. Others, like us, are called upon to investigate allegations arising from work events at which alcohol and “good times” were flowing freely.  It will come as no surprise that, as workplace investigators, the issue of alcohol consumption and intoxication pops up with some frequency in our work.

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Sometimes a comment is just a comment: Making out a prima facie case of discrimination or harassment

April 16, 2020 | By Melody Jahanzadeh

Standards of appropriate workplace behaviour have rapidly changed over the last few years, and conduct that was once deemed acceptable is no longer tolerated in the workplace. But as the following arbitration decision demonstrates, one fundamental requirement still remains: the need to demonstrate a prima facie case of discrimination or harassment before the obligation to investigate a complaint is triggered.

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A new remedy for non-sexual workplace harassment: The class action

March 27, 2020

In the recent past there have been several class actions involving individuals who have experienced sex-based discrimination, sexual harassment, and sexual abuse in workplaces and institutions. But what about the type of harassment that we most often see as workplace investigators – bullying, intimidation and abuse of one’s authority that does not target someone based on a protected ground of discrimination? Can there be a class action united for those who experience of this type of behaviour? Possibly.

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