That’s a really good question. The short answer is that current OHS protections against workplace violence and harassment DO pertain to psychological and mental health and well-being even though they don’t expressly say this. The closest they get is in including references to psychological and mental harm in the definition of “harassment” or “violence” that employers must protect workers against. But even that varies by province. The most progressive law is the Canada Labour Code governing federally regulated employers, which defines “workplace violence and harassment” together “as any action, conduct or comment, including of a sexual nature, that can reasonably be expected to cause offence, humiliation or other physical or PSYCHOLOGICAL INJURY OR ILLNESS to an employee, including any prescribed action, conduct or comment” (emphasis added)

Quebec is the flipside. In Quebec, workers are protected against “psychological harassment” but “violence” isn’t mentioned. However, the definition of “psychological harassment” is broad enough to include violence. Thus, workers in Quebec are protected against violence via the right to be free of psychological harassment, whereas workers everywhere else are protected against psychological harm via the right to be free from workplace violence and harassment. The other weird thing about Quebec is that psychological harassment protections come from the Labour Standards Act rather than the OHS Act.

At the end of the day, though, the protections are basically the same everywhere. It might help to put things in historical context. When the original OHS laws were first enacted, they didn’t include workplace violence or other socio-psychological harm done by human beings as factors. In the first decade of the 2000s, the provinces began adding workplace violence protections to their OHS laws; then they expanded those protections to harassment. Now, led by the federal government and Bill C-65, which took effect a couple years ago, they’re starting to lump violence and harassment together as one big psycho-social hazard and address the issue from the standpoint of mental/psychological rather than just physical harm.

The takeaway from all of this is that YES employers do have legal obligations to protect workers’ mental and psychological well-being under current OHS laws and those duties will likely be better refined and clarified in the future. If you tell me what jurisdiction you’re in, I’ll look up the exact requirements pertaining to you.

-OHSInsider Staff

• This reply was modified 1 month ago by Haley O'Halloran.